Humanity’s Strange Place in the Cosmos

I think one of the great losses of our age is the knowledge of what it means to be human. In almost every conceivable way we have more knowledge as a species than has ever existed throughout time. Science has helped us grasp the mysteries of the universe. We know vast quantities about biology, geology, physics, advanced technology, global events, and a host of other topics but somehow it seems to me that we actually know less about ourselves than we used to. What I mean is if you look back over the course of human history, it seems like we used to know ourselves a bit better, we used to have a better grasp on both our potential for good but also our potential for foolishness and outright evil. Now we seem to be surprised by our weakness, shocked by human stupidity, and genuinely at a loss for how evil can still sit so deep in the human heart. We’ve assumed that we are mostly good and progressing toward perfection. Any bit of counter data that disrupts that narrative genuinely perplexes us. But I feel like we used to have a better grasp of what it means to be human and a fuller appreciation of the complexity of our existence. I think part of it comes from forgetting our place in the universe, from either thinking we should be God, or from seeing ourselves as indistinguishable from animals. 

The Bible sums it up well. Psalm 8 says,

Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,  
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,  
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,  
the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.  
Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!  

In this Psalm you have God and you have creation, but the psalmist is trying to grasp what role humanity has in all of this. Humans occupy a strange middle category between God and creation. While they are firmly on the side of creation, having been made by God, God also breathed his own life into them and gave them an image bearing status over creation. We’re mysterious; part divine, part dirt. We have a profound connection to the material world, with a hint of transcendence over it. This makes our actions much more impactful for the creational order than the actions of other animals. According to Scripture we do indeed share a kinship with monkeys, fish and amoebas because we’re created. We’re physical and contingent. We have needs and are constrained. Yet we’re different as well. We can be purposeful in a way that animals can’t. We sit at the top of the creational order and have a responsibility for the rest of it. We have a "glory and honor" that somehow distinguishes us from other beings. In short, we’re complex, and God has given us a unique position; not God but responsible for creation; crowned with glory and honor but created and meant to give praise to God; dust yet deeply important to God; created in the image of God but twisted by sin. We’re a knot of seeming opposites. Any attempt to understand ourselves has to thread the needle, understanding our immense worth yet not placing us in the position of God. We have capacities for good and evil in equal measure. We’re broken but loved. With this mix of characteristics and capacities nothing should surprise us about ourselves.    

This all matters because without an understanding of where we fit, we’re often hijacked by other narratives and conceptions of what we should be. Each one claims to be the true account of who we are and claims to provide the answers for our deepest longings. They pit different aspects of who we are against one another. Alternately over emphasizing our importance or negating it completely. However, recapturing a proper understanding of who we are and our place in the universe would be an antidote to many issues that divide us, not least politically.

The immensity of human worth means that anything that devalues human life has to be called into question like abortion and medically assisted suicide but also racism and nationalism that would value certain groups of people more highly than others. Also, if we’re stewards of creation, we have a responsibility for the environment and have to take things like climate change seriously. It isn’t enough to claim our power over nature. We have to ask if we’re exercising our responsibility justly.  Finally, worship is woven into the fabric of our being. If we don’t worship the one true God, we’ll inevitably worship other things. We have to be vigilant for the lessor gods calling for our worship and unmask them for the counterfeits they are, while unashamedly urging everyone toward praise of the One actually worthy of it. Knowing ourselves again could only help move us toward all of that.