What does it mean to be human?

Probably one of the most basic and common questions of life is “What does it mean to be human?” At least, it’s a question I ask frequently and depending on where I’m at in life, I’ve had many different answers. For some reason, I have a tendency to want to “boil things down” and figure out what the essence of things are. If you’re not into that sort of thing, this will seem pretty pointless and you’ll probably think I’m up a tree. I might be, but I like this particular tree at the moment, so I’m going to hang out for a while up here and see how the world looks different.

I’m currently of the opinion that at our very core, what it means to be human is to have free will; the ability to make choices and experience the consequences. This seems to be true according to experience and the tradition of my faith. To me, it doesn’t make any sense to say something like “I have no choice.” That’s like saying, “I’m not a person.” Perhaps, at the moment of saying it, one doesn’t feel much like a person. It explains why slavery in any form is so dehumanizing. It strips people of choice. This idea seems to hold true when we look at child development, too. As a child grows, it’s their ability to make choices that shows their level of mental development. It’s the job of those raising the child to try to teach him or her how to make wise choices.

Freedom of choice is also the only way to be able to love. No one can force someone to love and love isn’t love unless it’s freely given. (Everybody knows this. It’s even in the rules of the genie in the lamp that he can’t make anyone fall in love.) This is why I believe God gave us free will. It’s one of those things that comes with being made in God’s image. If God can love, God wants people to be able to love and the only way to allow for that is to grant free will. Therefore, because I love, I believe I have free will.

I also believe that most of the choices we make might not look so much like choices because we make them subconsciously or automatically. I would argue that they are still choices and that they reveal who we truly are in our innermost being. This is why attempts by people to change who they are by focusing on outward behavior so often meets with complete failure. It’s our inner beings that need transforming and that will translate to transformed behavior. Our inner beings are only transformed, I believe, through the work of God, which we invite and cooperate with. This inviting and cooperating with God is, in itself, a choice and in that sense, in the words of Albus Dumbledore, “It is our choices that make us who we are.”