Anchor Points
The Measure of Man
Genesis 1:26-31
February 13, 2000
Anchor Point #3:
God created Man in His Own Image
Thus far in our study we have traced some of the elements of modern culture which are serving to change the rules of how people perceive reality. We are experiencing a clash of worldviews, though this is nothing new: there has always been a clash between Bible Christianity, the worldview that flows from taking Scripture seriously, and a modernistic, materialistic worldview. A new player has recently entered on the scene and commanded significant allegiance: postmodernism. The Bible teaches that truth is wrapped up in the person of God and His self-revelation. Modernism suggests that truth can be found through scientific exploration and experiment apart from any notion of the supernatural. At its most basic, postmodernism denies the possibility of the existence of truth. It doesn¡¦t say that we find truth here or there, but rather that trying to find truth is a doomed quest, because we can¡¦t look at anything and say this is true!
We have attempted over the last 2 weeks to set down some Scriptural anchor points onto which we must latch ourselves in order to be able to answer both the modern and postmodern viewpoints. 2 weeks ago, we laid down
Anchor Point #1: God is here, and He has spoken!
Last week, Anchor Point #2 stressed what God has said, in the first place: He has created all that is.
Today we focus on the aspect of creation that pertains to the pinnacle of God’s creation plan: MAN! (Read Scripture)
Maria vonTrapp sang, Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could. Her words illustrate well one of the dilemmas confronting the Darwinist naturalist! What does man come from? The naturalistic viewpoint, which is the prevailing viewpoint in the scientific world and which underlies modernism and to at least a degree postmodernism, contains several problems when it comes to its explanation of the nature of man.
Problems stemming from a naturalistic view of man:
1. The Death of Dignity or Whence self-esteem?¨
Outgrowths of Darwinistic naturalism include nihilism, the belief that life has no intrinsic meaning or purpose. Nihilism is impossible to live by, however, and so some adopt forms of what has come to be known as humanism. Anthony Flew, noted atheist, describes atheistic humanism as a positive philosophy of life that embraces life as meaningful despite the lack of any divine purpose or meaning. This sentiment has been expressed in the various Humanist Manifestos issued thru the years.
Yet, a logical case simply cannot be made for why we should have any optimism at all if there is no logical basis for believing that there is meaning in life or that our actions have any significance.
Mantra today is "self-esteem". We are misguided in trying to teach our children that they should have positive self-esteem while at the same time teaching them that they came from apes. We do our children no favors whatsoever if we do such, if we say to them ¡§think more of yourself¡¨ and then give them no logical reason to. If merely animals, why??? Fair question: Why should I respect myself if I am an animal?
When they jettison God, humanists at the same time both overestimate and underestimate the dignity of man. Proudly with Protagoras they proclaim Man is the measure of all things and then turn around and treat people as though they are animals. An example of this is the secularist approach to teen pregnancy: hand out birth control to kids! Implicit in their distribution is the idea you can’t control yourself, so protect yourself. That is a lie but we’ll talk about responsibility in a moment.
2. The Meaning of Morality or What’s the point of being good (and why is there even a category labeled "good"?)?
Won¡¦t belabor this point; spoke to it last week. But fact remains that without God, there can be no such item as morality.
"In the absence of any objectifiable criteria of right and wrong, good or evil, the self and its feelings become our only moral guide," says Robert Bellah, who adds, "If the individual self must be its own source of moral guidance, then each individual must always know what he wants and desires or intuit what he feels. He must act so as to produce the greatest satisfaction of his wants or to express the fullest range of his impulses"; being good becomes feeling good. (One secularist remarks) "something immoral is something you feel bad after. Which implies that you got to try everything at least once. Whatever produces a good result must be right, and whatever produces a bad result must be wrong."
Question: how do his categories even fit? Wouldn’t Hitler say that the extermination of the Jews was a "good result"? And what secularist can refute that?
Bellah adds, Acts, then, are not right or wrong in themselves, but only because of the results they produce, the good feelings they engender or express.
3. The Issue of Irresponsibility or The xxxxxxxx made me do it!
Our actions, say the Darwinists, are rooted in our evolutionary predispositions. We are evolving upward, and some of the things we do are governed by uncontrollable forces which are moving us along this path. Therefore, how can we be held responsible for our actions? Nothing is anyone¡¦s fault anymore, and humanistic psychology and sociology expend much effort in finding patsies upon which to blame man’s behavioral ills. Charles Sykes calls America A Nation of Victims. Self-pity and whining are national pastimes, ones into which even Christians can fall if we’re not careful. Braves’ pitcher John Rocker has made headlines recently for some ridiculous comments he made about other people. What is the solution? Send him off to a psychoanalyst! No mention of the fact that the statements he made can simply be explained on the basis that he is a sinner; maybe he just has a mental illness of some sort! When man should be searching for a Savior, he is searching for a scapegoat!
