What does it mean to be Human?

Examine religious teachings about what it means to be human (30 marks)

For Christians an important and defining aspect of what it means to be human is the idea that humans are relational, between one and other and with God. This is shown within the Nicene Creed and the belief in the Holy Trinity, the interrelationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is then conferred onto humanity through the Christian teaching of Imago Dei, Genesis 1:26-27 “God created man in his own image”.  This is further reinforced by the Golden Rule which states “Love you neighbor as yourself”. Therefore a key Christian belief about what it means to be human is that we are able and naturally do create relationships with other beings, both supreme and human.

Another religious teaching about what it means to be human is that we are created by God. Within the book of Genesis 2:7 God creates man. He “forms man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”. This shows that as humans we exist entirely because of God’s grace and omnipotence and are perhaps dependent on God from birth to death and for eternity. Another key point is that God is shown to create Adam and Eve on the sixth day, the last and perhaps most important creation. However it could be interpreted that with this apparent high status comes ‘stewardship, the idea that humans are expected and entrusted to take care of the whole of God’s creation and that therefore the title of what it means to human comes with the ability to take care; feel love, passion and responsibility for something larger than oneself.

Psalm 139 is another Christian teaching which explores Gods creation of us, within this psalm it describes “For it was you who formed my inward parts, you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (139:13) This creates an image that humans are not only created by God but that also when creating us God paid attention to all aspects of mankind, not only the outside body and the character but also the insides of each of us. It also suggests that humans are created as complex and perhaps even fragile. This is apparent due to the use of the word ‘knit’ linking to both complexities in its patterns but also to being fragile as knitted materials are not massively strong. This links idea links with the Christian Theologian C.S Lewis’s poem “On being Human” which explores the idea that whilst angels understand the world on a purely intelligence-based level, humans grow and develop with experience and the feelings of both pleasure and pain. This idea that God created us with the ability to feel hurt or broken could also be linked to argument that suffering is character building (St. Iranaeus) and that a key part of being human is the ability to feel pain.