Personal Continuity: Obvious yet Elusive?

I shall begin with a question and shall end without answering it. “Whence is personal continuity?” It might be said I am little more than this physical body. When I die and become compost and am eventually recreated perhaps the recreated version of me is the same me by virtue of my being preserved in the mind of God. In contrast, it might be said that I am physical with a sort of soul in which case my personal continuity lies with the soul. Either option, among many others, may offer a degree of solace. However, I find them each to be a bit inadequate regarding personal continuity in narrative (in response it might be said that the narrative is the personal continuity, but this is rather unhelpful when seeking to build personal continuity inside the narrative).

At what point does a reader or hearer meet a person in a narrative? Is it the learning of a name? Is it physical description? Is it the peculiar vernacular in a dialogue? Is it repetitive behaviors? Is it a combination? Perhaps, a reader or hearer never feels that he or she has “met” the person. Then in that case at what point does a reader or hearer feel as though there is someone to continue meeting over the course of the narrative? And if the reader or hearer continues meeting this person, what is “holding” that fictive person together so that it is the same fictive person that a reader or hearer is meeting?

Though it may be said that over the course of a narrative a person/protagonist “evolves” or matures, that hardly solves the problem. That is the problem. Of course, someone like Natasha in War and Peace perhaps matures into a fine young lady far from the terribly immature young girl in the beginning of the story, but it seems as though the Natasha at the end of the story is still the same Natasha from the beginning of the story, however matured she may be by the end. It is the immature Natasha who matured. And yet who or what is maturing? What, in a sense, is preserved? What is the “material” (that which is Sonya) that matures but is still the same “material”? I fear words such as “essence”, yet is that what I am pretending is necessary?

Again, speaking of essence and nature and soul and the like may provide some solace for some folks in some cases, but that sort of talk seems rather unhelpful for maintaining personal continuity in a narrative, especially when endeavoring to write a narrative. I care not if such diction is in vogue or not. What matters here is simply the retention of a person throughout an entire narrative while maintaining a development of the person that coincides with the dénouement of the narrative.

On the other hand, how might there be personal continuity, if the chronology is scrambled? In this case the development of the person does not coincide with the dénouement of the narrative in any straightforward way. If the chronology is scrambled, then it is up to the reader or hearer to piece together jagged fragments. I recently read Absalom, Absalom! and this was the case. I must say piecing together vague and unreliable fragments of Thomas Sutpen did not offer much hope that I would end with a clear portrait of Sutpen. But I suppose that even with an “ordered” chronology I may not end with a clear portrait of this person named Natasha. However, that I am supposing there is a Sutpen to piece together is precisely my problem. No matter if the chronology is scrambled, I am still supposing there is a person to unscramble, and that seems to insinuate that there is some sort of obvious and elusive personal continuity.

Am I merely seeking to discern an arcane shroud that lies behind the name? Is there not a shroud to be discerned? Well, that there is the story would seem to suggest that there is a shroud to be discerned. Of course, there are innumerable variables and philosophies at play in each of these narratives, so I do not mean to suppose that they are basically the same. Furthermore, I do not mean to ignore the various philosophies at play. However, I do wish to begin to discern how personal continuity might be established when writing a narrative. At the end of a story, a writer will surely ask, “Is this protagonist one or twenty persons?”

“Whence is personal continuity?” Perhaps, my question is much ado about nothing or is simply barking up the wrong tree. But even so, Flannery O’Connor still sat down in front of her typewriter for two hours each morning and wrote stories about people who by the end seemed to have become our acquaintances.

Everybody is King!

Human autonomy is a parody of God’s sovereignty.

“I am going to live my life.” This is a common statement that often leads to disappointment or dissatisfaction.

Have churches taken a ride on this leech? Perhaps. Acting as the parasite that it is, it has taken a ride on the church, infiltrating and sucking life out of the church. Has it done so largely unnoticed? Churches even seem to encourage this mentality. “Live your life to the fullest!” I don’t recall when Abraham was called to such a life. I don’t recall when David was called to such a life. And I don’t recall when Jesus called disciples to such a life. Abraham was called to obedience. David was called to obedience – Saul was dispensed for his disobedience. And Jesus calls people to obedience; they do not call him.

We have made crowns by the thousands, even millions, and have crowned ourselves. Like printing our own money, we are killing ourselves with inflation. We have traded in the King for paper crowns from the local Burger King. Yet, we lack to notice that pretending to be our own kings in the back yard does not annul the fact that the King is still the King and we are playing in the King’s backyard.

We parade our autonomy as if it is real and not a mere paper crown. Our declared autonomy makes of us not kings but clowns riding unicycles. We print more crowns and paint our faces all in the spirit of autonomy. After all, “it’s my life.”

Jesus does not call disciples to their best life now. He calls them to the most dangerous life now, which is not their life, albeit it is the best life. He calls them to relinquish autonomy and to pick up crosses in order to form a cruciform community. He calls his family people who obey the will of the Father. He then commissions them to be dependent on the generosity and mercy of others. Paper crowns seem not to be among the options.

I am reminded of Kierkegaard’s Either/Or volume 2. An old judge speaks of faithfulness, commitment, and duty. In the first volume, however, a young man speaks of the need for amusement. Arbitrariness and brief relationships are among the catalysts for amusement lest boredom ensue. With our alleged autonomy, it seems we have become more like the young man who would rather not speak of things such as duty, responsibility, commitment, faithfulness, and surely not obedience. Such things are for people without crowns. But we have crowned ourselves and need not childish notions such as obedience! It comes as little surprise then that following Jesus is something that “I might do for a little while until something else more interesting and spiritually enriching comes around.”

We wish to supplant God, and yet all we seem able to do is to trade God’s sovereignty for paper hats and face paint, pretending that this changes everything.