A Bit of Brunner

"Even Richard III cannot decide with his whole heart to be a villain...Rumpelstilzchen alone, in the fairy-tale, was able to tear himself into two pieces. We ordinary mortals, Richard III included, cannot do this...Apart from the extreme instance of complete 'hardening of the heart,' man remains 'ambiguous,' and thus plastic. 'The whole Richard,' was not involved. He too, still, had an unquiet heart, in him too, however hidden, there was still the unrest of conscience and the longing for something better...Hence because here the claim to totality, which lies in all self-determination of character, is to some extent fictitious, there belongs to character as such an element of deception, indeed, even of deliberate self-deception, or pose. As soon as a human being becomes aware of his character and deliberately maintains his character, then necessarily he becomes a poseur. Character becomes a kind of mask which one assumes...Even he who imagines that he wants to be simply himself, to be as 'real' as he can, is no exception to this rule; he too poses as the natural, undivided human being who is in harmony with himself...man is not sufficiently free actually to make himself what he can inwardly wholly affirm...character...is a substitute, a human surrogate for our God-given destiny...A 'character,' without pose or strain would be a person who realizes in his divinely-given individuality the universally human destiny of love. If a person were to live in the love of God, at the place appointed to him in accordance with his individuality, he would not play a 'part,' any longer, he would cease to have a 'character'...From the point of view of the divine destiny every character not only has that ambiguity, but it also contains of element of caricature. We feel that distinctly in people who are 'characters,' they lend themselves easily to caricature because of their one sidedness, which emphasizes some particular element in them, makes them caricatures...In order to illuminate what has just been said we may assume that we reach this faith [to move beyond character and caricature]...by ceasing to 'play a part' in life, by becoming wholly transparent, not only before God but also in the sight of men; this is indicated by emphasis upon repentance and confession. The hardest mask to lay aside--and this is in the nature of the case--is that of piety; the Pharisee in the New Testament is not simply a hypocrite, but the υποκριτης, the actor, who seriously plays a pious part."

--Emil Brunner, Man in Revolt (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, n.d. for reprint) pp.310-312