David Wells, in God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams, writes, If I am not to blame for what I do, the Cross is much ado about nothing. How hopelessly out of date the old spiritual sounds (which says) "Not my father or my mother, but its me, o Lord, standing in the need of prayer." Victims do not need God, just a sympathetic therapist or a good lawyer.
4. The Dilemma of Death or Is this all there is?
Without God, death is the end, but instinctively, we know that we were created for something more, something eternal. Rightly, postmodernist thinking rejects this conclusion of modern science, but then instead of turning to Biblical truth for answers to the dilemma of death, the spirit of the age embraces all sorts of baseless sentimentalities regarding what happens at death. This mushy sentimentalism is evidenced in contemporary films such as Always, Ghost, and What Dreams May Come. We also see this in sweet delusional statements issued at the death of most anyone, words like "I know he¡¦s looking down on me from a better place" or "she’ll always be here with me" or even, when the "solution" of euthanasia ends the life of a suffering person, the sentiment that at least he/she is not suffering anymore. In reality, if the person in question did not know Christ, the truth is anything but!
Truthfully, though, neither cold scientific explanations for what happens at death nor baseless, mushy, New-Age sentimentalism will satisfy us in the face of death!
Contemporary Issues involved in this discussion:
- Abortion- If man is created in God¡¦s image, then abortion is a horrible evil, period! If no God, though, then abortion is perfectly logical, even desirable!
- Euthanasia- Same reasoning that mitigates against abortion applies here.
-Homosexuality- If what the Bible says is true about God’s design in creation of male and female, then we know instinctively that homosexuality is morally wrong.
-Divorce- We can infer from God¡¦s pattern of creation, as Jesus did, that divorce is not in accord with God’s plan.
-Human Rights- Man’s creation in the image of God is the only basis for human rights.
-Rape- Where did this one come from? A book published last week from Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer argues that rape is "natural" and can be explained in biological terms. It has its origins in what could be labeled a "Darwinist imperative" to reproduce and pass on one’s genes. The authors call rape an adaptive reproductive strategy; i.e., when all other efforts to attract a mate fail, males resort to rape. They conclude, contrary to the prevailing understandings of rape, that it must be motivated, however unconsciously, by the desire to impregnate. There’s a delicious irony here; feminists are predictably in an uproar, protesting at each appearance of the authors. Irony is that most feminists are avowed evolutionists, and yet here Darwinism is being used to explain that the exploitation of women is a natural phenomenon! Feminists the being hoist on their own petard!
-Environmentalism- There is a basis for real responsibility when it comes to the environment, grounded in Genesis 1! Unfortunately, much of current environmentalism springs from humanistic concerns that sometimes border on the worship of nature rather than the care-taking of nature.
-Animal "Rights"- We cannot find any grounding for the notion that animals have ¡§rights¡¨ in the Scripture, but we can easily find the underpinnings for the responsible treatment of animals!
We get a little help from postmodernism at this point!
Quoting D.A. Carson in The Gagging of God: (Postmodernism’s) recognition that a purely materialist accounting of human beings is out of step with our experience may be welcomed.¨ He then quotes Mervyn Sprung from his book After Truth: Explorations in Life Sense, who, after describing a typically materialistic vision of humanity, says,
A solemn and impressive story. But not an acceptable account of the way things are for humans. Held against Plato, Buddha, Nietzsche, something is awry. Science’s world is not a world that offers a human being the right to live his or her life as a drama worth living How is it that most of us don’t sense the scientific world as an absurdity, as a perversity, as an inhuman conception? Because we must do so if we take it literally as the whole story. Somehow we defend ourselves against it. We all, laboratory scientists included, have beliefs that so far have survived science. Do we not all have a sense of individuality, even of person when we talk of freedom or the sacred right of individuals to fulfill themselves in their own way? Isn’t that the seed of thought of our social concept and of the way we understand ourselves?
Biblical Points
In the word us we have a hint of the Trinity; the creation of man is set apart as a special act of the Triune God. Notice the three-fold repetition of the word "created"; strong emphasis upon the point that man was specially designed by God. Everything about creation up to this point is said to be "good"; at least one major reason why this is so is that the created order is perfectly suited to God’s pinnacle of creation, man.
1. Man is unlike God at key points!
- Creaturely "make"
There are senses in which we are more like animals than like God. We are creatures, with all of the distinctions of creatures. Like animals, we have physical needs/drives.
- Finite
Like animals, we have limitations, whereas God has no limitations whatsoever. We have beginning to our existence. Because of sin, we die physically, just as animals do.
