Each day we are confronted with situations that make us wonder how human life can have such a low value in the eyes of some of our contemporaries—those contemporaries who live in freedom and (at least feigned) democracy, who are educated and socialised in the same civilisation as ours, often even in the same community or under similar civil laws and with broadly the same attitude to public morality.
We are often shocked and helplessly outraged by these sad occasions when we see the disregard for human life—from the indifference of Brazil’s president to the devastating fire in the Amazon rainforest, the “lungs” of the entire planet, home to more than 2,000 indigenous tribes, to the cruelty and cynicism of the world’s child traffickers.
“…until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).
This article is addressed in particular to those among us who think that the value of the lives of these victims is diffuse, because they are not individual but collective, or not close enough to us, or because we do not know the people personally. Can such valuations of human life be justified?
Secular valuation of human beings
Today, human beings are treated in terms of their value in various discourses and social contexts.
The political discourse is found, for example, in the United Nations Charter, which states that the participants determine “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”
The legal discourse establishes by law that “prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community.”
The psychosocial science community joined the discussion late, only at the end of the last century, to speak of the self-determination of the human being as one of the most prominent needs that give the internal motivation to human actions, together with the need to relate to others and the need for competence. Two Australian specialists, Deci and Ryan[1], theorise self-determination as the need of a person to feel in control of his or her life, to choose and act according to rational or non-rational impulses that are internal, not external, and voluntary, not imposed. This psychologising theory is a response to the physiological approaches of the past, which placed the motivation for human action in the nervous system and bodily drives.
Of course, there are many other approaches that could be used as examples of the secular evaluation of the human being, but these are sufficient to understand the limitations of this evaluation to the human body, its psyche, and its status as a citizen with certain rights. Human beings seem to be only a bio-psycho-social entity, and outside the framework of citizenship, they are reduced to a mere organism; they are no longer human, but a being belonging to the animal kingdom, a culmination of its evolution. This is also the view of secular anthropology, as evidenced by textbook statements such as: “Humans are the world’s most adaptable animals.”[2]
Given these secular contexts on which the social, political, and legal framework is built, it seems surprising that people still respect each other, still value each other’s dignity, self-determination, and freedom. In any case, this framework seems very shaky and the recognition of the value of the individual seems very weakly justified. Moreover, it seems difficult even to impose it as a social norm, especially in cases where there is no public pressure to conform to this norm. As for translating this norm into laws that are binding on citizens, one can imagine many situations in which, in the absence of witnesses or constraints from the authorities, someone would circumvent or flagrantly violate these laws. It is to be expected that someone who shares the belief that he or she is merely a fellow animal with his or her fellow human beings will be more willing to save himself or herself at the expense of his or her fellow human beings under difficult conditions of survival. Thus, for the umpteenth time in history, the expression homo homini lupus (“man is a wolf to man”) would be revived.[3]
The religious evaluation of the human being
Religious anthropology differs from secular anthropology in that it places humans not in the animal kingdom, but in the higher position of the coronation of divine creation. This religious approach can also be found in some theological and philosophical discourses.
Thus, some Catholic thinkers consider the human embryo and the foetus as persons already, since life as a divine gift is manifested in them from the first moment of conception.[4] The status of a person also implies certain rights, including the right to life, which makes abortion an act of taking the life of a human being.
The Greek Orthodox monk Zacharias Zacharou spoke of the value of personhood: “The true person is Christ. Man is created in the image of Christ. Therefore, he too has the power to become a ‘person’…after he has completely rejected his sinful self and surrendered to the holy and perfect will of God. The person of Christ was revealed in the world through His love to the end. …This is the person.”[5]
A Protestant thinker, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in his work Fear and Trembling (1843), speaks of religious faith as the highest of human passions, which ennobles and humanises a whole generation, which in fact defines “what is human.” He observes: “This authentically human factor is passion, in which the one generation also fully understands the other and understands itself. Thus no generation has learned from another how to love, no generation can begin other than at the beginning, the task of no later generation is shorter than its predecessor’s, and if someone, unlike the previous generation, is unwilling to stay with love but wants to go further, then that is simply idle and foolish talk. But the highest passion in a human being is faith.”[6]
These religious approaches to the human being seem to give it more depth or height. In any case, they unravel the bio-psycho-social unity that defines man in the secular sciences, towards the zone of the timeless, but also of the transcendent; religious conceptions foresee the fate of human beings beyond history and the unfolding in time and space of their life on this earth. Moreover, they endow man with a spirit of divine origin and the possibility of immortality. Under these conditions, it is to be expected that the individuals who embrace this identity will, in their relationships with their fellow human beings, be more inclined to respect in them the same identity and the same chance of immortality.
