What Are You Looking For: Part 3: Living Your Life In Christ

The Dignity of Mankind

Way back in the depths of time, in Genesis 1:26a, 27 we read: “Then God said, ‘Let us make human begins in our image, after our likeness….God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”  Unfortunately for us, we don’t know, and can never fully know, just what that meant.  This is because we can never know just what our first parents lost when they chose to believe the Enemy’s lie and fell into sin.  When Adam and Eve fell, mankind’s thinking was darkened.  We will never know this side of heaven, what they lost for all of us.  But…

            That image of God is still within us.  It’s important to note God didn’t say he created the angels in his image and likeness.  He didn’t create dogs or cats or anything else in his image and likeness.  He created us in his image and likeness.  And then, after Adam and Eve sinned, he sent his own son to be one of us.  To laugh like we do.  To cry like we do.  To work like we do.  To be born like we are.  To die in the manner reserved for the very worst offenders of his day.  Once upon a time, the Holy Spirit quickened the womb of a poor Jewish girl and in doing so elevated the entire human race from the fallen state they were in to, potentially, sons and daughters of Almighty God.  I say potentially, because it is up to us to choose to enter his kingdom or not.

            The dignity of mankind means that “Endowed with ‘a spiritual and immortal’ soul, the human person is ‘the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake’.  From his conception, he is destined for eternal beatitude.” (Heavenly happiness or bliss) (CCC 1703)  Think about that.  Dogs aren’t created for their own sake.  They are created to serve us.  Fish aren’t created for their own sake.  They are created to feed us.  The entire universe wasn’t created for its own sake.  It was created to house us and challenge us and point us to the One who created everything. 

            Because we are created in God’s image and likeness, we have a soul and a spirit.  Just as God is Spirit, so too are we, and our spirit is always yearning to find its way back to its Creator.  We are also created with freewill.  This means we get to choose whether or not we are going to answer that yearning of our spirit for its Creator, or not.  Some have chosen not to, and that is why we have such evil in the world.

            We also use our God-given reason and will to think things through and decide.  Every time we choose to do good and not evil, it is because our consciences speak to us of the right course of action.  With our will, we determine to follow good, no matter what the cost.  We choose to follow Christ, even when it isn’t easy.  And oftentimes, following Christ isn’t an act of emotion in that we don’t feel a spiritual high, or consolation or even much of anything.  It is then that our walk becomes an act of will; an act of faith.  Our reason tells us what is good and right and will lead us to eternal life, to eternal beatitude and we will to do it.  That is part of the “image and likeness of God” in us.

            Without God, whether we recognize it or not, none of us would even exist.  As St. Paul told the Athenians: “For ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’” (Acts 17:28 NABRE) The image of God exists in every person ever created.  This knowledge should elevate our definition of human dignity.  This should change how we think about the people around us, the people we meet every day.  Because that image is at the core of every human being, we should view every person we meet through that lens.  Including ourselves.  This is especially true of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Just as we possess the Son of the Living God within us, so do they.  I think if we can ever grasp that, if we can ever begin to understand, just a little bit, what it means to be created in the “image and likeness” of God not only will it change us, we will change the world.