2. Man is like God at key points! "Our Own image"
First and foremost, that which distinguishes man from the rest of the created order is that his basic relationship is upward; we are defined first by the fact that we are created in the image of God!
Personal
We have the elements of personality: intellect, emotions, will. We are able to communicate. We are self-aware. We feel; we decide, believing that our decisions have real consequences and meaning.
Moral
Man is born with a conscience, an innate sense of right and wrong. It is true that this conscience can be warped, but it is there nonetheless. Man is capable of making moral decisions, to do right or wrong. Man is likewise responsible to God for the decisions that he makes!
Spiritual
Man has both a capacity to know God and a level of understanding that he is created to worship. In all cultures, there is some acknowledgement of this among people. We are created to relate to God in a way that nothing else in the rest of creation possibly can!
Social
Man is a social animal, desiring the companionship of others.
Creative
Man has a hunger for creativity and self-expression. While we cannot "create" as God created ("ex nihilo" meaning "out of nothing") we nonetheless reflect the God in whose image we are made when we attempt to be creative.
3. Man is created male and female.
It is clear in the very creation plan of God that there is a correspondence between male and female, that the two compliment each other. We go together in ways that two of the same sex cannot! "Be fruitful and multiply" is a command which can of course only be fulfilled through following God’s plan for male/female relationship. There is both differentiation and equality!
4. Man is granted dominion over the rest of creation.
Man is granted the right to rule over all of the rest of creation. Rational basis here for a proper use/stewardship of the created order. We must take care as responsible agents before God as to how we use that which has been entrusted to us. We have a level of responsibility in how we treat animals, for instance; this treatment ought to be governed by humane considerations. We have a responsibility as well for what we do to this earth!
5. All of God’s creation is good.
Everything as God created it conformed to His design.
Ramifications
1. The 3 Questions begin to be answered here.
Who am I?
Here is where we can face the secularist, be he/she modernist or postmodernist, and in their search for a sense of meaning and purpose for their lives, we can say "I know who you are!"
Schaeffer tells of a humanist/existentialist man, a brilliant man, who sat with him in his home in Switzerland crying. He had gone from his home in South America to Paris, the center of this great humanistic thinking. He had found it ugly; the humanist professors cared for nothing, much less their students. He had found them to be inhuman in their humanism, and he was ready to commit suicide. "How do you love me?", he asked Schaeffer. "How do you start?" Answered Schaeffer, "I can love you, because I know who you are! You are made in the image of God."
We can answer this question with a satisfactory answer that no secularist can!
Why am I here?
We can field this question cleanly as well; we know that man is here with the purpose of coming to know and glorify his Creator.
Where am I going?
And we can handle this one as well, pointing individuals to the reality of eternity and to the necessity of coming to know God in Christ for the assurance of eternity in heaven.
2. All human beings are entitled to being treated with dignity and respect on the basis of Creation.
Darwin’s conclusions about the origin of man led him to a virulent racism. He believed that the so-called "inferior races" could be selectively eliminated through selective breeding (incidentally, this same view was held by Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood). But of course you won’t hear any of these truths today! Racism is completely antithetical to Christian living; James says that "out of the same mouth we bless God and curse men." Your profession of Christianity is sorely deficient if you can claim on the one hand to love God and on the other hand harbor prejudice against others!
3. Recovering a biblical self-identity is a key component in dealing with the problems that modern man faces.
Many Christians struggle because they do not really understand who they are in Christ! We do not need an infusion of some kind of man-centered "self-esteem"; rather, what we need is a recovery of a Biblical self-identity. Who does the Bible say that we are? Interestingly, though, the Bible’s warnings are generally against the overestimation of ourselves instead of the underestimation!
4. We as believers have immediate insight into core sources of man’s problems, because we know who people are at the core!
I referred to Schaeffer above; I’ll close with a more close-to-home story. I received a letter just a few weeks back from a psychologist who billed her service as "Christian-based". Yet I had reservations, so I wrote to her and asked her the following questions:
A. Would you agree with me that the very beginning point for solving the problems that a person faces is for that person to come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
B. Would you as such agree with me that, at the core, all of man’s problems which do not have a physiological basis have a spiritual basis, and the cure to such is to be found in correcting some flaws in that person¡¦s relationship with God?
C. Would you understand that the means by which one comes into a right relationship with God is by God’s grace through man’s faith alone in Christ alone?
D. Would you agree with me that the primary manual for helping a person to overcome one’s problems is the Bible, the Word of God?
While I’m not holding my breath to get a letter back from her, I believe that the clear teaching of the Word of God, which finds its beginning with an understanding that man is created in the image of God, will back me up!
