(First time posting, so hopefully I don’t mess up the formatting too much; that would be a bit much after folks were kind enough to invite me to post!)
Time for a bit of Catholic applied to geekery! (Not to be confused with straight up Catholic Geekery, which is more the Holy Father’s area– does anyone doubt that he dearly loves thinking about, playing with and elaborating on Catholic theology? You just don’t end up writing THREE books on the life of Jesus without the love, intellectual interest and deep enjoyment of a geek for his geekdom.)
There’s something about Catholics and blogs that always ends up going into the old question of what makes a man– or, more correctly, a person. “Man” in this context would be a human, and there are several examples of people that aren’t humans– like most of the Trinity. Sadly, the topic usually comes up in terms of abortion; even the utterly simple-science-based reasoning that all humans are human and should be treated thus will bring out the attacks. (Amusingly, the line of attack is usually that someone is trying to force their religious beliefs on others, rather than an attempt to explain why a demonstrably human life is objectively different from, say, an adult human. The “bioethicist” Singer is famous for being open about valuing life in a utilitarian manner, but there aren’t many who will support that angle.[thank God])
Slowly looping around to the point, one of the topics that got me interested in Catholic blogs in the first place was the Catholic musing on what a “person” is; Jimmy Akin’s post on zombies was probably the first time I’d ever seen it discussed. (I think I actually found his writing while looking for a good site to explain to my driven-away-Catholic geek friends that D&D wasn’t antithetical to Catholicism.) I’d never heard anything about an organized Catholic theory of…well, much of anything, but that’s a different topic. I had– of course– seen a bit of Catholic theology on EWTN, but I seem to remember that I had the impression that theology was more focused on explicitly religious things, rather than theoretical musings.
Deathly dull and serious, not fun.
Option #2, that of a non-human, rational soul was very interesting to me, since– being a geek– I’d read a lot of stories with elves where a big to-do about how the local church (which always looks familiar) holds that non-Humans don’t have souls. Sometimes they go really anvilicious and have the dark-skinned, mystical non-local humans be counted as not being human. (Mercedies Lackey is really, really bad about this.) It hadn’t sounded right, since it was really obvious that the story-elves (usually repackaged Tolkien elves, with a smattering of some Irish legends) were people. Heck, half the time they could even have families with normal humans, and there are quarter-elves, or all magic-using humans have “elvish” blood, so they’re more a sub-group of humans than another species. (Homo Sapien Pointy-Eared-Magica, to riff off a similar notion?) It’s a staple of fantastic fiction to have a normal person that the reader can relate to meeting up and befriending– at the very least– nonhuman people, often with a sub-plot about how the people who don’t agree are misguided at best or evil at worst.
I pointed folks to the explanation for non-human people for a few years, and at some point a blog I ran into mentioned St Augustine’s definition of “man”. (That blogger has thought a bit on the matter of non-human intelligence and Catholicism.)
The author John Wright recently republished an article he wrote about space Christians and their impact on Catholicism– prefaced with the sly warning that “The Magisterium of the Church has yet to rule on the theological implications of intelligent extraterrestrials. Perhaps they are wisely awaiting for alien intelligent life to be discovered first.
Mr. Wright’s reason for re-publishing is actually what got me thinking on the subject again– one of my many peeves is being the established mythology of fandom that the Church would have mad issues with, well, pretty much anything that’s outside of the currently accepted mundane, or the “cool” parody of it. (It’s to the point where I half wonder if Laura K. Hamilton is making a really, really sneaky point… her first “Anita Blake” book mentions that the namesake character was born and raised Catholic, but switched because the Church said that doing what she does for a living is immoral and would lead to degeneration; umpteen books later, the series is…uh… rather notorious in fandom for breaking any moral reservation she expresses in a book or two, and the main character has become a sort of necromancer-vampire-wereanimal succubus.)
