This post will uncover what makes humans unique from each other and special creations of God. Everything informed here is based on the article posted by Stephen Dingley titled What Makes Man Unique in God’s Creation. This article was posted in October 2015 on Faith Magazine.
In the article, Stephen Dingley examines an important question that is often asked in debates and discussions about the nature of human life and why humans matter. Psalm 8 is known to be a gorgeous reflection on the creation of God and it asks something that is important, which is:
When I see the heavens, the works of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him?
Before anything, let’s talk about the man first. What is the man? Everyone is an animal. We keep going with the rest of the physical creation. Each of us is blessed with a couple of eyes and ears and muscles like kangaroos and pandas. Just like slugs and bananas, we are made of cells and just like washing machines and planets, we are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons.
On the contrary, it does not mean that we are only animals. We are only a bunch of fundamental particles. There is no way for us to ignore the real truth of our animal nature. Besides, there is also no use to avoid the burning question that is raised by this fact, which is the origin of the human body. According to scientific opinion, our body has come about through the nature of processes of evolution. However, human evolution is denied by some even today. This kind of thing leads to many issues.
Evolution
The fact of evolution is that different species of life have a common natural origin and it is impossible to be denied. The evidence is strong. There are fossils of different species in rocks of different ages. Many of them show vestigial structures from their ancestry. For example, the rest of the snake’s body. Above everything, there should be the explanation of the similarity of living things, anatomically and genetically.
St Augustine
Saint Augustine of Hippo already understood this thing 1500 years before Darwin. The man pointed out that the days of creation are hard to understand literally. The reason is because days are defined by the passage of the sun and the sun was not created until day four. Not only that, he was also aware about the disastrous effects of denying scientific knowledge in the name of religion.
Continuity and Difference
Humans are interested in sport, as well as culture such as art, music, TV, and video games. We love to explore things. There are two other characteristic features of human life that have to be mentioned. The first one is that we understand our actions to have absolute moral value, above, and beyond their practical usefulness. Second, we understand ourselves to be personally responsible for our actions, which are different when compared to animals. For example, while putting a dangerous dog down, the one that is blamed is the human owner as they fail to control its bad behavior.
Religion
Religion is the next thing that sets humans from the animals. It has been known that human beings have always looked for God. We know that the world and us are not self explanatory. Instead, it needs some higher cause. When there is no religion, it is hard to be happy. Instead, we would feel empty and want to give up.
Meanwhile, the only things that are interesting to animals are the bare necessities of life, such as food, shelter, reproduction, and so on. While they might have very complex behavior, it is mostly focused on biological needs. They do not go to watch football matches or so on.
Transcending
We transcend our material makeup as animals. In fact, being an animal is clearly not enough for humans. As a human, we transcend control by the physical environment and the biological instincts. For instance, there is an instinct to eat while we prefer to fast instead. Basically, every one of us has free will. While our bodies follow the laws of science, we are not simply controlled by them. We are definitely not robots.
Look Further
Trying to understand the difference between humans and the other animals requires looking further than the brains. In fact, the human brains are about three times bigger than would be expected for a primate of our size. However, brains are known as material. Bigger brains make animals smarter.
The Big Bang
The form of laws of science is taken by several things from the Big Bang until the threshold of humanity of this law. In the end, it brings about the emergence and evolution of life. Due to the fact that evolution is controlled by the processes of natural selection, all the physical characteristics will only develop within the parameters of what is biologically useful. The next development would be naturally chosen. It is possible to happen to the brain as well. However, it has been known that the meaning of the mind in ways which go beyond biological relevance.
The Soul
It can be said that the soul did not evolve. Evolution is known as a material process that is governed by the laws of science. From this definition, it can be said that the soul refers to the aspect of the man that goes beyond matter. It has to be directly given by God and it was given about 150,000 years ago. It is given every time a human is conceived. It is when the law of the God starts to operate at the spiritual and material level.
That is the brief information about what makes humans unique from each other and special creations of Gods according to Stephen Dingley. If you want to find the details, visit Faith Magazine.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
