The Christian or Biblical View of Self

1. Mankind is the “crown of creation” because mankind is unique in significant

ways. An insignificant way would be size, for example.
2. Only humans speak and write in words and sentences, give names to things,
and invent new words.
3. Only humans use logic and negation, express thoughts and feelings in
sentences, and write letters, books, and comments on Quora. :-)
4. Only humans have a spiritual nature, build temples and houses of worship, and
express a hope for life after death.
5. Only humans were created in the image of God. (Genesis 1:27)

Because man has evolved a brain and body fitted to be used by God as a vehicle for experiencing
this physical reality. Man can do deductive and inductive logic, which no other species can do
(as far as we know). Man has imagination, which is the creative force in the universe
(consciousness).
We are the crown of creation. The other texts read this morning testify, in their own way, to
this same truth. Wisdom calls to us, meaning we are capable of hearing wisdom’s voice.
The Spirit will come to us, Jesus says. We are capable of being people in whom the Spirit of
God dwells. Human beings have remarkable and wonderful and mysterious capacities for
creativity, imagination, intelligence, empathy, compassion.
Sometimes I ponder all that has happened in their life time: wide use of the telephones to
cell phones, radio broadcasts bringing news of the world closer to television bringing
pictures of the world into our homes, personal computers, portable music from records to
CDs to Mp3s, ice boxes to refrigerators, the vast expansion of the use of automobiles. Think
of the creativity, energy and imagination represented in all these inventions.
We are not only creative and inventive people, we have an enormous capacity for empathy,
compassion and care – even to the point of sacrificing ourselves for others.
Human beings are creative, imaginative, energetic. We are able to empathize, to care, to
live with compassion, to sacrifice for others.
When we listen to wisdom and the Spirit, we know that we are the crown of creation. In all
creation only humans have the deep self-reflective capacity to consider who we are and what we
are doing. When we listen to wisdom and the voice of the Spirit, we also know that as the crown
of creation, we can wreck havoc on each other and on creation, and we need to be mindful and
watchful. We need Christian faith to be reminded of who we are, and to be encouraged to choose
Spirit, to choose wisdom, to choose compassion, to choose goodness, to choose kindness, to
choose justice, to choose peace, to choose love.

We have here a very man-centered view of the world and a very God-centered view of man. Man is
the center and summit of creation. Everything is made for his sake. Evidence of this is the
observable bodily and spiritual superiority of man (language, reason, upright posture) as well as his
special supernatural gifts (existing as God's image, as the goal of the incarnation of God, as called to
eternal beatitude).
Perhaps the most familiar and most critical point to make here is that we are made in God's
image and likeness. God made us different from everything else, to be like him in a way that
nothing else is like him, to have the capacity to respond to him that nothing else has. There is a
form of divinity that has been implanted in us that we cannot get rid of. We understand God, we
know God, we long for him, we are receptive of him, we sense him, we need him in ways that
nothing else created ever did, because he made us that way. I'd like to make three points in this
regard.

First, being made in the image of God means that you're aware of yourself; you have a
personality. Perhaps you have a pet that you think has a personality, a cat or a hog that seems to
have a sense of humor and so on. But beyond any degree to which an animal can have a
personality, we do. We know who we are. And because we're aware of ourselves, because we live
in an environment we understand, because we can take or reject the opportunities we have, we
are responsible agents.

Second, we are aware of each other. This too comes from being made in the image of God. The
person next to you is also of the Lord, has the same hunger for God as you, and is also loved by
God. From little babies to the very elderly, bright, foolish, strong, and weak, everyone we know
is made in the image and likeness of God. They deserve justice and should be loved and
respected. They are the fit objects of our compassion. The very reason that you deserve all those
things, and you know you do, also declares that everyone else deserves them. It follows that we
ought to be advocates of justice and to want the best for human beings of every nation, race,
culture, etc.

Third, to be made in the image and likeness of God means that we have awareness of the living
God himself, the capacity to worship God, to fall on our knees before him, to humble ourselves,
to confess our sins, to receive his grace, to write words of praise, to know that he alone makes
sense of things and that he will hear our prayers.

All of that we know deep down inside, no matter how long we've lived in the distant country and
eaten with the pigs, no matter how much destruction has taken place in our world, no matter
how familiar we are with the country where the survival of the fittest is the law of the land. Deep
down we know that it used to be different, and that we are persons and that others are persons
and that he is God. This indestructible awareness leads us, if we permit, to turn back, reach out,
and call for help.

There are other important comments we can make about verses 26-28. We read that God made
us male and female, blessed us, and called on us to be fruitful. All of those phrases are
significant.
Every other distinction that exists between human beings-language, ethnicity, wealth, culture-
are way down the line in terms of human experience, compared to the distinction of gender.
From the beginning we were made male and female. To be expressed clearly, the image of God
requires both masculine and feminine human beings. It requires men to be men and women to
be women. The facts that we are equal to one another, we require one another, and God displays
himself in both genders in community all go back to creation.

When it says God blessed us, it means he expected us to have a great life. And when he called us
to be fruitful and multiply, it was not only in terms of having children, but of experiencing joy
and adventure, investing ourselves in what is worth doing. Every generation since the first
carries some memory of humanity as it ought to be before we wished our father dead and left for
the distant country of sin and shame.