The most frequent reminder in every Catholic discussion I’ve seen about non-human, physical, rational beings is that charity requires that we assume those who show evidence of being a rational being have a soul. I don’t know if that’s supposed to jump out, or if it just jumps out because most explorations of the “what measure makes a man” question tend to either hand-wave things so that it comes out so that of course so and so is really a person, or utterly violate it. (Looking back, it would’ve been really nice if someone in a teaching position in my Catholic education had used that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where they almost decide that Data is StarFleet property that can be chopped up for research, not a person, as a launch block for the whole moral being discussion…or even just an abortion, ESCR or personhood type discussion…. Um, any moral discussion, launched for any reason, come to think of it.)
This sort of moral question is perfect for science fiction and fantasy– you can set up any variation on the theme that you want, play with it, use “what if” to your heart’s content. (This sometimes means that all a story does is tell you what the author wants you to think.) What if the non-humans look like humans, but live a lot longer? What if Neanderthals survived to the modern day? What if we can interbreed with aliens? What if we can’t? What if aliens– or dragons— are so mentally different that it’s hard to wrap your mind around their thought processes? What is the impact on dealing with a species that considers you food? (A question that’s sometimes touched on in vampire novels, usually either indirectly– by unstated emotional appeal that helps you not hate the mass murdering blood suckers– or simi-directly, by making the dividing line between good and bad vampires a question of who kills intelligent beings to survive.)
Somehow, though, these opportunities usually go by the wayside, both with pro apologists (a few exceptions like Jimmy, of course) and with just-people-who-are-Catholic. (As clumsy as I am, I managed to get folks thinking without being bored by working things like Natural Law into my character stories– or by choosing my Paladin’s god based on who was most compatible with Catholic theology, and playing that way.)
I can count on my fingers the number of fantastic fiction authors that are friendly to religion, let alone ones that work Catholic theology (or natural philosophy) into into the stories.
Meanwhile, I was the only practicing Catholic in my geek group in no small part because the rest had been told that such things were against Church teaching. (Other factors: they’d never been introduced to any of the reasoning behind various teachings, or even been told that there was reasoning; different people had told them different things were binding, and none had offered justifications. The Harry Potter/B16 thing is an example of the sort of thing that seriously damaged their childhood faith. “Helpful” relatives that saw “Mazes and Monsters” and went straight into a mode Darwin commented on before.)
I’d bet that anime has done more to make geeky folks, ones who could so easily become as fascinated with Catholicism as our Pope is, sympathetic to Catholicism than…well… actual Catholics have done. Blogging is (maybe?) changing that, slowly, and it’s hard to figure out the right sort of touch to use when talking about religion. Thankfully, geekdom is pretty forgiving if you’re obviously a fanboy about a topic. I sincerely believe that if we could just folks to listen to what the Church teaches, a lot of those geeks would end up being great apologists.
Fascinating. If there are other sentient races in the universe then there arises the question as to whether God would provide ways for them to attain salvation other than through Christ. CS Lewis was intrigued by this question as demonstrated by his Out of the Silent Planet trilogy and the Narnia books.
When I think of what differentiates us as humans, Donald, I think of how we are spiritual beings. We yearn for God (whether we know it or not). And we of course look over the horizon to find something that will fill that gap. So we’re spiritual. As Augustine said, Thou hast made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless til they find their rest in Thee. We are at the center, too. There is a great chain even while Sir Lovejoy charted its intellectual demise. Regardless of our physical location in the universe, our spiritual plight places us right at the center. As far as we can tell, we alone are consciously troubled and preoccupied more than any other creature. We know of no others comparable to us.
“We know of no others comparable to us.”
Yet.
Whether God created other beings than those mentioned in Scripture cannot now be known. Depsite what scientists have said, we live in a human-centered, geocentric universe till this day.
C. S. Lewis was a fascinating, imaginative man, of course. His works are all classics. I appreciated The Abolition of Man. When we divorce our concept of man from the Christian worldview, we get a distortion. Our understanding is still dependent on the Christian worldview (to some extent). We’re at a transition, surviving on borrowed capital. But there are those who argue for a different view, and that other viewpoint is gaining in acceptance. So we have our feet in both worlds. Are we beings of worth and responsiblity? Or are we animals of instinct determined by forces?
