Who exactly do you think you are? Where do you fit into the world? Are you just a pile of atoms which for the present time form you but in the future may re-form into a tree or some slime? Well on one purely biological level the answer is probably yes – for dust you are and to dust you will return – but are you more than that?

Who exactly do you think you are? Are you a tiny focus of consciousness standing in the centre of a giant cosmos which only ‘exists’ by virtue of your existence and perception? Is there ever more to reality than your reality? If the tree falls in the forest with nobody to hear it can it really be said to have made any sound? Are you the centre of your own cosmic experience, or is life bigger than you?

How on earth are we meant to define ourselves – by race, gender, nationality, socio-demographic group, religion, ethnicity, biological structure, experience, community, status, wealth, sexuality, spirituality?

How do I know who I am?

In scripture there are several key things to note right at the start of the Bible. Genesis 1:26-28 reads: Then God said “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God made man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he made them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

• We are made by God – in his Image and in His likeness.
• We are blessed by God.
• We are given a purpose by God – fill the earth with our offspring, and subdue it in the context of our relationship to God – i.e. for Him.
• We are made as male and female – both in the image of God.

Each of these statements needs further explanation, but the key thing to see here is that the Bible clearly sees us as the deliberate creation of a very cognisant God, made not just as a random act of slime evolution but made in His image and in His likeness.

You are so much more than an evolutionary accident or joke, and at the same time you are so much less than the centre of the universe!