Never Less than a Humanist

The best of Christian views of humans is that we are never less than humanists, and more, but never less. So says Brian Harris in his The Big Picture: Building Blocks of a Christian World View.

In an opening story about a man who just knew he was unworthy of the communion table because of his emotional and psychological cruelty to a former wife, who was deeply diminished by the man’s cruelty, Brian moves to this conclusion: we are a tragic mixture of the good and the bad, we disappoint ourselves, and this yields this memorable line: “We are not the giant of our dreams” (96). Some are cruel, some lack the courage to become even a glimpse of their ability — and this opens the lid on what humans are.

Knowing who we are is central to a Christian worldview — we are both fearfully and wonderfully made, a little lower than the angels, and there is not a one of us who is entirely righteous. There is a shadow side to the bright side of humans.

Christians have a distinct and important understanding of humans, but that view is set up within a swirl of other views. What are they?

Some think we are machines (we are what we do).
Others think we are animals (we respond to stimuli from without — social conditioning is the name of the game).
Some think of us as sexual beings (we are bombarded with ads that motivate by sexual messages).
Others think we are economic beings (we are dominated by economic forces).
Some think we are pawns (we are merely the result of blind forces).
Others think of us as free beings (with education, nutrition, care, people will choose what is good).

Question: Which are most involved in our public educational system?

On their own, these are reductionistic; each reduces something true about humans. We need these and more.

But these differ from the Christian view of who we are. Seven elements configure into the Christian view of humans:

1. We are created by God.
2. As such, we possess an “alien dignity,” something God grants to us: the image of God.
3. Therefore, meaning lies outside us and in relation to God.
4. We have an eternal dimension.
5. We are embodied persons. More than animals, but not less than.
6. We are designed as social beings, made for community.
7. We are image-bearers (what I call “Eikons”).

But what does Image of God mean?

Is this what we do (rule) or what we are (relationality) or what we can do better than the rest (rationality, morality) or all of these combined and perhaps more?

Brian thinks us into this topic with these:

1. Image of God is universal.
2. Image of God is tarnished by sin and the fall.
3. Image of God is not something more present in some and less present in others.
4. Image of God creates our destiny and mission and purpose.
5. Image of God is perfectly seen in Jesus.
6. Image of God is most alive in relation to God.

Image of God then makes us at least humanists, not at the expense of our relation to God but as a deep dimension of our relation to God: we become most humanist in becoming most Christian.