Exceptional Humans

What makes human beings exceptional?

I recently read an article on The Economist about what makes human beings exceptional. The article is about an American anthropologist, Agustín Fuentes, who has recently written a book called, "The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional."

The article states, "In “The Creative Spark”, Agustín Fuentes, an anthropologist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, argues that it is the power of imagination, more than anything, that has made humans unique among the planet’s beasts." (Economist.com)

By stating the idea that imagination above all else is what makes humans exceptional, Fuentes is championing a new idea in the field of anthropology. According to the article, the field of anthropology typically attributes man's distinctiveness to "an aptitude for violence, exceptional intelligence, or a preternatural (superior) ability to cooperate." By promoting the idea that imagination is foremost among these, Fuentes is stepping into new ground in the field of anthropology as it examines human exceptionality.

In support of his thesis, Fuentes cites the evolutionary science idea of 'niche construction.' Niche construction is a relatively new idea, having emerged in the 1980s, and it seems as though Fuentes feels the idea of niche construction provides more evidence to explain humanity's ingenuity than anthropologists have fully realized up to this point. He feels as if it has been under-utilized and can give more accurate understanding than we currently have.

Niche construction is the idea of how our interactions with our environment can alter that environment to give ourselves an advantage. In the book, Fuentes examines how throughout our creative history as humans, we have consistently reshaped our environment to enable ourselves to be exceptional above our competitors. Fuentes argues that using niche construction, creatively spurred on by the use of humanity's imagination, is what sets us apart.

The article closes by saying, “The Creative Spark” is strong on man’s imaginative accomplishments and offers an important corrective to the skewed debate on human nature. A species that uniquely, ponders its own exceptionality will surely be fascinated by it."

According to the field of anthropology, human beings are exceptional over animals because of these reasons: violence, intelligence, the ability to cooperate, or our imaginative ability to influence the environment around us to our specific advantage. We are exceptional over animal life because we are naturally more violent, intelligent, cooperative, or imaginative.

Is it our violence, brainpower, ability to work together or our imagination that sets us apart?

What does the Bible say about human exceptionality?

There is an idea among theologians who disagree on ideas. If you are going to represent someone else's theology (for example if you are a Protestant explaining a Catholic's theology), you should represent their theology in a way that they themselves would represent it. My goal in examining the article on The Economist, is to represent the work the way Fuentes would represent it himself.

Having said that, I would now like to present what the Bible says is the cause (and source) of human exceptionality. What does the Bible say about why we are exceptional relative to animals?

We are exceptional because we are made in the image of God. 

Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27 ESV)

The Bible says that human beings are made in the image of God. God is our Creator. Human life is sacred because of our relation to God. We are to be in His image, to reflect His likeness to the world. In the creation story of Genesis, God puts special emphasis on humans. Elsewhere in Scripture we see that God even forms our hearts (Psalm 33:15) and that God knows us from the womb, forming us wonderfully!

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well. (Psalm 139:13-14 ESV)

What does it mean to be created in the image of God?

1. We are meant to be in relationship with God.

A newborn baby loves nothing more than to be cradled in the warm tenderness of his mother's bosom. In the same way, humans are made to know and live in relationship with our Creator. Genesis 3:8 even shows that God walked with Adam and Even in the garden in the cool of the day. God has formed our hearts, and our lives are meant to be ordered out of relationship with Him. I felt this deep internal strain throughout my life before I knew God, and I can testify to this being true:

Our hearts will always be searching until they find their rest in God. 

Humanity is exceptional when we are in relationship with God.

2. We are meant to reflect His glory, love, kindness, generosity, and goodness to the world. 

The Apostle John puts it simply in this way, "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.' (1 John 4:8 ESV)

John makes the point quite clearly. If you do not love like God, you do not know God. If you aren't showing God's sacrificial love, gentleness, kindness, and mercy it becomes quite apparent that you aren't in relationship with Him. Humanity is the pinnacle of God's creation, truly we can see this in the beautiful and remarkable people all around us! Oh have you ever met one of those saints who truly know God? They are the kindest, sweetest, most humble, good and gracious and generous people you could ever truly meet because they reflect the likeness of their Creator!

Humanity is exceptional because humans are fashioned and formed wonderfully by God, in His very likeness to reflect His image to the world.

3. We are to joyfully steward and enjoy God's creation out of reverence for Him. 

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28 ESV)

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 2:15 ESV)

In the creation story, God gives us work! God bestows upon us great dignity. We are to fill the earth and have dominion over it. We are to work the land and keep it. God makes us his co-workers to rule with Him over all of creation. This Scripture stands pointedly against the article from the Economist in how we humans are exceptional over animals. Our exceptionality comes from authority given by God himself.

Humanity is exceptional because we are given authority and purpose by God as we are His treasured possession and His most prized creation.

4. We are to preserve the sacred beauty of human life. 

God is jealous for his glory because He alone is worthy of all praise. Because human beings are made in the image of God, to reflect His glory, God is jealous for us. God wants us to live in justice, fairness, and dignity.

I am the LORD; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols. (Isaiah 42:8 ESV)

“Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image. (Genesis 9:6 ESV)

He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8 ESV)

God's laws are always meant to establish justice and guide us back to our human dignity. Because God is jealous for human dignity and justice and views human life as sacred, so should we.

