So God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:27
In an ever-increasing barrage of self-obsession and tailor-made realities, how does the Christian navigate the waters of being someone who experiences life in the first person and yet is still called to esteem others in a manner greater than ourselves? How does the believer view the world as in a mirror, and not become side-tracked with our hair? The answer, of course, is worship.
In the spring of 1947, a V-2 rocket (#21 at White Sands, NM) was sent over 100 miles into space. The warhead had been replaced by a custom research unit that housed a camera. These were the first photographs to be taken this far from Earth. The subject of the camera’s first shot: Earth. The first successful photograph of our planet was a selfie. One tiny specimen, in a sea of examples, affirming the fact that when all the strength of technology can be mustered to enable an extension of our sense of sight, we are more inclined to search out other angles of our own image than to inquire as to what is beyond us.
Perhaps humans are so obsessed with introspection because, in agreement with ancient maxim often attributed to Aristotle, we believe that knowing ourselves is the beginning of wisdom. Of course, far from being the knowledge of self, the Scriptures teach that it is fear of God that is the beginning of wisdom. Reverence of the Other is regularly swallowed up by adoration of the self.
Humans alone are made in the image of a God whose name is the self-referential phrase I Am and yet . . . God is not narcissistic. To be narcissistic is to be numbed by the paralysis of fruitless introspection. We get our word narcotic from the same root. God, however, is not only Triune but has aseity, meaning He alone is self-existing. That is not the same thing as narcissism because His triunity establishes an eternal fellowship.
God has said that no one can see Him and live; yet, He also says that the pure in heart shall see Him. He refuses to allow an image of Himself to be made, and yet He has made humanity in His Image. Jesus, we are told, is His Icon. Clearly, then, there is a way in which there is an image of Him, and a way in which there cannot be an image of Him. By necessity, there must be a way to properly function as an image-bearer of the ‘I Am’ and a way not to exist in this state. We must be self-aware without being self-absorbed.
Praise God that the Gospel wakes us from the Buddhist nightmare in which the neutralization of the psyche is the last station of the human experience. The Scriptures portray the ego as being eternally preserved as a self-aware entity. You get to be you. For the regenerate, this is good news. Adam and Peter, however, function as harbingers of what can happen to the child of God when our vision turns from God toward our own potential: exile and decline. We sink. The apostle Paul helps in understanding all of this.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. – 1 Corinthians 13:12
The NIV phrases “seeing through a dark glass” as being the viewing of a “reflection in a mirror.” This is because the first definition of the word translated as glass or window is actually mirror (esoptron).
(NIV) 1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
In the Western narrative, images of Sir Lancelot and the Lady of Shalott (Elaine of Astolat) are conjured. Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott is about a woman who resides under a conditional curse. In order to live, she is only allowed to view the world through the reflections in a mirror. Those reflections of reality that are glimpsed in the mirror are then woven on a tapestry in order that she might behold them longer. It is only bits of reality that she receives. So far, except for the weaving of our own tapestry, Tennyson and Paul are neck and neck . . . but the Lady breaks the curse when she sees Lancelot’s physical beauty and her desire is too great for her to restrain it. She faces away from the mirror to behold Lancelot ‘as he is’, only to die without ever gaining his reciprocated attention. As fate would have it, her dead body is beheld by Lancelot as it floats down the river and he makes the passing comment to the tune of, “Huh, never heard of her. Too bad. Waste of a pretty girl.”
The reason for bringing up this poem’s shared territory with Paul’s letter to the Corinthian believers is because there is this common ground of beholding reality through mechanisms of self-awareness. For the pagan, this is a room with no ceiling. As with the Lady of Shalott, the unbeliever’s object of attention and lens of interpretation is the self. C.S. Lewis deals with something similar in both ’Til We Have Faces and The Four Loves, when he shows that eros is often fueled by self-interest, while agape is fueled by self-sacrifice. This is not to disparage eros but to simply show the difference between that which is naturally attractive and that which is repulsive.
Tennyson’s Arthurian protagonist is no exception. Eros is decontextualized and therefore becomes a monster that devours the Lady. For the believer, Paul is saying that reality is perceived through mechanisms of self-awareness that are shaped by the truth of God perceiving and knowing without any media. He does not say that someday we will see ourselves perfectly; rather, he says that we see the truth in part, at present, but someday we will see God perfectly. The result is that we will then see ourselves perfectly as well, but only as a residual effect. We know in part, but we will know fully then — for one reason — that we are known by One who knows perfectly and we will subsequently know Him and other things fully.
