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Volume XXVII, Number 3
January 15, 1997
Committed to cultural diversity.
(Dte ^ n r tla n b (©bseruer
MARTIN
LUTHER
KING JR.
Special Edition SECTION
c
In celebration of Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr.’s 68th birthday, and in
remembrance of his achievements
T îte m ea su re o f a m an
w
▼ ▼ hat Is Man?
The question "What is man?" is one of the
most important questions confronting any
generation. The whole political, social, and
economic structure of a society is largely
determined by its answer to this pressing
question. Indeed, the conflict which we wit
ness in the world today between totalitai lan-
i.sm and democracy is at bottom a conflict
over the question "What is man?”
In our generation the asking of this ques
tion has risen to extensive proportions. But
although there is widespread agreement in
asking the question, there is fantastic dis
agreement m answering it lor instance, there
are those who look upon man as little more
than an animal. They would say that man is a
cosmic accident, that his whole life can be
explained by mater in motion, then there are
those who would lift man almost to the posi
tion of a god. They would probably agree
with Shakespeare's Hamlet, "What a piece of
work is man! how noble in faculty! How
infinite in reason; in form and moving how
express and admirable; in apprehension how
like a God; in action how like an angel! The
beauty of the world, the paragon of animals."
There are still others who would seek to be
a little more realistic about man. They would
avoid the extremes of a pessimistic natural
ism and an optimistic humanism and seek to
combine the truths of both. They see within
man a strange dualism, something o f a di
chotomy. So they would cry out with Carly le.
"There are depths in man that go down to the
lowest hell, and heights that reach the highest
heaven, for are not both heaven and hell made
out of him—everlasting miracle and mystery
that he is ?"
One day the psalmist looked up and no
ticed the vastness of the cosmic order. He
noticed the infinite expanse of the solar sys
tem; he noticed the beautiful stares; he ga/ed
at the moon with all its scintillating beauty,
and he said in the midst of all of this, "What
is man?" He comes forth with an answer:
"Thou hast made him a little lower than the
angels, and crowned him with glory and
honor." Goodspeed. Moffalt. and the Re
vised Standard Version would sav. "thou has
made him a little less than divine, a little less
than God. and crowned him with glory and
honor." It is this realistic position (hat I would
like to use as a basis of our thinking together
and our meditation on the question "What is
man?"
Now let us notice first that man is a biolog
ical being with a physical body, this is why
the psalmist says, "thou hast made him less
than God.” We don't think of God as a being
with a body. God is a being of pure spirit,
lifted above the categories of time and space;
V
but man, being less than God, is in lime He
is in nature, and he can never disown his
kinship with animate nature.
The psalmist goes on to say that God made
man that way. Since God made him that way
there is nothing wrong w ith it. We read in the
book of Genesis that everything God makes
is good; therefore there is nothing wrong with
it. We read in the book of Genesis that
everything God makes is good; therefore
there is nothing wrong with having a body
This is one of the things that distinguish the
Christian doctrine of man from the Greek
doctrine. The Greeks, under the impetus of
Plato, felt that the body was evil, almost
inherently depraved, anil the soul could nev
er reach U s lull maturity until it broke loose
from the prison of the body. This is not
Christian doctrine, for Christianity does not
see the body as the principle of evil; it says the
will is the principle of evil.
So the body in Christianity is sacred and
significant. That means in any doctrine of
man that we must be concerned with man's
physical well-being. It may be true that man
cannot live by bread alone, but the "alone”
means that man cannot live without bread.
Religion must never overlook this, and
any religion that professes to be concerned
about the souls of men and is not concerned
about the economic conditions that damn the
soul, the social conditions that corrupt men.
and the city governments that cripple them, is
a dry. dead, do-nothing religion in need of
new blood. For it over looks the basic fact
that man is a biological being with a physical
body, this must stand as a principle in any
doctrine of man.
But this isn't the only part, and we must
never stop here if our doctrine of man is to be
realistic and thoroughly Christian. Some peo
ple stop here. They are the naturalists or the
materialists; they are the Marxists; and they
would see man merely as an animal.
some years ag a group of chemists who had
a Hair for statistics decided to work out the
worth of m an's body in terms of the market
values of that day. they got together and did
a lot of work, and finally they came to this
conclusion: the average man has enough fat
in him to make about seven bars of soap,
enough iron to make a m edium si/ed nail,
enough sugar to fill a shaker, enough lime to
whitewash a chicken coop, enough phospho
rus for about 2,220 match lips, and enough
magnesium for a does of magnesia. When all
of this was added up in terms of the market
values of that day it came Io about ninety-
eight cents. Now. I guess, since the standards
of living are a little higher today, you could
get about a dollar ninety-eight for the average
man.
This is interesting Think about it. M an's
significant that means in anv doctrine of man
Ther intensity of
Martin Luther
King Jr. 's many
public speeches,
have had a
profound and
lasting effect on
African-Americans
and Americans in
general.
that we must be concerned with m an’s phys
ical well-being. It may be true that man
cannot live by bread alone, but the mere fact
that Jesus added the "alone" means that man
cannot live with out bread.
Religion must never overlook this, and
any religion that professes to be concerned
about the souls of men and is not concerned
about the economic conditions that damn the
soul, the social conditions that corrupt men.
and the city governments that cripple them, is
a dry. dead, do-noting religion in need of new
blivxl For it overlooks the basic fact that man
is a biological being with a physical body. This
must stand as a principle in any doctrine of man.