Now the word "project" has become very fashionable. It is everywhere. Just heard: the project is there, the project is here. When talking about a successful investment, a good film, opera, play, performance, etc. Everywhere the word "project" is used. And man today is also a “project” - biological, financial, social, and whatever. They used to say: "You must find yourself," but now they say: "You must create yourself." Is it possible? Does a person have the so-called nature and on what does a person's interpretation of himself, his inner worldview, depend on?
Religious understanding of human creation
The Christian worldview believes that man is by nature dualistic. On the one hand, he has a sinful nature. He received it as a result of the fall of the first people. And on the other hand, each person carries in himself the image and likeness of God. His task is to overcome his sinful nature and discover the image of God in himself. Thus, a person should not create himself, he should only penetrate into the higher spiritual meaning of his life, which was given to him from the beginning by a higher being.
From this follows the interpretation of human fate: God knows what and how will happen to man, everything has already been decided. “Even hair cannot fall from a person’s head without the will of God.” Such an understanding of the human share was developed, for example, by Blessed Augustine (see Blessed Augustine, "Confession").
The question of human fate as a "project" is removed by itself.
Atheistic outlook and "project"
Atheistically minded thinkers are much more interesting. They clearly understand that it is impossible to find oneself, you can only create yourself. It is also interesting that in theory our world (especially in Russia) is terribly religious, but in fact no one relies on God, everyone relies only on their own strength. For modern people, the axiom is that man must create himself out of dust, out of nothing.
Of course, if a person does not accept the idea of the divine control of the world, then it cannot be said that he is left with nothing. Man is a sociobiological creature. But in this case, he has no one to rely on. He is alone in the world, like the Bulgakov Yeshua. And he has everything outside, inside. What he learned, what he lived through, is what makes up, shapes his inner world. As Jean-Paul Sartre said, "existence precedes essence."
True, a person is not completely empty at first: he has the inclinations, genetic predispositions, etc. But this does not guarantee anything, all that a person has is pure potentiality. What he will become, depends only on himself.
Faith as the main factor in the implementation of the human project of self-creation
Here faith is understood outside the religious context. A person is completely self-determining, therefore it is very important what he believes in. Whether he worships the Buddha or Christ, or maybe he considers the teachings of Marx to be fair. Or psychoanalysis or existentialism is close to a person. It depends on what he believes in and whether he will be able to create himself, what kind of form his life will eventually take.