What Is Man that Thou Hast Mentioned Him?: Psalm 8 and the Nature of the Human Person

Tsalrn Eight 1FOr the leader; "upon the gittith."A psalm ofDavid. I 2O Lord, our Lord, how glorious is your name over all the earth! You have exalted your majesty above the heavens. Out ofthe mouths ofbabes and sucklings you have fashioned praise because of your foes, to silence the hostile and the vengeful. 4When I behold your heavens, the work ofyour fingers, the moon and die stars which you set in place— 5What is man that you should be mindful ofhim, or the son ofman that you should care for him? II 6You have made him little less than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. 7You have given him rule over the works ofyour hands, putting all things under his feet: 8AIl sheep and oxen, yes, and the beasts ofthe field, 9The birds ofthe air, the fishes ofthe sea, and whatever swims the paths of the seas. 10O Lord, our Lord, how glorious is your name over all the earth! (New American Bible) Gary A. Anderson What Is Man that Thou Hast Mentioned Him? Psalm 8 and the Nature of the Human Person Of all the texts in the Bible, certainly one of the most famous and beloved is that of Psalm 8 . It remains something ofan icon even in our own day. And within that psalm, pride ofplace must be awarded to the verses that constitute its very center: When I behold your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place—What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him? You have made him little less than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor.You have given him rule over the works ofyour hands, putting all things under his feet. (Ps. 8:4—7) These words of praise for those whom God most favors have found many a receptive ear even in this enlightened and most secular age. It was the text of this psalm, at the prompting of the Pope, that was placed in a metal cylinder and deposited on the surface of the moon.1 The very modern and recent words of the astronaut Neil Armstrong, "one small step for man, one giant leap for LOGOS 3:1 WINTER 2000 LOGOS mankind," create a striking intertextual echo with psalmic lines, a testimony to scripture's ability to span the restless advance of historical time and place profound human achievements in a theological perspective. Frequently at Harvard when I make my way toward its wooded central quadrangle, my eye is drawn to the inscription carved at the top of Emerson Hall, the home of the department of philosophy: "What is man that thou thinkest ofhim?"As we stand poised to enter a new millennium and find ourselves exploring our own genetic and cellular structure with perspicacity that takes one's breath away, perhaps we too can sing these psalmic lines with renewed intensity. Yet such a universalistic reading of this psalm runs afoul of the careful eye ofKarl Barth. In his view, the glorious description ofman in this psalm would be well nigh unintelligible unless it was refracted through the lens ofthe NewTestament. "Suppose we try to understand Psalm 8," Barth asks, "in the sense that an appeal is made to man in the cosmos in himselfand as such as a witness to God . . .What do we really learn of the glory of the name of God either from [man's] wailing or later from his power which is so limited and above all exercised with such little prudence over his fellow-creatures? What an unreliable witness!"2 How could we ever praise God's name for our rulership over creation unless our attention was shifted from our present, and so fallen, enactment ofthat rule to the proper and true telos ofthat rule: the advent ofthe incarnate Christ. "Everything becomes clear," Barth concludes, "if we follow the lead given by Hebrews 2:??? . . . [For i]f this Jesus is actually the man in the cosmos ofPsalm 8 , the estimate is true, which otherwise could only be described honestly as false." And I...