THEOLOGY AT HOME

What is Man?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HUMAN?

BBC Earth:

“So what is our story? Let’s start with the facts. We are one species of primate that emerged from the dry savannahs of East Africa just over 100,000 years ago and began a migration that continues to today.

We weren’t the strongest animal, but we had an unusually large brain and held ourselves upright, giving us a high vantage to scan the distant horizon for enemies, and the freedom to use our hands for other purposes. Over time we began to fashion tools. These were primitive, but could tear through skin and muscle and gave us an advantage as we prowled our wild habitat for prey.”

What does it mean to be human?

BBC: “But to be human is to be at the centre of our own universe, to experience life in all its colours and all its potential.’

On a website called “Human Origins,” this same question was proposed. What does it mean to be human? Answers varied:

-Keith Bassette, wrote: “We are self-perpetuating patterns of matter that have emerged from the chaos of the universe. Tiny whirlpools in a great sea.”

-Anil Das Gupta: “To be conscious.”

slightly closer to the truth is Sohee, from CA: “To be human is to question and wonder about things that happen around us. As a human, we are able to ask questions, reason, and gain knowledge.”

-Nayeli: “First things first, the size of our brains makes us humans, the development in our neocortex is critical to our superior development it is what sets us apart from any other being. Our fine and gross motor skills, the ability to walk on two legs...”

I break from these for just a moment, and ask you if any of these answers remotely address the basic existential questions we ask:

Of origin…WHERE DID WE COME FROM?

of purpose…WHY ARE WE HERE?

of destiny…WHERE ARE WE GOING WHEN WE DIE? IS THERE AN AFTERLIFE?

The fact is, none of these answers really satisfy the question…and none of these answers go back far enough to answer where human being comes from.

The Bible says, the human beings came from God. Better yet, they not only came FROM God but they will return to God someday.

Created by God

GENE EDWARDS: Once more the Lord God bent gently over the sculptured clay. For a moment the face of the Living God and the face carved upon the lifeless clay almost touched. The Lord God breathed.

Clay nostrils quivered and flared. The wet clay fleshed, stiffened, stirred, and began quietly breathing.

Almost pensively the Lord stepped back. The newest of his creations turned his head . .. and stared for a brief moment at the panorama of celestial beings gathered about. Then, in the most natural of gestures, the rouge-tinted man sat up . . . turned . . . and serenely faced his Sculptor.

With that the Lord approached the model. Again their two faces almost touched, while angels whispered their approval.

"Why, why ... they are almost like . .. brothers." Of all the innumerable creatures fashioned by his poetic hand, there was but one of whom it could be said, "The Lord God was thinking of himself when he created this one."

And, as the angels had surmised, this latest and final creation was male. Not an it, therefore not of the angelic species. Visible, therefore of the material realm, yet a far higher form of life than any other being that dwelt in realms visible.

As the angels stood in wonder at this one, the truth declared itself: This creature would rule the earth ... as surely as the Lord God, in whose image he was so obviously created, rules the heavenlies.

Further, it was noted, this creature unlike visible animals and invisible angels, but very like God could love.

And like God, the one called man had no kind after his kind. Man joined his God as one of but two living things that could love yet who had no "other" upon whom to pour out that love. Of all the created beings, man was the only male who had no counterpart.

John 1:1-3: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

Colossians 1:26: “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:”

Psalms 100:3: “Know ye that the Lord he is God: It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”

We must learn to place any understanding of what it is to be human within the horizons of how God chose to relate himself to humankind

We did not evolve.

REASONS WHY I REJECT EVOLUTION:

The worst expression of man’s depravity and rebellion against God

Romans 1:21: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

Darwin: “I am determined to escape from design and a personal God at all costs.”

