Tag Archive | What are we?
What explains the contradiction of humanity?
What explains the contradiction of humanity?
Hospitals and especially children’s hospitals are a testimony to the beauty and brokenness of our world. Humanity is capable of amazing feats structurally and scientifically. We build edifices and index illnesses.
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We build this collectively in community. Because we are mightier together. That’s the purposive power of politics and how and why societies formed. We come together because we have to. We are not enough in and of our self. We need each other. And can’t make it on our own.
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We’re frail and we fail. We’re weak and sometimes very wrong. We are both sinful and sick.
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That’s why hospitals, even children’s hospitals, exist. Because we need care. We have things that go wrong—even in our own bodies. And we do wrong. To each other. Sometimes sadly even to children.
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So, hospitals tell us something profound. They tell us something about ourselves. They tell us we are at the same time mighty—capable of accomplishing a lot. Yet at the same time monsters—capable of moral atrocities. And all the time, we are not enough on our own.
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That brings up a question. What are humans? If we are “gods” as some say, why do we so often grovel? If we are mere germs—plagues on the earth—as others say, why are we capable of such glory? What explains the dual nature of our nature?
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Which intuition is correct? What are we?
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Could it be that we are neither goo nor god, but essentially goo made in the image of God? Could it be that our duality reflects flawless design yet fallen? What if we’re all not quite what we were meant to be? What we could be?
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Doesn’t that view seem intuitive? It certainly does to me. It seems to me to be, strangely, what we see in the world.
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We’re not exactly that thing or that other thing. We’re both together at the same time. We are mixed. An ocean of motion. We’re a contradiction of commotion.
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We have the tendency of both sinner and saint, of a god and mere goo. Why?
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The Bible says it is because we were made perfect and in God’s image—formed from the dirt of the ground. But that we turned and turn from God’s way. We struck out and strike out on our own. We sin. We disobey the good way He has laid out for us.
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That, the Bible says, explains humanity’s duality. That’s how we got to be the way we are. So very capable and incapable at the same time.
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That’s the wonder of us. That’s who we are. But if that’s true. What does it mean?
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Is the cautionary contradiction the residue of what’s true? Does it point us to a past reality?
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I believe it’s one of the cookie crumb trails. It’s DNA evidence pointing back to a cold case question. It may not all at once confirm a conclusion about Christianity, but it does point in a definite direction. It fits the case that Christianity argues while bringing up questions to other philosophies.
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When I weigh the evidence and the alibis are in, there’s more mounting evidence that points to the truth of the Christian philosophy. As C. S. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
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Christianity not only makes sense to me, but it also makes sense of the world I see. The fact that the world is both fallen and flourishing is just one example. But it’s another example that collaborates with other evidence.
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Therefore, I believe the contradiction of humanity points to the truthfulness of Christianity.
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*Photo by Ksenia Kazak
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