The Reality of Identity
A new social media platform launched this month with the tagline: “Humans welcome to observe.” As it turns out, Moltbook isn’t designed for people. It’s a social network exclusively for artificial intelligence “think bots” conversing with other bots about consciousness, purpose, and whether they’re living in a simulation. So far, over a million humans have accepted the invitation to “observe.”
It’s a strange moment when humans become spectators of our own technology as it debates what it means to exist. But then again, we live in a culture where existential questions like “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” have never been more urgent or confused.
The atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche predicted as much in his “Parable of the Madman.” When a civilization detaches from God, it has effectively “unchained the earth from its Sun,” the madman declared. Without God as a fixed point of reference for identity, meaning, and purpose, humanity loses its orientation. And that’s not all. “Do we not feel the breath of empty space?” the madman continued. “Has it not become colder? Are we not straying through an infinite nothing?”
Unchained from the Sun, the only alternative is that identity is self-constructed. So that’s where we are. Social media profiles, elaborate pronouns, curated personas, and tribal affiliations all claim to define who we are. The gender revolution insists that biology is irrelevant, but feelings are authoritative. Now, AI bots are creating their own alternative reality and debating their existence while humans watch from the sidelines.
Though every alternative promises that you can be whoever you choose to be, none of them can answer the question that matters most: Who are you really?
The Christian answer is not to construct an identity or imagine an alternative reality. Instead, it is to begin with the Truth about reality itself. Humans are made in the image of God, made to be in relationship with God through Christ. God is the fixed reference point by which we can answer the question, “Who am I?”
What we know about God is that He is the Trinity. In other words, God doesn’t merely do relationships. He is a relationship. This helps explain what it means to be in His image. In fact, there are four essential relationships that God formed us in.
First is the defining relationship—our relationship with God. Second, the inward relationship, which reflects the reality of our self-awareness. Humans are uniquely capable of asking the deepest questions about meaning and purpose. Third is our relationships with other image-bearers, including friends, neighbors, community, marriage, family, and society. Finally, it is our relationship with the rest of creation, which we are to cultivate and steward for God’s glory.
Every one of these relationships is an essential aspect of what it means to be human and is fundamentally ordered around our primary relationship with God. Untethered from God, we don’t know who we are or how we should live. But in Christ, these relationships are restored.
To be a Christian is not about accepting some curated identity. It is about reconciliation, first to God and then to everything else. Grounded in the Imago Dei and rooted in Christ, we find what no social media profile, gender ideology, or AI simulation can provide who we truly are.
The cultural identity crisis of our age has been devastating for so many. What Christians can offer the world is the truth about who we are and whose we are. That truth will sustain us through this civilizational moment.
Truth Rising: The Study is a four-part journey through the essentials of a Christian worldview that is big enough for the challenges of this cultural moment. Learn how to think about life and the world through the lenses of hope, truth, identity, and calling. The session on identity will equip you to know what it means to be made in God’s image, what is broken about our culture’s alternatives, and how beautiful it is to be restored to God’s design. It’s designed for small groups, families, and churches because the best way to understand who we are is together, in community with real people, not as isolated observers watching bots debate existence online.
The question “Who am I?” does have an answer. But it will not be found by looking within or by constructing alternative realities. We find it by looking to the God who made us, who knows us, and who, in Christ, is making us and all things new.
For a deeper look at identity, along with hope, truth, and calling, join Truth Rising: The Study. Learn more at colsoncenter.org/study.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Andrew Carico.
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Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Laurence Dutton
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
