Most of us, at one point or another, have stopped to consider who we are today, and compared ourselves to who we desire to be one day.  This is a great example of the philosophical tension between “being” and “becoming”.  In one sense, I’m not the man I was 10 years ago, nevertheless, I am the same man.  I survey my past and find many instances where I cringe at things I have done.  I’m not that man anymore.  I look ahead to the future and know that both joy and heartache await but I’m not yet the man I will be when I face those things – then I again, I am.  Confusing, isn’t it?!

Two of the earliest philosophers to wrestle with this question were Heraclitus and Parmenides.  Heraclitus is famous for the phrase “You never step into the same river twice”.  He argued that between “steps” into a river, both the river and you have changed.  In the the time it takes to place your left foot into the water, and then your right, the river’s composition changes, however slightly.  You are, at the very least, seconds older.  Heraclitus argued that everything is in a state of flux. “Whatever is, is changing”, he would say.

Makes sense, so far, right?  But this begged deeper questioning.  How can someone say I’m not real, because I’m changing?  It flies in the face of both common sense and experience.  Of course I’m real….right?  Another philosopher, Parmenides, made the claim that “Whatever is, is.”   R.C. Sproul summarized Parmenides’ argument by saying “Reality…to be real, cannot be changing.  Because that which is changing, never truly is.”  Let that tweak your brain for a while!  This dilemma – wrestling with the idea that if we, and the world around us, are constantly changing then we are never truly real – spawned entire schools of thought that believed the physical world is ultimately an illusion.  Striking a stark contrast, though, is the way in which God defines Himself to ancient Israel: “I AM” (not “I am becoming”).  To borrow terms from Aristotle, God is complete and full actuality.  Simply put, he is real and because He is real, he doesn’t change.  He has no need to grow to become more perfect in any area, since He is infinite, and infinitely perfect.  We, of course, are not infinite and we live as creatures ‘inhabiting time’ – so we are “beings” who are “becoming”.

This tension between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ – and the ultimate question of ‘what is real’ took an interesting path for me recently as I was reading about John Henry Newman – an Anglican-turned-Catholic thinker, writer & priest (ultimately a cardinal) in the 19th century.  The memorial tablet at Newman’s death (in 1890) was inscribed with the words “Ex umbrus et imaginibus in veritatem” – "Out of unreality into Reality.”  While I’m honestly in no hurry, I do, though, often think about that “Reality” – and the deepest parts of me long to be as real one day as Newman is now.