The Role of Culture in Essential Humanity

I wrote that title because it sounds like a dissertation or something. I definitely don't enough to say about culture and humanity to write a thesis. All I have at the moment is a question: How much of our identity (specifically the way we learn, the way we interact with one another, the way we worship) is merely a result of the context we are born into and the way we were raised? How much of our identity is actually written into our "spiritual DNA", meaning when we are in heaven for eternity, how much of our personalities will remain?

Basically I'm putting a new spin on the whole nature versus nurture debate. I'll leave it at that for now and I'd love to hear your thoughts.