So what separates us? I don’t think it’s reason. I think it’s spirituality. We are accountable to God. He made us as priests over creation, to offer up sacrifices pleasing to Him. We failed in that assignment. So He initiated a rescue mission to restore us to that role. Once again we can be “priests of God and of Christ,” and we can reign with him (have dominion over creation). It’s the marriage of heaven and earth, where God, the temple, comes down to the garden never again to depart.
Priests and kings. We were created as priests and kings. To that we are restored if we are in Christ. This priestly and kingly role to which we’re assigned, then, is what differentiates us from all other created beings that are known.
To possess dominion over creation, offering it back up to God, is the essence of the human being, I believe, when restored to God’s image. After all, who is God in whose image we were made?
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2010/08/extraterrestrial-life-and-catholic.html
Pat-
I would agree “we” (culturally) are living on borrowed worldview– one of the things that this kind of discussion does is get people to realize how many of the things they assumed were just universal human views are Christian, and not shared by other cultures. (This is a major, major issue in dealing with time off the ship in the Navy–utterly ignoring the applications in terrorism!)
I think the difference you draw between reason and spirituality might be an artifact of definition. Short version: you can’t be spiritual if you can’t choose.
St. Augustine got it right in general, although I don’t think his biological detail is required:
But whoever is anywhere born a man, that is, a rational, mortal animal, no matter what unusual appearance he presents in color, movement, sound, nor how peculiar he is in some power, part, or quality of his nature, no Christian can doubt that he springs from that one protoplast. We can distinguish the common human nature from that which is peculiar, and therefore wonderful.
Well, Foxfier: People have long distinguished us on the basis of reason. But do not animals reason? I have before me a dog that reasons. She’s not apparently spiritual, though. So I guess that’s the sense in which I meant to get that difference across. (Also, people vary in mental capability and sometimes profoundly so). I trace ‘the reason thing’ to the Greeks, Aquinas, Western phil., Victorian sensibility. I don’t think of it as a purely Christian notion. We’re spiritual beings, I know. I don’t know that reason really separates us from other seen beings. First of all I don’t know that we all reason. Secondly, I’m not sure all other seen beings don’t.
It’s that priestly and kingly role to which we were assigned that separates us from the rest of creation. We were to reign over it and offer it back up to God. We failed in that mission. He in His goodness, came down to us as high priest in Jesus Christ offering up a perfect sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. He thereby restored us to Himself. We are atoned for. We find in Christ our roles re-established. Priests of God and of Christ who reign with Him. There’s a polis in a garden that God has sanctified. He’s Immanuel forevermore.
The human being is made in God’s image, fallen in Adam, and then redeemed and restored in Christ. Made by a triune God, we find our fulfillment in Him and in His community, the New People. The world is very old and is passing away.
You know I’ve been tempted to use reason and/or morality to separate us from other beings. It just doesn’t make any sense. Unless you’re living in one of the better parts of Victorian London. No. People are different from animals because they are spiritual beings, made in God’s image, and fallen from thence, though redeemable in Christ. This is our essence.
But do not animals reason?
In this meaning of reason, no, they don’t reason, are not rational beings. Mental capacity of an individual is likewise not involved– we’re talking classes, groups, not individuals. I don’t remove your soul if I do so much brain damage that you’re unable to express the rationality of said soul.
I’m not sure how you figure your dog reasons, since you don’t explain it, nor how you’d be able to tell if she felt a yearning for something greater than herself– after all, dogs do tend to desire a pack.
You might want to go read Jimmy’s post that I linked.
It’s that priestly and kingly role to which we were assigned that separates us from the rest of creation.
Problem being, who is “we”? Rather the whole point of the exercise….
No idea what you’re getting at by the frequent references to Victorian London, either.
Well I think we are that: beings made in God’s image, fallen, and redeemable. Priests before and after. Lords before and after. We are spiritual. In Christ our identity is reclaimed. We find our place again in God’s creation: kings and priests. Does God need us? Of course not. But this is what he created us for. He loves us and engages us in his creative work.
In the Western world beginning wiht the Greeks, we at the height of culture/ civilizaTION HAVE thought of ourselves as rational beings. I think it’s old.
