One Good Reason to Believe in God: The Intrinsic Value of His Image (and Man’s Attempt to Escape It)
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Editor’s note: Good Reasons Apologetics has graciously allowed us to republish their series, “One Good Reason” You can find the original post here.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.’” (Gen. 1:26)
Of the 10.7 million Africans who were taken captive and brought to the new world, it is believed about 388,000 ended up in what is now the United States. Congress outlawed bringing slaves into the U.S. in 1808, and yet the population of Africans in the U.S. by 1860 was 4.4 million, 3.9 million of which were slaves, and it was almost entirely the result of natural growth (i.e., babies born into slavery generation after generation).
According to the Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, almost 6 million Jews were killed in Europe and Russia in just a few years during World War II. This represented about 55% of the population of Jews in the regions. At least 50 million people lost their lives as a direct result of the fighting in World War II, with as many as 85 million who lost their lives in total when things like war related famine and disease are included.
Today in the US, according to the conservative numbers we have, it appears we abort about 850,000 unborn children a year. This has been occurring legally since 1973 thanks to a Supreme Court decision that birthed the idea of the “right” to abort a child. It is now estimated that there have been approximately 42 million unborn Americans aborted.
Many who championed chattel slavery did not view Africans as fully human. The idea of evolution provided racists and eugenicists a way to claim that Africans, Aborigines and other people groups were less evolved, and thus less deserving of life than their more evolved counterparts. Nazi propaganda called Jews “rats” and referred to their homes as “nests.” They systematically exterminated Jews, “invalids” and other groups they called “life unworthy of life.” The most common defense of abortion is that it is not a person, but rather a “clump of cells,” or a “choice.”
The cycle of dehumanizing other humans, followed by murder and genocide and eventually negative historical judgement through time is evidence that man still intuitively recognizes the implicit value in other men, and must overcome the idea his target is fully human before taking life in cold blood.
One might argue that humans enslaving and killing other humans on a large scale is just evolution’s “red in tooth and claw” history playing out as always. However, the overwhelming historical tendency for man’s need to dehumanize other men before enslaving or murdering others seems counter to evolution’s “survival of the fittest.” Shouldn’t it be easier to kill with all this practice?
Anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one or cried out at the senseless loss of a stranger’s life knows the unexplainable angst that comes from the unjustified or systematic taking of a human life. Does this come from blind, purposeless accidents through time that create the psychological illusion of value in one another based only on mutual advantage as is suggested by some?
It seems far more likely to be the residue of his Creator’s imprint of the value of fellow image bearers on every man’s soul. We dare not kill the King’s sons and daughters, and we know it.
Tony Williams is currently serving in his 20th year as a police officer in a city in Southern Illinois. He has been studying apologetics in his spare time for two decades, since a crisis of faith led him to the discovery of vast and ever-increasing evidence for his faith. Tony received a bachelor's degree in University Studies from Southern Illinois University in 2019. His career in law enforcement has provided valuable insight into the concepts of truth, evidence, confession, testimony, cultural competency, morality, and most of all, the compelling need for Christ in the lives of the lost. Tony plans to pursue postgraduate studies in apologetics in the near future to sharpen his understanding of the various facets of Christian apologetics. Tony has been married for 9 years and has two sons. He and his family currently reside in Southern Illinois.
