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6 Human Being, Being Human INTRODUCTION Of the many things the Christian church says about the human being, there are three affirmations that stand at the core of any Christian anthropology. Sequentially, they are as follows: first, human beings are created good, in the image of God. This pronouncement of goodness is the first word God says to humanity, and this ontological goodness of human nature endures, in spite of the indelible stain of sin that distorts it. Second, human beings are fundamentally, profoundly, and inescapably sinners. The Christian doctrine of sin points to the fact that human sinfulness is not merely a series of mistakes—even bad mistakes—which, with proper training and knowledge, can be fixed. Instead, sin warps the core of who we are, and we are powerless to “right” ourselves on our own. Third, human beings are justified and forgiven in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; in Jesus Christ, humans are both empowered and freed to live a life of love, in service to one’s neighbor for the glory of God. Together, these statements form the core of what Christians affirm to be true about human nature.1 In what follows, I expand upon each one of these, elaborating on what these assertions mean for human life in the twenty-first century, and asking what Christians might learn from engagement with non-Christian doctrine and practice in each of these areas. THE QUESTION OF THE HUMAN BEING IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY As was described in the previous chapter, Christianity asserts that human beings find their core meaning and purpose in relationship to God. Yet, the way in which this meaning is sought and found varies greatly from time and 1. Daniel Migliore argues something similar in chapter seven of Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 139ff. 175 place. Therefore, while humanity’s quest for meaning and self-understanding is perpetual and timeless, the shape of the quest itself is dependent to a large degree on the context: the where and the when of the questioner. This means that while there certainly are similarities across continents and centuries, each society and generation has the responsibility to frame the question of human existence in its own way. Many argue that in the late twentieth- and now early twenty-first-century Western context, the quest for meaning has taken on a deeply existential character. Paul Tillich described this well in the second volume of his Systematic Theology. He writes, “The state of existence is the state of estrangement. [The human being] is estranged from the ground of his being [by which Tillich means God], from other beings, and from himself.”2 The result is that, as Robert Kolb argues, “[t]he critical question at the end of the twentieth century, at least in the West, is not the sixteenth-century question, ‘How can I find a gracious God?’ It expresses itself in different forms: ‘Who am I?’ ‘What am I doing here?’”3 This is still true today, where the realization of one’s estrangement results in a deep longing for connection and transformation, relationship and community, and meaning and relevance. What does contemporary Christianity have to say in the face of such longing? The goal of this chapter is to provide a long answer to that question, but for those who are looking for a brief synopsis of a mainline Christian response a good place to look is Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, which moves in a sweeping arc from problem to solution—that is, from law to gospel. Luther described it this way: “The Ten Commandments are like the diagnosis; they disclose the sickness of sin because believers are forced to realize they can never perfectly obey them. The Apostles’ Creed identifies the remedy. . . . The Lord’s Prayer and the sacraments provide the treatment; prayer, absolution, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper are means through which the Holy Spirit applies the remedy of redemption to us.”4 Briefly, then, the order of the main parts of the Catechism is designed to first acknowledge and emphasize that there is a rupture in human existence: a void, an ache, an alienation. It does this by beginning with the Ten Commandments, the law. Kolb describes it this way: “The decalog does no more than to pose the question, ‘Why do I feel uncomfortable in my own skin?’ 2. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of...

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