YOu see, the problem is that we’re not rational. We’ve found that out. We just have to accept it.
When we think of human beings, we must think not only of what we were, but of what we are and what we will be (assuming we are Christians). Our essence is this: Made in God’s image, fallen, and redeemed in Christ. This is what separates us from vegetation, animals, angels, etc. I do not mean to say creation in general is not redeemed. I believe very strongly that it is. I simply mean to point out our difference. Our essence. We are spiritual, with souls as well as breath, accountable spiritually since we were made in God’s image, since we failed his assignment, since we find redemption in Him through Christ, and restoration.
Well I think we are that: beings made in God’s image, fallen, and redeemable.
Who is included in “beings made in God’s image”? That is the point of this post.
Obviously it includes male, female, a huge range of hair, skin and eye colors, a huge range of body types, a huge range of mental abilities… we often use the short-hand of human, or homo sapiens; as we learn more about homo neanderthalensis, that becomes less reasonable.
Like St Augustine reasoned, if “monstrous” births are still people, would it not be possible for there to be “monstrous races”?
YOu see, the problem is that we’re not rational. We’ve found that out. We just have to accept it.
That people don’t use the ability doesn’t mean that we don’t have it. It would take a lot of proof to “show” that your dog is rational, but humans aren’t!
Hmnn, I think you might be looking at it a bit too literally or precisely. Whether one is profoundly retarded or genius level is irrelevant. God made human beings in His image. We failed in that. But we have souls as well as ‘breath’ or life. We are spiritual. We were and could once again be priests and lords within the context of this creation. Whatever else is going on way out there is another topic, really. As for prodigies, unusual differences, etc., we still know they are human if they are. Otherwise it’s an animal. Darwinism and evolutionary thought has us confused on this. Secular scientists would like to blur the boundary between animals and humans by focusing on ‘deep time’ and theorizing.
Reason became a distinction, and perhaps the one distinction of the human being because of the Greek inheritance. Acquinas was reason-oriented within the western heritage. But the Bible’s dinstinguishing mark for the human is what? The soul, created in God’s image, fallen, redeemable in Christ, priests and kings. This is the pattern. It’s our essence. I was made by God, in God’s image, for Godself, and can be restored to that image in Christ the Redeemer. This is what’s central about the human.
Yes, that’s it. Animals have breath. Life is there….there’s blood. Human beings have souls too, however. We were made in God’s image. We were meant to be that. We can be that again. That’s the marker.
I think you’re bypassing the point entirely, Pat– who is “we”? Who has souls?
To our knowledge, people/men/humans have souls, animals do not, but that makes for a circular definition– or for abject horror, when you consider that it’s pretty standard for a culture’s word for their own group to translate as “people,” “mankind” or “humans.” Just as with “rational,” the meaning of a word in context is very important.
A person is one with a soul; how do we figure out if someone who is outside of our previous experience is a person or not? Appearance won’t work, obviously, and we are not God so we do not see their souls. Obviously, we have to assume that those who seem to have a soul do in fact have one– but what are the markings of having a soul?
Can you argue against Augustine’s ‘rational, mortal animal’ definition? Actually argue, not assert?
correction:
To our knowledge, people/men/humans have rational/spiritualsouls, animals do not
All made more complicated because “soul” refers to several different things– life, including that of animals; essence of something; the part of a human that is eternal….
Too much classification….why order it like that? Not necessary for our conception. No little green man will come by to confuse us. It’s just us. If it looks like a human, walks like a human, and talks like one, it’s a human. That includes the Elephant Man, the circus workers, those referenced by Augustine in the City of God, and anyone else who’s uniquely interesting and remarkably different. They’re all human. The trinity teaches us that there is diversity in unity, vice versa. The Fall teaches us that we’re not as we should be. Yes there’s variety. But I know a human when I see one. And I’ll bet the farm that they possess breath and a soul, and the same origin and destiny too, if in Christ.
No. The soul is not eternal. That’s a Greek error. Christ alone has immortality. That’s where the Christian gets it. Soul and body resurrect. We’re not eternal. No portion is. But the soul gains immortality in Christ. The body is resurrected in Him.
