Study 18 "Who Is Man" Part 1

Psalm 8.3-9

Are the heavens the work of God’s "fingers?" If God did create the heavens and the earth, as Genesis 1.1 affirms, what can be concluded about man’s place in the created order?

In the modern age, the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in particular, man has been living under the delusion of evolutionary theory. As a result, the place of humanity in the natural world has been significantly redefined from what Scriptural declares.

For the psalmist, man’s ascendent position in creation was a paradox. Relative to the heavenly realm, man is entirely insignificant. David wondered why God had given mankind even a second thought. The enigma for David was the exalted role of human beings in the natural world, and their seeming insignificance relative to the star-filled heavens.

David realized man’s role in the world did not correspond in any way to his essential nature and physical being. David was keenly aware of man’s weaknesses and limitations. Yet, he saw that humanity ruled in the natural and physical realm. Humans can manipulate material resources to their advantage in a manner wholly inconsistent with his being. Why? How did man gain such an advantage. Why had God put man in the position he holds?

To those who accept the unproven, counterfeit claims of evolutionary theory (What great or not-so-great scientific discovery can evolution claim?), man is a mere accident of circumstance. Human beings possess no greater significance than any other living creature.

"A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy," a statement made by Ingrid Newkirk, President, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), is a logical extension of evolutionary philosophy. How does a boy differ from any other animal? To the honest evolutionist, man, in his essential being, is not better than a beetle, a beaver, or a brook trout. Consequently, we have no inherent claim over the natural world. Of course, one wonders what the evolutionists at PETA claim as the basis for their authority to speak for animals other than man?

Ironically, the biblical definition of mankind’s essential nature is not so different from the definition offered by evolution. Genesis declares that God brought forth "living creatures" in the sea and on the land. Later, when Adam was made, God defined him as a "living being." Interestingly, "living creature" and "living being" are the translation of the same Hebrew word, nephesh. So, even the Bible recognizes the bond we share with the beasts of the fields and seas.

At that point, thought, the biblical and evolutionary models part ways. Since the fundamental precept of evolution is that God does not exist (we all know God and science cannot interfere with one another), man cannot assert his superior position in the natural order. Since humans, as with all other living things, are products of an impersonal process, we are locked into and limited by that process.

The biblical view is vastly different. God exists and has created all things. Scripture declares that truth as certain. The Bible does not argue for God’s existence, the Word affirms God’s existence. If the two truths of Genesis 1.1 are in fact not true, then the rest of Scripture becomes meaningless speculation with no more authority than the works of Dr. Seuss.

Yet, man’s role in the world is clear; we are superior. But, why and in what way are we superior? Upon what basis does mankind rule over the earth and all that is in it?