This frames up for us the single point that is worth repeating, the antidote to narcissism is not self abasement. Lewis has also stated that much of what passes for humility is actually more narcissism. The true antidote to narcissism is using the self to be aware of the Other . . . to know and adore God. Said simply, worship kills narcissism.
Is it really all that bad? Are we really in such a state of societal narcissism that the worship of God is becoming an endangered species? We must remember that there is no danger of the Church not being sanctified. Scripture assures us that the kingdoms of the world will become the Kingdom of our God. To be sure, the Church is advancing, but great are the fightings and fears, within and without. Great are the distractions, within and without.
The phone giant, HTC, claims that over 90% of cell phone photographs are selfies. We see the pattern emerge everywhere. The feedback loop of the human with a microphone saying his or her own name continues to reverberate.
Our fascination with our own image, has not only caused a necessary reverence of God to flag, but it has elevated our conception of human status far beyond where it should be. In this sense, we are in the same errant trajectory of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Romantic Period, and Transcendentalism. People will think more highly of themselves than they ought. It is in this way that the new idolatry is the old idolatry.
Romans 1 is famously and rightly referenced as being a passage that speaks to the issue of sexual sin, specifically homosexuality. But a careful reading shows us that homosexuality is actually the outworking of pride. No shock that it is the mantric catch-phrase of the movement. And pride is the outworking of an overestimation of oneself. The folks in Romans 1 were acting as though the worship-inspiring characteristics of God were not visible in the dim mirror. Paul’s argument is that they are clearly visible and exist in plain sight. The problem wasn’t the elusiveness of God’s attributes, it was the suppression of the truth by the people because of their desire to live in disobedience. The resulting effect, says Paul, is the abdication of worship — the only thing that could have saved them from the darkness.
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. – Romans 1:21
The side-effects include homosexuality, road-rage, and internal bleeding. Paul will go on in another letter to warn Timothy that he should expect an increased trajectory of narcissism to accompany the approaching return of Christ. Believers should avoid such people. Why? Because narcissism is highly contagious.
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. … 2 Timothy 3:1-7
Why is it rumored that the iPhone 12 will have a triadic camera system on its reverse side? Keeping HTC’s data on 90% of cell-phone images being selfies, this means that looking at ourselves most of the time is not enough — we want to look at ourselves in a more realistic manner — as if it were a triune vision of ourselves that we were constructing.
Philip K. Dick said, “The problem with introspection is that it has no end.” Dick’s eternal abyss should call to mind Christ’s imagery of Hell. The soul in the second death is separated, not from the body, but from the Lord. We are shown these souls, in Scripture, as having some kind of self-awareness and some kind of deathly staying power. For this reason, introspection is often paired with the qualifier morbid.
Worship of the Triune God is the only antidote for narcissism because it is the only antidote for idolatry. Again, in light of the worship of God being a weapon that eliminates introspection, we should remember Edwards’ discourse on spiritual affections in the role of awakening. The mind should be used to aim the affections at the worthiness of God. The whole being should be reverberating in the same direction — the feet of God.
When a wilting geranium is taken from the top of the fridge where it’s been stored for months and placed out in the yard for the summer, within days it begins to show signs of vitality and health. The plant becomes stronger and growth ensues. That is because the design of the plant is that it receives oxygen, sun, and water. Far from eliminating the self, true worship vitalizes the self by putting us in the light of God. When we worship our Creator, since the glory and enjoyment of God is the purpose for which we were created, we become enlivened. It is the opposite of being numbed by the narcotic of narcissism.
With this in mind, imagine gathering this Lord’s Day with the Body of Christ to worship God in word and deed. Just as everyone rises to their feet, imagine that the worship leader, turning the back of the piano towards the congregation, reveals the words that have been etched across the back of the piano, “This machine kills egoists.” That, believe it or not, wouldn’t be far from the truth.
Garrett Soucy lives in Maine with his wife and nine children where he is the pastor of Christ the King Church in Belfast. He is also a writer and musician.