Our first parents were made in God’s image. The animals were not. Plants were not. The earth was not. Neither was the sky. We alone were made in His image. We fell. We’re restored if in Christ. That image manifests in the priestly and kingly role. Exercise dominion. Offer up creation. And St. John said, they came to life and reigned with Christ. Kings and priests.
Too much classification….why order it like that?
Because meaning is important. You can’t say that only humans have souls, because everyone who has a soul is a human. That’s circular.
We can’t say it’s obvious who is human and who is not, because it’s sadly not obvious– a quick glance at history will show that, and a moment’s thought on the current pro-life issues of abortion, eugenics and euthanasia show it’s ongoing. People are very, very good at making themselves believe things that suit them. God made this world in a manner that we can learn about systematically– why would he have not done the same when it comes to who is a person?
If it looks like a human, walks like a human, and talks like one, it’s a human.
And what constitutes “like a human”? From your prior statements, you mean “being made in God’s image”– which we cannot define by the standard use of “human,” which is a biological term.
That question is the entire point of this post.
No. The soul is not eternal. That’s a Greek error.
From Catholic Answers:
The glossary at the back of the U.S. version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines “soul” as follows:
The spiritual principle of human beings. The soul is the subject of human consciousness and freedom; soul and body together form one unique human nature. Each human soul is individual and immortal, immediately created by God. The soul does not die with the body, from which it is separated by death, and with which it will be reunited in the final resurrection.
Humans give birth to humans. Animals give birth to animals. Both have life. But the human was initially created in God’s image. We are now fallen, but redeemable. What’s the question? I think you’re trying to argue with secular ethicists and pragmatic people who represent what the late John Paul II termed a culture of death. I understand that if you are. But these people make distinctions the Bible does not. We shouldn’t. We know life. We continue to know life. Not everything can be proven. God only holds us responsible, in those casses, for maintaining faith and conviction and obedience to truth. If they press us, we may not be able to answer. They want to know what is special about a fetus. I don’t know exactly. It’s a human. God knits us together in the womb. They won’t believe that, though. And there’s no strict definition of the kind for which you’re searching. If they don’t have faith, it won’t be life to them. But we know it is, and will continue to say so.
Christ, who alone has immortality, be glory forever. Forgot which epistle. But we are ‘clothed’ with that immortality. It’s not ours. We ‘died’ because of sin, the fall…the soul would live on in death or die forever, however you wish to say it. But that’s not the same as “being eternal by nature.” The Greeks thought we were. Plato thought that. Some of it’s semantic. But those not saved in Christ are not immortal. They don’t live forever. They die forever. Christ is the Life.
Pat, where does the Bible define made in God’s image?
Where does it define soul?
Where does it define human?
It’s obvious that people– from the embryonic through the senile, sound of mind and body or not, in all our wide range of characteristics– are different than animals because we’re made in God’s image. The question remains: who is “we”?
Why is that a question? I’ve never been confused over whether a created being was a human or an animal. I’ve always distinguished the two. I’ve never yet seen a demon or an angel. No aliens either. “We” are those two-legged creatures that walk upright, etc., though we sometimes are born with issues. “We” may be Siamese, etc. Humans though. ANd we all know them. What’s the question? You want a definition? Don’t tell me you dont’ knwo one when you see one. I can’t kkeep from laughing. I jsut don’t udnerstand where you’re coming from, Foxfier.
The Genesis myth tells us about our first parents, who they were, what happened. Who we are now. Who we can be in Christ. The new creation. Humans are at the center because made in His image and capableof being restored to that. It’s the focal point. Well, God is really, but then we in Him and He in us forever. That’s at the center of the story.
I jsut don’t udnerstand where you’re coming from, Foxfier.
I noticed.
Why is that a question?
Because you claimed that the Bible has said the soul is the “dinstinguishing mark for the human.”
You claimed that I’m making distinctions where the Bible did not– you still haven’t supported that claim.
I’ve never been confused over whether a created being was a human or an animal. I’ve always distinguished the two.