Humans are exceptional because God has given us a special dignity and sacred beauty.

THERE IS A PROBLEM 

I have argued that the Bible affirms the exceptional nature of humans in these ways:

• We are exceptional in relationship with God.
• We are exceptional because of the beauty and care with which God made us. 
• We are exceptional because as the apple of God's eye He has given us special authority. 
• We are exceptional because God has given us special dignity as humans. 

These points reveal quite a beautiful picture of how human life is exceptional. 

If humanity is so exceptional, why is our world a mess?

Far from the love of God, our world is filled with strife, war, fighting, anger, hatred, and malice. Far from stewarding God's creation, we consistently devour the world's resources with little to no true regard for it. Consider the garbage barges in the ocean! Is that good stewardship over God's creation?

Instead of showing others human dignity, humans rape and kill and steal from one another. We find distinctions in race, gender, sexuality and other things as reasons to hate people and to dismiss and hurt others.  

Our world is a mess because we are out of relationship with God. Sin causes us to lose our relationship with God. The biggest problem in the world is sin. After Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they were exiled. The consequences of their sin meant they lost relationship with God and in our nature, so have we. Being out of relationship with God because of sin means our hearts are no longer towards Him. We start to bear God's image less and less. 

The Apostle Paul describes the problem this way,

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:22-25 ESV)

The further we move away from God, the more we lose our humanity. 

As we lose our humanity because we are out of relationship with God, we see how everything falls apart. Instead of caring for the world, we devour it. Instead of loving our neighbor, we hate our neighbor. Instead of affirming the dignity of human life, we kill and steal from each other. Sin corrupts our relationship with God and makes us desire to know Him less and less. The common portrait of hell in Scripture is that of separation from God. We bring this separation from God upon ourselves with our sin. 

Woe to humanity! What is the solution to this mess?

We have to look no further than the cross of Christ for the solution to this problem. 

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24 ESV)

Peter states it clearly. Jesus became a man and bore our sins in his death on the cross. Jesus suffered these wounds so that sin would no longer rule in our hearts. Jesus died on the cross for us, so that we could once again live unto God. 

By the wounds of Christ our relationship to God can be restored!

For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:10-11 ESV)

In Christ, we die to sin and once again are alive to God. We are able to live and be in relationship with God. By faith in Christ we become transformed. We are no longer a spiritually dead people (Ephesians 2:1) because of our sin, we are made spiritually alive in Christ by the Holy Spirit!

God is in the business of redeeming His creation through Christ. The cross was the opening act in God's plan to redeem and restore creation. First, we are born again of the Holy Spirit as we put our faith in Jesus. From this we then have a redeemed relationship with God and we live to please God because we rejoice in our great salvation and liberation from sin. We pass from old to new, flesh to spirit. Baptism is an outward picture of this inward change we have experienced in Christ. As we go under the water we demonstrate how we have died to our sin, and as we come up out of the water we demonstrate how we are united to and alive with Christ. 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:17-21 ESV)

Can you call yourself a new creation? Are you reconciled to God?

The gospel makes us new creations. We hear the word of Christ, that God has made a way for us. We were separated from God due to our sin - but by faith in Christ we are forgiven of our sin and our relationship to God can be restored!

To be clear, there is no other way to God than through Christ. We cannot work our way into a right standing with God. We cannot think our way into a right standing with God. We cannot save ourselves. Jesus has made the way by dying for sin, and when we put our faith in him we are declared righteous. We are justified and free from the guilt of sin. In Christ we become the righteousness of God because Jesus has paid our debt! In the knowledge of our great salvation, we become people who worship our Creator and as we live in relationship with God our very humanity begins to be renewed! 

Now as we live as these new creations in Christ, we go about in the work of helping God redeem His creation. We do this by being in relationship with God through prayer and Scripture reading. We redeem creation because in Christ we become people who once again reflect God's likeness as we grow up into Christ in holiness and love. We redeem creation as we joyfully steward and care for God's green earth and all its resources. We redeem creation as we affirm and value human dignity by loving our brother as God loves us. 

Apart from God we are a lost people whose sinful actions are destructive and fruitless. Renewed to relationship with God in Christ we are a found people who begin to create and redeem creation. 

In Christ we become loving, kind, productive, exceptional humans because we have been reconciled to God.

And one day, God will restore all things to those who have put their faith in Christ. 

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. (Revelation 21:1-7 ESV)

In conclusion, our sin has driven a wedge between us and God and is the biggest problem in our lives and the world today. Jesus Christ died for our sins that we might put our faith in him and once again have relationship with God. As we live out this faith, we are constantly renewed to become more and more like the image of God and as we do this our true humanity is restored. As these new creations in Christ, our lives are spent in joyful service of God to help others know Him through the gospel. We also work to redeem God's creation in every way we can. And one day, God himself will make all things new! He will be our God and we will be his children. 

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. (Matthew 13:43 ESV)

Humans that ponder their own exceptionality as given by God, and have it redeemed through the blood of Christ, will surely be fascinated by God and live to Him and for Him. 

Are you an exceptional human?