If we the people are created in God's image then we must have God's perfection, sovereignty, power and knowledge. Unfortunately we don't. Most people are far from perfect, easily oppressed or enslaved and often helpless. Our knowledge is frequently inadequate and ignorance causes most of humanity's troubles.
Should we then discard the notion that we were created in God's image as wishful dreaming, an unsubstantiated prejudice by an self-conceited primate that imagines itself at the top of the evolutionary ladder or food chain even if there are others who are bigger, faster, more elegant and, who knows, perhaps even smarter. The answer is: No!
Because humanity has demonstrated capability for greatness even through periods when hate, ignorance and barbarity which sometimes threatened the extermination not only of humankind but all live on Earth.
We the people have shown that we have the power to change things the way we want them if we act together. Although a group of people can act to oppress another group of people and extract short term advantage that never works for longer periods. Therefore it is in the strategic interest of everybody to act together in the name of high ideas and protect our lives, freedom and the right to pursue opportunities.
People can be coerced into submission through threats and violence and such an contraption may even achieve certain illusionary success. The truth is that sooner or later it will collapse under the weight of lack of understanding and failure to accommodate the interests of all participants like a Tower of Babel – a grand vision but lacking substance.
The answer is in personal sovereignty. If everyone is created in God's own image then the opinion of everyone matters. On the other hand only cooperation can make that personal sovereignty, safety, freedom and opportunity possible. Coming from the premise that you can only love what you know. And the person you can know best is the one closest to you – yourself. And only if you love yourself a lot you can love your neighbor a lot too (you cannot possibly love your neighbor more because it is impossible to know someone else better than yourself). Everything else comes after that including the love of God.
To sum it up: people are unique and the best judges of their own interests. On the other hand these interests can only be protected and pursued in cooperation. Politics is the mechanism of this cooperation.
I'm not convinced that the evidence supports the idea that oppressive communities don't last. Transatlantic slavery lasted longer than the current period of (in theory) emancipation; the oppressive Roman Empire managed several centuries; in 20th Century Germany, the Weimar Republic effectively collapsed after eleven years, leading to a period of chaos out of which the third Reich emerged for around twelve; and Chinese history is almost all about the domination of the majority by a small elite, for millenia with just the membership of the elite changing hands every now and again (okay, I'm a bit arm-wavey on ancient Chinese history :-) ).
ReplyDeleteWhilst I would agree with you that people are made in God's image and capable of great things, that image is surely deeply warped and twisted: together or separately people often manage the most appalling acts. The challenge is surely how to bring out the best and overcome the worst.