The Glory of Man

The Literature of the Heretics, pt. 7

“Probably the most daunting task that we face, as partly rational animals with adrenal glands that are too big and prefrontal lobes that are too small, is the contemplation of our own relative weight in the scheme of things. Our place in the cosmos is so unimaginably small that we cannot, with our miserly endowment of cranial matter, contemplate it for too long.” – Christopher Hitchens

“Of course, it could be argued that humans are more capable of, for example, suffering than other species. This could well be true, and we might legitimately give humans special status by virtue of it. But evolutionary continuity shows that there is no absolute distinction. Absolutist moral discrimination is devastatingly undermined by the fact of evolution.” – Richard Dawkins

“What is man that you are mindful of him?” asks King David in Psalm 8, “...and the son of man that you care for him?” These are questions that man has wrestled with for exactly as long as he’s existed as man. Where are we, as human beings, to be placed among the vast panoply of living creatures? Furthermore, who are we to even ask such questions as these?

It never ceases to surprise me that these sorts of questions can still incite such bitter disagreement; they are questions that prove almost endlessly divisive with certain audiences, and how they are answered reveals a great deal about a person’s preconceptions and prejudices.

I, for one, believe very strongly in the intrinsic glory of mankind. I believe, and not only because the Bible says so, that human beings hold a unique place, both among the creatures of the Earth, and in the universe at large. Man is the nothing less than the height of all creation; the apex of all that is and all that ever will be outside of heaven.

A small part of me can see why some would find this statement controversial (and, strangely, politically incorrect), but the rest of me understands that it is nothing more than the most natural belief in the world. It is a belief often (derisively) associated with faith, but it really is the very opposite of a statement taken on faith—it is the only conclusion backed up by tangible evidence. It is a thing that an innocent child, born into the world and not in any way predisposed to believe or not to believe in either science or religion, would automatically assume. An innocent could only look at the world and see the vast gulf between man and animal and it would take no measure of faith at all to assume that there was something unique about man. They would gaze into the heavens and they would find no evidence to suggest that the ground on which they stood was anything but the most remarkable place in the universe.

What requires faith is to take the opposite stance. The heretics go to great lengths to remind their readers that they (both author and reader alike) are nothing special; they are mere mammals communicating with other mammals. That they have evolved something like speech is nothing to be boastful about; it is simply what nature has accomplished. That they are able to sit in their studies behind their computer monitors and ponder the truth of their own existence is nothing at all to be boastful about. It is no different than a dolphin whistling a tune into the vast sea—well, different in degree, maybe, but certainly not in kind.

If ever one wants to truly rile a humanist, one need only tell them that there is something somehow important about their humanity. Christopher Hitchens calls it an “obvious” atrocity that the theist should believe in Himself as privileged among creation. He thinks it ignorant that we should believe there to be anything special about our planet. But why should anyone be so sensitive to humans being pleased by their humanity? Why should anyone treat it as if it were some great sin (if that word is appropriate) to believe in human uniqueness?

And this goes doubly so for those who believe that it is somehow in bad taste to indulge in a little “cosmic anthropocentrism”. Even at the risk of offending the undiscovered “other” beings on other worlds, perhaps in other galaxies (or other universes?), I have no problem stating emphatically that man is unique among the creatures just as the earth is unique among the planets. Man is unique among the creatures of the earth because he alone has stepped beyond reason and created art and mythology; the earth is unique among the planets because it has man (and cedar forests and rolling, lavender covered hills and a few other things that we have not yet found elsewhere).

Hitchens demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of history than when he says that, “We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centered or man-centered (let alone God-centered) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge.” The truth is not nearly as dramatic as historians like to believe: Galileo did nothing more profound than provide evidence to confirm the existing theory that the earth revolved around the sun (something that would certainly have been determined within a few years even without him). Any impact beyond this is mere extrapolation by scientists and philosophers with agendas other than discovering truth.

The case of Galileo does present an interesting dilemma for the Christian, of course, and it really ought to be briefly dealt with, once and for all: The church (for reasons I have trouble fully understanding) once had a difficult time accepting the revelation that the Earth might revolve around another body. They thought it somehow harmful to the faith to discover that we were not a stationary body around which the universe rotated. This led, of course, to the famous Galileo incident, which the heretics bring up time and again, as if it somehow encompasses the absolute worst moment of the church’s history. Reading a humanist account of the “persecution” of Galileo (which consisted of a comfortable house arrest and a less-than-forceful denouncement) leads one to almost believe that the Crusades and Inquisition were summer picnics in comparison. Kill as many heretics as you want, but don’t touch the scientists. Nevertheless, it is worth admitting that the church was clearly in the wrong in the case of Galileo, but only because it is indicative of a greater problem: the church has long focused on things that really don’t matter. We should have had far more important things to think about than what some Italian astronomer was saying about the solar system, but we got bogged down by it and are still reeling from the effects today.

How could it possibly have hurt the church to learn that the sun is at the geographic center of our solar system? What do we lose when the Earth moves out of the center and we are made smaller and (seemingly) more insignificant in relation to the size of the universe?

Nothing at all is lost. In fact, much truth can be gained by this understanding. The church ought to have been wise enough to see the benefit of what Galileo was demonstrating: that we, the glory of God’s creation, are but atoms in relation to the universe. But we do not need to be great or geographically centered, for when we are made less, God is made more (John the Baptist was on to something with his beautiful statement, “He must increase and I must decrease”). The size of the universe makes it all the more remarkable that He should care anything at all for us.

So, on the cosmic level, we may not be at the center of things, but we remain unique and privileged. Telescope after telescope continue to be built to scan the heavens for planets outside of our solar system, and scores have been found already, the result being that we remain unique. Dead planet after dead planet is discovered and catalogued; we land rovers on dead planets in our own solar system that may have once been covered in water, and yet we remain unique, for water is not the thing that makes the earth unique. Man is.

I’ve heard countless accusations of “human arrogance” or “anthropocentrism”—but the reality is that there are really few things more beautiful than anthropocentrism. There are few things more comforting than the knowledge that we, the highest of creation (to say otherwise requires a particularly blind sort of faith) hold a special place in the universe. The sun may not revolve around the Earth, but there is nothing on the sun, nor on any other planet in our solar system, that has ever taken the time to understand this. Like it or not, we are the center of the solar system, and we are the center of the known universe.

How is the Christian to respond to this? To many, anthropocentrism is akin to pride, and that is what must be guarded against. The most perfect response comes, as it often does, in the Psalms, reflecting, not the small, human-centered universe that the heretic believes was taught by the early church, but a vast, awesome place:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

And crowned him with glory and honor.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

All sheep and oxen,

And also the beasts of the field,

The birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,

Whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord,

How majestic is your name in all the earth!

What is this but a perfect statement of a perfect paradox: the glory and the humility of man? Our true place in the universe can only ever be understood in our relationship with God; and because I believe in this, I have no problem reaffirming that science alone cannot capture the awe and splendor of creation. And that’s a pity.