So? I’ve never had to splint a broken arm– doesn’t mean that the information isn’t important, or will never be used.
As I pointed out, there are several times where people mistakenly classified other people as non-persons; more amusing are the times when people mistakenly classified non-persons as people. (Was it Mark Twain that wrote about a town mistaking an ape for a Frenchman?)
Admittedly, apart from the Biblical story, there is no way to define and separate people fromm the rest of creation. Paganism blurs the distinction. IT’s through the light of Scripoture that we learn of who we are. Our identiy is derived from our Creator who communicates revelation. Otherwise we wouldn’t know. And people today don’t know. The Christian identity of the person is wearing off. You can’t fix a defintion of the human for the non-Christian. It won’t work. It’s through Scritprue that we find out who we are. The Greeks tried and all they came up with was reason. No good. Priests and kings. Not simply reason. If only reason, why preserve a human?
Humans are at the center because made in His image and capableof being restored to that.
To repeat myself a final time tonight:
you can’t define “human” as “those made in God’s image,” then say that those who are made in God’s image are human.
Bring in actual quotes, with citations. Make an argument for what you’re saying, rather than just claiming it.
You’re getting really incoherent, Pat.
You wihs to go with Etienne Gilson’s choice? Do you wish to have a universal sense of the human, that can prove to everyone, that can force everyone to believe it and be OK with it rationally? Then it would be watered-down. It would not be the udnerstanding given by Scripture, the identity we have within the narrative of God. It would be something far less, something paltry.
Well how coherent do you suppose you can become on something like this? It’s not that kind of a thing. Either you’re human or an animal in our visible realm here. I do not have to create new definitions because someone feels like they might face an alien soon. It’s simply either an animal OR a human. If you approach it, talk to it, and stay with it for about five minutes, you ought to know which classification it falls within. If it has two heads and two permanently separate personalities and identities, it’s two humans joined from birth. Two souls, not one. Otherwise, one soul per human. And that’s about it.
You see, it’s through God’s story that we learn who we are, why wer’re here, where we could go, etc. Apart from faith there is no correct definition of the human. God alone gives it. If you are willing to accept it then that’s what it is. If not, you live in ignorance as pagans always have. It’s nothing complicated. Very simple. No God, no man; Lewis wrote “THe Aboliton of Man.” That’s what he meant.
If ever there’s confusion as to whether a creature is human or animal, I’d like to know why. I’ve never heard of someone being confused in our time.
God’s story is our story too. It’s our meaning, our identity. We are told everything that way. It IS circular. That’s why it’s faith. If it were otherwise, it would be human philosophy. What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? Jerusalem saved Athens, and so we continue to think as it did.
I always thought of people as possessing dignity. Then I read of a minister who visited the dying. He said that dying is the most undignified thing. He’s right. I feel we should be thankful that God made us for himself. Life is a gift. It’s precious. We’re responsible for how we live it. We need to be good stewards of all that God gave us. To live again is possible. But it happens in Christ alone. This is being human.
I experience no despair over my lack of a scientific definition. Humanity cannot be defined philophically or scientifically. And that’s OK, since we gain our understanding from Scriptural revelation.
pat,
It is basic Catholic teaching that we gain our understanding of God and His Creation not only through Scripture, but through reason as well. I don’t know you and perhaps you are a sola scriptura Protestant, and this thread is not intended to debate that point. I only point out that the notion that humanity cannot be defined philosophically or scientifically, but only by reference to Scripture alone is a singularly unCatholic point of view.
It would not be the udnerstanding given by Scripture, the identity we have within the narrative of God.
What is this understanding? Lay it out.
And that’s OK, since we gain our understanding from Scriptural revelation.
If it’s in the scriptures, it can be cited. Go for it. Jesus Himself, if he said “is it not written,” would then give the actual quote.
[…] Non-Human People – Foxfier, The American Catholic […]
In Genesis, it says that God created our first parents in His image. Let us make man in our image, after ouor likeness. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. That’s the actual quote. This is NOT true of animals or the rest of the visible creation.