“Huxley: August 8, 1860: “my good and kind agent for the propagation of the Gospel— the devil’s gospel.”

makes a god out of chance

“Man is alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged by chance…chance alone is at the source of innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind.” Jacques Monod

they have made chance a force in the universe…i.e. in daily life

devalues human life

if man was not created in the image of God, then we are all products of that single-cell philosophy

if evolution is true, there truly is no meaning for your life

racism is an evolutionary idea---->

it is unscientific and irrational

“If the universe is a product of chance, then the scientific method could never be relied upon; the results of an experiment could vary from time to time. The scientific method depends upon a personal belief or faith in underlying principles for which the evolutionary theory of time + matter + chance does not allow.” -Dennis Gordon Lindsey, The Origins Controversy

science is based upon unchanging laws, which presupposes a God of order which gave these laws to the universe

evolution is irrational= ignore the scientific facts

Stephen Hawking: “The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. But finely adjusted by whom— if not by God?”

Isaiah 45:18: “For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, He created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.”

This universe was made for man to live in. It’s a very theistic design.

it is contrary to all of scripture

couldn’t God use evolution? Yes, but why would he need to? And, He did not do it nor claim to do it.

Scofield- relegate the fossils to the primitive creation, then you have no problem.

“Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God’s existence … In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.” -LEE STROBEL

Created in the Image of God

Genesis 1:26-27: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Genesis 5:1: “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;”

Genesis 9:6: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

IMAGE AND LIKENESS:

In the early church “image” and “likeness” were often believed to mean two different things. Some held that image had to do with natural attributes while likeness described spiritual reality...

MANKIND IS THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD

it is good

Genesis 1:31: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

it at first was REALLY good

now, it has been marred

sin is universal and pervasive but it is not who we are;

but it is still good

it is unique

kind- 1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25, 1:26- God spoke within himself

3. It is male and female

Genesis 1:26-27: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

three lines of poetry

God created adam in his image

in the image of God created he HIM

male and female created he them

pagan religions taught that a male and female deity came together and created man

Moses informs us that a single source, the Almighty, created out of nothing both male and female

4. it is Christological

perfection was in the first man, Adam

the first man, Adam, perverted God’s design

the last Adam, Jesus, came to restore man to God

Hebrews 1:1-3: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”

“Because the image of God is his Son, the only correct anthropology is one whose end is Christ.”

from Christ

to Christ

as opposed to evolution

from nothingness

to nothingness

The imago Dei and being male or female are essential to being human. As hard as anyone may try to alter that fact in his or her own body, the most that can be done is to artificially remove or augment body parts or use pharmaceuticals to unnaturally suppress the biological reality of one's essence as male or female. When denying this physical and genetic reality, we let experience supersede essence--what I feel is who I am. In other words, psychology usurps biology. -Christopher Yuan, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel

Created in Need of God

God spoke to the ground to create the beasts

God spoke to the water when He created the fish

God spoke to HImself when creating mankind

Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

Wolff:

Acts 17:28: “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”

live- zoe— have life; are quickened- BY HIM FORMING US AND CONTINUALLY SUSTAINING US…IN OTHER WORDS, WE ARE CONTINUALLY DEPENDENT UPON GOD; God didn’t just give mankind life— He continually sustains man with life

move- kineo- to stir- TO HIM, we owe the ability to perform the slightest motion...

have our being- esmen- first personal plural- “We are”- “…and are.” Our continued existence belongs to Him.

In other words, the thankless breaths proceeding from the lips of an atheist…the machinations of Darwin’s mind…the formulations and calculations of Hitchens and Hawking…are ALL owed to the One in whose image He was made.

“The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its Master.” -Peter Forsyth

Part 2-

The VALUE of the BODY

Justin Martyr, writing in the 2nd C, wrote about the glory of the body and its capacity to glorify God. He wrote, “ We must now speak with respect to those who think meanly of the flesh. These persons seem to be ignorant of the whole work of God. . . . For does not the word say, "Let Us make man in our image, and after our likeness"? What kind of man? Manifestly He means fleshly man, for the word says, "And God took dust of the earth, and made man." It is evident, therefore, that man made in the image of God was of flesh. Is it not, then, absurd to say, that the flesh made by God in His own image is contemptible, and worth nothing?

Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. “

Psalm 100:3: “Know ye that the Lord he is God: It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”

Isaiah 64:8: “But now, O Lord, thou art our father; We are the clay, and thou our potter; And we all are the work of thy hand.”

Job 10:8: “Thine hands have made me and fashioned me Together round about; yet thou dost destroy me.”

Ecclesiastes 12:1: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;”

Psalm 119:73: “JOD. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: Give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.”

because of its design- telos

Psalm 139:14-15: “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Marvellous are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, When I was made in secret, And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.”

because of its purpose

because of its potential

Gnosticism and the body of Jesus (Pearcey, 35-36)

pearcey- 161

The DEGRADATION of the BODY

In the Christian worldview, everyone who is a human is a person and everyone who is a person has value and that value comes from God. Like a coin, the king’s image is stamped upon them.

Sadly, however, we see in the world today a full dishonoring of the body and a perversion of its design.

Romans 1:24: “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:”

dishonor- “to treat shamefully; to esteem lightly”

ILL. Miranda Sawyer

In 1973, America ideologically was changed forever. Before Roe v. Wade when someone said “human being” or “person” you knew that they meant the same thing— the exact same thing. Every human being had what we might call “personhood.” However, the Supreme Court ruled differently.

The now-famous ruling found that even though the baby in the womb is human, it is not a person under the 14th Amendment.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Thus, we created a new entity: “the human non-person” and a new “theology” was born. Its called the “personhood” story and there are lots of these two-story structures framing our world.

PERSON (moral and legal standing)

BODY (the human being; expendable; disposable)

This was the argument of the Supreme Court in the Obergefell case, which legalized same-sex marriage. They ruled that legal marriage has no objective connection to biology— that its purpose is to protect “personhood.”

Kennedy: The right to marry is fundamental as a matter of history and tradition, but rights come not from ancient sources alone. They rise, too, from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era. Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here. But when that sincere, personal opposition becomes enacted law and public policy, the necessary consequence is to put the imprimatur of the State itself on an exclusion that soon demeans or stigmatizes those whose own liberty is then denied. Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right.

But the Bible says that a human being is an embodied soul! A human being is a wholistic, enfleshed person— spirit, soul, and body— and their bodies should be treated as the person themselves.

THEOLOGY/MORALITY- private, subjective, relativistic

SCIENCE- public, objective, valid for everyone

VALUES- private, subjective, relativistic

FACTS- public, objective, valid for everyone

Rene Descartes

MIND- free, autonomous self

BODY- a machine working by rote according to natural laws

“I think, therefore I am.”

AUTONOMOUS SELF- free to impose its own interpretations on the body

PHYSICAL BODY- raw material with no intrinsic identity or purpose

Hook-up culture

PERSONAL- mental and emotional relationship (FEELINGS)

PHYSICAL- sexual relationship (PHYSIOLOGY)

GENDER

BIOLOGY— biological sex

One person noted, “This is who I am…right now.”

And common sense tells us that we are playing a game.

The game we are playing has led to the abortion of over 63M babies— the mutilation of the human body— a destruction of its telos/design.

ILL. Chloe Cole-

1 Corinthians 6:20: “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Romans 12:1: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

Romans 6:13: “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”

-dishonored their own bodies

Why?

they separated something that God united for their good

they sought “identity” as creatures outside of their “Creator”

PEARCEY: Love Thy Body

“Christianity offers a genuine alternative to an empty, pointless cosmos. It says that we are not alone, that the universe is meaningful, that we do have intrinsic value, that sexuality has its own purpose or telos, that human community is real, and that there is objective truth, goodness, and beauty. Most of all, we are not products of mindless chance but the creation of a loving Creator. Each one of us was loved into existence, and we have the high calling of inviting others into the astonishingly rich experience of living in a cosmos centered in love.”

PURPOSE OF THE BODY

-steward it

-surrender it