You need to know what a thing is before you know how you must regard it and how you may treat it.
When I was a graduate student, a professor came to our seminar with several clear plastic sandwich bags filled with white powder. She passed them around and told us to taste the contents of each bag. Do you know what our first question was? “What is it?” White powder. It could have been rat poison or vanilla pudding mix. It makes a difference. I would enjoy the one and die from the other. The similarities – whiteness, powderiness – were not important at that point. What mattered was the difference. The important thing for us to know before putting any in our mouths was what made the contents of each bag distinct.
This leads to the basic principle that you have to know what a thing is before you know how you must regard it and how you may treat it. Another example would be if I put a pencil on your desk and you didn’t know what it is. You probably wouldn’t treat it properly. You might try to use it as, let’s say, an eating utensil. You could spear your meat, okay, but then what’s the lead for and what’s the eraser for? You need to know what a thing is in order to use it well, that is, according to its design. And for every design, there is a designer who holds the answer.
So, for ethics, we need to know what we are according to the Creator’s intentions. Can we learn to see ourselves as God sees us? And then can we see others as we see ourselves? And we need to decide if all human lives should be treated with equal respect. Why or why not? To do that, ask yourself, for example, whether a human embryo is the same kind of thing as yourself. How you answer those questions will form the foundation for your ethical views.
But is it even possible to define what a human being is in any meaningful way without God in the picture? French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, did not think so. He said that man’s existence precedes his essence. By this, he meant that there is no such thing as universal human nature, an objective purpose or end (telos) that applies to everyone the same. He says that we make ourselves what we are. First, you exist and then you define yourself afterward. Your humanity is not something you discover in awe and wonder; it is something you devise and perform. The meaning of your life is something you choose, not something you are given. You have no essence prior to your existence.
This talk of essences might be unfamiliar to some readers. A thing’s essence is that fundamental element, that defining aspect, which makes the thing what it is. In my pencil example, we have a utensil which is oriented for written communication and has certain characteristics which distinguish it from other similar things such as pens and typewriters. Individual pencils may vary greatly from one another, but no one would mistake a pencil for a laptop or, for that matter, a potato masher. The reason this is true is because we know, either instinctively or from experience, what the nature of a pencil is and how that is distinct from things of a different kind. Furthermore, once I understand a pencil’s nature, I can discern its purpose. And then all of its component parts make sense.
Now let’s talk about people. Traditional Christian thought says that there is such a thing as human nature, created by God. There is something that every human being, without exception, shares with every other human being and it is something that is unique to humanity as a whole. There is some quality that defines us as human creatures. What is that quality? Whatever else it may be, it not an attribute that we acquire. It is not something that we choose for ourselves. It is something innate, present from each one’s beginning.
Let us consider God’s work of creation in Genesis chapter one. The Scripture says that He made human beings in His own image and likeness. That claim is made of no other beings, neither beasts nor angels. Only man and woman were created with this identity, however it is defined by theologians. In fact, it is this quality that makes human life inviolable. You cannot kill a human being because of this (Genesis 9:6) and that is a rule which no one can change.
And let us go beyond creation to redemption. The other thing that makes humans unique is that the only-begotten and eternal Son of God become one of us in order to save, restore, and glorify us. Our Lord did not become a goose to save geese. He did not become an archangel to save the angels. He became a man, the Adam, to redeem human beings. And as man is made of the stuff of the earth, his substantial restoration impacts the material cosmos, just as his corruption has (see Romans 8).
By binding His divine nature with our human nature, He takes the fatal contamination of our humanity into Himself and makes us co-participants with Him of His divine life. This is the incarnation as salvation. As Martin Chemnitz observed:
Although our wretched human nature because of sin has been torn away and alienated from God, who is life itself (Eph. 4:8; Is. 49:8 ff.), yet His physical body, which is of the same substance with us, is most intimately joined and united with the divine nature in the person of the Son of God because of the hypostatic (personal) union, that in this way the restitution and reparation of it [our human nature] becomes surer and more certain, and thus we in turn are made participants (κοινωνοί) of the divine nature in Christ (2 Peter 1:4), and thus also receive fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (1 John 1:3).[1]
Christian anthropology, soteriology, and Christology are interconnected. And if we see ethics as a theological category, we can draw practical wisdom from seeing that interconnection.
Even if we become confused, God knows what a human being is. He is one. And it is His mission to commune with us for ages upon ages. So, when you gaze into a mirror or encounter an embodied rational spirit like yourself, remember to address and treat those subjects according to what they are. God knows it and now you do too.
[1] Martin Chemnitz, The Two Natures in Christ, Chemnitz’s Works (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007), volume 6:40.