What is Man?

The psalmist’s age-old question, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” is now the great question of our age, as technology has given us tremendous power to manipulate the created order. For all its benefits, it has also given sinful, autonomous man the false idea that he can redesign human nature. This is a dangerous concept, the hazards of which are becoming more evident with each passing year. Without the Creator’s view of what the being he has created is, dehumanization, which began with original sin, is inevitable. Notice that the psalmist’s question is addressed to God. It is precisely the lack of transcendent reality in the modern mind that leads to the illusion of pervasive human control. The apotheosis of the human ends ironically with dehumanization.