The understanding is arrived at through progressive revelation. As the story unfolds, we learn of who we are: where we came from, where we’re at, and where we can go. It’s not fixed. It depends on who and where you are within the story. That’s our identity. It’s what it means to be a human being. But it cannot be abstracted to be a precise, universal idea. That’s reason at it’s best and it still falls radically short of scriptural revelation. Don’t baptize it. Don’t synthesize them.
You’re trying to arrive at a universal, modernist understanding of the human, analytically or philosophically abstracted from concrete time, space, and the story that changes as it unfolds and moves eschatologically, or teleologically, toward its fulfillment, the story that informs us and gives us our understanding. We cant do that.
The Greeks abstracted from the concrete because they beleived in the heraclitean/parmenidean split, the platonic this world of change versus that world of static reality, etc. No, we see it eschatologically.
So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. That’s the actual quote. This is NOT true of animals or the rest of the visible creation.
Now, where does it say what, exactly, His image is? Clearly it’s not too physical, since the difference between male and female in the human species is rather large. The wisest idea would be to read the original, or as detailed an explanation as possible of the known meaning of the original.
Given that information, we could very easily come to the conclusion that being able to create things is what makes us “in God’s image.”
But it cannot be abstracted to be a precise, universal idea.
How do you come to that conclusion? Much like the other claims you make, you don’t support it– you just state it.
No….we’ve wound up talking past one another because we’re starting with different assumptions. I’m assuming that Scriptural revelation is what we are given, and that that’s meant to inform all that we think and find elsewhere. I don’t hold to two separate categories. There is faith and it seeks understanding. I don’t maintain that reason or tradition are separate or reconcilable compartments. Never thought that way.
Citgations, quotes….what good would that do? You prooftext with one set of references. Somone else uses another set. Everyone has their own pattern. That still doesn’t answer the question. It simply reveals paradigms. It’s like the Methodist who finds all the proofs. They back it up. Then the Calvinist does it with their proofs. The Catholic wiuth theirs. The Mormons have their documents from which to prove their arguments, and they are coherent within their own system, more or less.
I advocate a better way. Let’s transcend these systems and get back to the BIble. Not Sola Scriptura per se. But let’s go back to the narrative first and foremost. That’s our story. Let’s learn it and allow it to inform our thinking. That’s what I’ve tried to do. I’ve tried to get across the Bible’s sense of who we are in relation to the one who has made us. We are humans, and the story tells us what that means. We happen through the story. It’s eschatological, that is to say that we are ‘on the way.’ We are pilgrims if we are Christian. We’r’e in transition. If not, we’re part of an old world that’s passing away, and that means death. Definitions? Not really. But definiately a reality that is wondrously amazing!
Once again: priests to God and kings over creation. Sacrifices acceptable, our creative service. Worship. That’s the image reflected. It’s the life we’re called back to. He’s not jsut the Creatior. He’s the Redeemer too. We participate redemptively in his plan. Also, He’s triune. So we exist in community. All this is what’s meant by being in his image. If we are in Christ, we are alive again! We see signs of that now. It will come about fully when the Lord returns in glory.
A scientific or philosophic definition of the person that I can insert in Merrium-Webster’s? I really and truly don’t think it’s possible. There are two kinds: the saved and the unsaved…two very different definitions, and within each there is the telos—they’re in flux. You can try….I used to attempt that sort of thing. I find at the end of it soemthign like this: You learned all this information and wonder to yourself what you know. Then you come to realize that what really matters is who you know. The path, the truth, and the life is a person, Jesus. Not some abstract set of propositions. Propositions exist. But Chrsitianty is life. Our faith is never in truth itself. It is in Truth itself. Do you get what I’m saying? It’s not in the written word, but in the Word. Christ was the Word who spoke. We beleive the One who spoke. We therefore speak.
No….we’ve wound up talking past one another because we’re starting with different assumptions.
Yes.
I assume that when you say “the Bible says X,” that you can actually show where it says ‘x’.
You seem to assume that when you say “the Bible say X,” that is enough– because you think that’s what it means.
Perhaps you should try to mimic Christ in how He taught– as I said before, when He said “is it not written,” he followed with what was actually written.