The Foundations and Scope of Human Dignity According To Christianity

Rev. N. Bruce McLeod

If the world is empty of all purposes beyond what human beings can lay upon it by the courage of their own living, then the case for human dignity must rest on the quality of human character, on the growth of arrangements for living together in mutual understanding and respect, and on the widespread conviction that mankind must prevail.

But the basic conviction, common to many religious communities, is that we are not alone, we live in God's world. From that perspective, the foundation for human dignity does not reside in men and women and in their innate character, but in the relationship in which they find themselves in this kind of a world. Dignity is the corollary of a relationship, the anchor end of which does not rest in us. As human beings, we are taken seriously bu a creative presence which was working in the world before we arrived, and which would use us, such as we are, while we are here. What dignity we have is not of our own making. It is conferred upon us. It is a gift of grace.

Other religious communities respond to that presence through the traditions that are theirs. Christians encounter it through Jesus of Nazareth, in the experience of his people Israel and his church. The story is remembered and recounted neither out of historical interests alone, but because it is a paradigm for the universal human experience.

The dignity of the people of Israel and the followers of Jesus were not self-generated. It consisted, rather, in their being the channels of an earth-loving purpose that would work itself through them. They were not chosen because of their dignity; their dignity was a function of their being chosen. Not many wise or noble among them, their loyalty unpredictable at best, there was nevertheless a relentless love around them which would not let go and which brought with it a dignity that no one, not even they themselves, could take away.

But such dignity is not confided to the people of Israel or to the following of Jesus; it belongs to everyone. For Christians, Jesus embodies, but does not enclose, a purposeful presence which "enlightens every man". Not waiting on our belief to believe in us, it uses even Cyrus of Persia (who may never have noticed) to "fulfill my purpose"(1). "Surely you know that you are God's temple where the spirit of God dwells"(2) wrote Paul. But the spirit of God "blows where it wills"(3). Its dwelling place cannot be restricted to those who say its name in a certain way. Peter admitted (to his own surprise) that "God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean"(4).

The creative purpose of God surrounds everyone who wears a human face, and is the ultimate source of what the United Nations calls the "inherent dignity... and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family"(5). Not just the people of Israel, or Christians, but every man and every woman has been created "in the image of God"(6). In contrast to some folk-tales in which only the king reflects the image of God, every human being is marked with this dignity which is, consequently the right or power of any king, government or society to abrogate or to erase.

In both the New and Old Testament, the divine presence defines itself and is experienced as a persistent thrust towards liberation from all that frustrates the goodness of creation. Jesus consciously identifies his ministry with that of the ancient Servant of the Lord, "anointed... to preach good news to the poor... to proclaim release to the captives and recovering the sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed"(7). The people of Israel encounter God in their own experience of liberation from bondage. In response, they commit themselves to a covenant of righteousness in which aliens, widows, and the fatherless are upheld by those who are strong, even as "The Lord lifts those who are bowed down"(8).

Beyond its historical specificity, the bondage of Israel is also the story of those in every age and nation who are bent beneath their full stature and forced to make bricks out of straw. The covenant of the righteous community is glimpse and foretaste of the way the world was always meant to be and, one day, will become. "If I should be killed" says Dom Helder Camara in Brazil, "God will raise up someone else to continue the work". "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it"(9)

There is a dignity proper to men and women who are the objects of such undiscouraged liberating love. There is also a dignity belonging to those who are invited to "follow"(10) and to share the liberating mission. The invitation, and consequently dignity, is extended beyond the people of Israel, and Christians, to all men and women who, created in the image of God, are, as such, commissioned to "have dominion" in the name of God over that part of the good creation which is within their reach(11).

If the foundation for human dignity lies in God's purpose for his creation, its scope extends to wherever people live together. Individual dignity is established only by the affirmation of the dignity of others. "If a man says, 'I love God' while hating his brother, he is a liar. If he does not love the brother whom he has seen, it cannot be that he loves God whom he has seen"(12). "The God of Biblical revelation" writes Gutierrez, "is known through interhuman justice. Where justice does not exist, God is not known"(13). Those who were condemned in Jesus' parable of the Last Judgment were not those who had been bad, but those who had been absent. "I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not cloth me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me"(14).

A further dimension of the dignity of those who are not accorded dignity in the world's terms is uncovered in the affirmation that they are not simply the object of God's concern, they are the place where, in this world, his presence can be found. "As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me"(15). Where God's future for the world is resisted, his presence is encountered in the sufferings of those who are hurt(16). In Jesus' parable, the verbs of feeding, caring, welcoming and visiting are not ways of pleasing some far-off God. They are roads to his presence who is already in the hurting place and is expecting us to come. The cross of Jesus is not confined to Calvary, but is reared again whenever human dignity is denied and people are oppressed.

The embarrassment of the church which holds these convictions is its continuing inability to reflect an unambiguous commitment to human dignity in its own life and style. But the liberating spirit that draws the world into life is not dependent on, or confined to, the institutional church; nor is God's witnessing community coexistence with its bounds. The church maintains what dignity it has by allowing "Abrahamic minorities" in its midst to continually redirect its unwieldy energy towards the cause of all whose human rights are robbed, and towards the recognition of the God-given dignity of every man, woman and child in its own community, and across the loved earth.

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Footnotes:

1. Isaiah 44:28.

2. I Corinthians 3:16.

3. John 3:8.

4. Acts 10:28.

5. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.

6. Genesis 1:27.

7. Luke 4:18-21.

8. Psalm 146: 8-9; Deuteronomy 14:28 - 15:15, I Corinthians 12:26.

9. John 1:5.

10. Mark 1:17 ect.

11. Genesis 1:27.

12. I John 4:20.

13. G. Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, New York: Orbis, 1973, p. 195.

14. Matthew 25: 31-46.

15. Ibid., ocf. Isaiah 53.

16. R. Alves, A Theology of Hope, Washington: Corpus, 1969, p. 117.

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© 2007 Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St. Thomas University