I recently posted on The Place of Human Beings in the Created Order. Now I want to look more closely at this and specifically at the concept of God implied by this perspective.

First, I want to revisit a quote from Wolfhart Pannenberg that appeared toward the end of that blog post. It deserves a closer examination. And, I’d like to give it a little context.

The idea that humans have a special place in the world because of their rationality has pre-Christian origin. He mentions Cicero’s statement of this idea. He goes on to say:

Yet, Cicero did not link this dignity, as modern usage does, to the idea of the inviolability of human life in each individual. This thought arose only with the idea that we are under a supreme authority that releases us from obligation to other powers, and especially from being controlled by other people or by society. Rightly, then, the Christian tradition sought the basis of personal dignity in our creation in the image of God. Our destiny of fellowship with God forms the indispensable premise of the function of human dignity as the content of a supreme legal principle and a basis for individual human rights, e.g., in modern declarations of such rights.

— Systematic Theology, Volume 2, Chapter 8, page 176, 177.

Let’s stop and look at some of the details of this quote for a minute. The wording is important.

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