How does the value of the human being come about?
In view of what we have discussed, the following questions may be of interest to us: Is it possible that the forms of religious evaluation of man, of the person, are automatically translated into moral behaviour? Will those who share the noble vision of man as the pinnacle of God’s creation also apply a corresponding religious morality in their dealings with others?
There are many cases of people who claim to have a religious view of the world and of life, but who nevertheless behave according to the formula homo homini lupus. A recent case seems shocking to us: the suicide of a 25-year-old young man from Medgidia, Romania, Adrian Lipan, a graduate of the Maritime University of Constanta, who, like a good Christian, asks forgiveness from all those he may have wronged, thanks his mother for everything and justifies his suicidal act of setting himself on fire by the fact that he can no longer bear the humiliations, insults, and abuse of his own alcoholic father: “Fathers of boys, don’t do to your child what my father did to me!” The public stupefaction caused by this desperate gesture was matched by outrage when the press reproduced the father’s cynical and self-justifying response, which was meant to be moralising, with the following internet posting: “With your consent and permission, [I present to you] this ‘barbaric’ father, who today realised that for 26 years he has been raising a snake and not a child. Those who want to know the truth can contact me at any time. Future parents, be warned.”[7]
Faced with such cases of people incapable of recognising their guilt, of showing remorse and repentance, it is clear that the assimilation of Christian morality fails without a psychologically healthy family environment, without a quality school that does not abandon neither the goal of teaching nor that of education, and without the effective involvement of the Church in the community. All this can create a healthy community environment, favourable to the development of the human being; and if it is inadequate, the social environment as a whole will also be inadequate and hostile, as this young man, too soon discouraged and disarmed in the face of life, unfortunately discovered.
The precariousness of the climate in our society can be explained by the precariousness of the philosophy that has underpinned education over the last five decades. Apart from Christian education, which is available only in the Church and in some families, a positive appreciation of the human being would have been possible only through contact with secular humanism (contained in the culture of Greek and Latin antiquity as well as in modern culture).
“Human duty”, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau put it, is learned gradually. In fact, it is the first form of lifelong education. And if a human being in formation lacks a healthy family, a good school, and a community environment conducive to development, I believe that his or her last chance is to look for the Church that will welcome, guide, and support him or her along this path of human development.
In such precarious conditions, the Church tends to become the “asylum of humanity”, as Victor Kernbach predicted at the end of the last century;[8] however, it is a special asylum that is also a school, a family, and a community for wounded souls. It seems a difficult mission to accomplish, but it can be honoured by a living Church, founded on Christian love, which springs from the divine love for human beings.
Only in the presence of this love will humans come to a true awareness of their value in the universe, and only under the protection of this love will they be willing to respect the same value in their fellow human beings. Throughout history, apart from divine love, man has been valued in the most precarious way: either by a sum of money, or by the price of a pair of shoes, like the slaves of antiquity (see Amos 2:6), or by the price of wounds or bruises inflicted by a vengeful man like Lamech: “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me” (Genesis 4:23).
Satan also gives human beings the “value” of a maggot and the Son of Man the “value” of a worm (Job 25:6). Satan’s contempt for the value of human beings has run through the centuries, as expressed in this description: “Those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth!” (Job 4:19). To compare man to a moth betrays a contempt and hatred that always creeps into the minds of worldly people, either urging them on to terrible, inhuman acts, or causing despondency and depression. It is the age-old whisper of evil in or around man, which does not come from within him, but from satanic cruelty and cunning.
This satanic contempt and degrading view of humanity is countered by the greatness of the divine sacrifice, a sacrifice that gives humans inestimable value through the Creator’s unfailing love for His creation. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). This biblical verse is always lively, always pulsating, always giving life. It is called the “golden verse” because it actually expresses the value of a special, unearthly gold, a coin unknown to worldly people, but by which we are urged to give to God what belongs to God.