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The Christian doctrine of ManRev. Nathaniel Micklem D.D. aa Mansfield College , OxfordPublished online: 25 Feb 2011.

To cite this article: Rev. Nathaniel Micklem D.D. (1940) The Christian doctrine of Man,Religion in Education, 7:4, 177-184, DOI: 10.1080/4008619752

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Vol. 7 No. 4 October, 1940

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF MAN By The REV. NATHANIEL MICKLEM, D.D.

Principal o f Mansfield College, Oxford

I N the July number of Religion in Education there appeared "A Statement of Christian Faith," by the Archbishop of

York. What follows must not be judged as a parallel or even a sequel to that article. My more modest purpose has been to offer a few notes for those who, having worked through the Archbishop's statement and references, desire to consider the Christian doctrine of Man in the light of the Christian faith in God. These notes make rio claim t o completeness---still less to inerrancy.

The Christian doctrine of Man rests upon three propositions, each of which requires some little elucidation: first, man is made

lab,.i, ~6;~,6 "in the image of God"; z second, human tRom. iii, 23; Gal. i i i , 22. nature is "fallen'; B third, in Christ man is,

in the words of the familiar hymn, "ran- somed, healed, restored, forgiven."

"ae, z.i, B7. First, man is made or created; B he is a creature. That means: he has not his origin

z77

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~Ex. iii, x4; 3no. vi, 57.

SMart. vii, x x.

sps. cxxxL,{, 14.

'3er. xvfi, 9"

8Ps. li, 5; Acts xxvi, 9.

R E L I G I O N IN E D U C A T I O N

or explanation in himself. The physical particles that make up his body have a history (though even these, we say, came into existence by the Divine Will and have no other ultimate explanation), but his soul or personality or individual centre of con- sciousness, however much it derives from his parents, comes into being by the act and will of God. The Italians call an unborn baby its mother's 'creatura'; so in a sense it is; but, when we speak Of man as created, we have in mind the act and will of God.

Man is made " in the image of God." The phrase implies that God's relation to us is different from His relation to things; we are personal beings, as God, in some sense that we cannot fathom, is personal; 4 with Him we may have a personal relationship; He is not only our Creator, He is also our Father. We are thinking, feeling, willing beings, and herein, as we believe, our nature is analogous, o r even akin, to God's.

Second, human nature is "fallen." The twin doctrines of the Fall and of Original Sin are not quasi-historical explanations of the sad plight of humanity, but ways of stating a universal fact. " I f ye then being e v i l . . . "~ said our Lord. Human nature, as the creation of God, is intrinsically good. The gift of reason, freedom of will, the instincts themselves, the human body mar- vellously balanced a n d compacted S--all these are good. Human nature as God made it is good, yet there is some radical corrup- tion in it. 7 Not merely are we all conscious that we have done many wrong things in our lives, but, deeper, we realize that in spite of our "good" human nature it was impossible for us not to do wrong, s Any

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THE C H R I S T I A N D O C T R I N E OF MAN x79

particular wrong-doing we could have avoided, and our wrong-doing now is largely the result of past wrong-doing; but wha t caused that first act of will which set us on the downward path? There is something radically wrong with us, though we be made in God's image. This is a mystery, but it is clearly a fact. There is not only our own more or less deliberate wrong-doing; there are also wrong attitudes to God and m a n and life which poison and distort our lives, though we have little personal responsibility for them; we see all things out of perspec- tive apart from Christ. This is what is mean t by " the Fal l" and "original sin."

Third, the work of Christ has been set forth in a bewildering variety of terms and

"Matt. x.x, x8 ; I Tim.ii, 6 images-- ransom, 9 redemption, 1 o justifica- lOLuke i, 68; Gal. iii, x3; tion, 11 atonement , x 2 reconciliation, 18 and

iv, 6; x Pet. i, 18; Rev. v, 9- m a n y others, bu t all these point with vary-

xa Luke xviii , x4; Acts. xiii, 39; R0m. iii, 24; m g clarity and emphasis to the restoring of Tit ' i i i ,7" the right relat ion between man and God;

1 I R o m . v~ I I .

1.aom. ~, ~o; 2 Co~. the estranged are reconciled, the sinner is v, I8f; Col. i, o r .

~ , M , tt. vl, ~4; La, f°rgiven, 14 the prodigaP 5 comes home, xxiii, 34; * y~o. i, xo. the lost sheep is found. ~6 But the reconciling

XSLuke xv, I Iff. • ,L~,x~, 3ft. work of Christ extends not merely to the

individuals who respond to HIS appeal, but 1,ca.i,2o. also to h u m a n nature as a whole. 17 God in

Christ has identified Himself with all hu- ~'yno. i, I4. manity, xs The vital t ruth therefore even

about the worst of m e n is that he is a "bro- ,°~ C~.viii, ~, ther for whom Christ died, ' ' x ' H u m a n

nature, then, in the form of all h u m a n beings is loved by God, is capable of responding to God and of being received into the family of God.

We may now a t tempt a brief answer to various subsidiary questions which for the most part have already been answered in principle.

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180

2OMatt. xxii, 37-40.

sl.Tno, x4, 23.

StMalt. v/, 33"

SSHeb. xiii, 2x.

s4Phil, iv, I I .

ISI Pet. v, 7.

S'Gen. xxxii, ~6.

*~Ps. xvii, I5; Matt. v, 8.

s*3fno, xvii, 3.

R E L I G I O N IN E D U C A T I O N

As man is made " in the image of God," his conduct should be guided by reason and conscience: man has duties as well as instincts. Man's first duty is to love God; his second to love his fellow-man. *° Love in this connection has little to do with super- ficial feelings; it is a steady attitude of mind and will;* 1 it means that in awe and thank- fulness we put God's will first in our lives** and desire first to be well-pleasing to Him" 3 who has revealed Himself to us in Jesus Christ. I t means that in our dealings with our fellow-men we treat them all as children of God and our brothers, that we seek and desire their true good, and that we be un- selfish.

Man's blessedness or true happiness in this life consists in his accepting his lot as being of a Father's appointment, without complaint and in perfect trust,* 4 in his cast- ing all his care upon God* s and in finding alike in things pleasant and things bitter a hidden blessing *e and a closer union with God in Christ.

Man's destiny is the Beatific Vision, *~ that is, to know God as He is in Himself* 8 and to rejoice in His presence with all His children. Both man's blessedness in this life and his blessedness beyond this life are called "salvation." Salvation in this life is always a process and can never be complete, partly because we are sinners still and partly because our personal blessedness remains unfulfilled while our brethren are still alienated from God. But in principle our salvation even in this world is complete in that it implies that we have come into the right relationship with God. Salvatio beyond this world is the end of the process

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T H E

s 'Heb. iv, 9.

801~Or. XV.

s I I Co t . xv, 5 o.

s~x Sam. xv, 22ff.

C H R I S T I A N D O C T R I N E OF M A N x8z

and is final rest, ~9 because the redemptive work of God is at last accomplished. We speak of salvation beyond this world as being 'rest' because it must not be regarded as an infinite prolongation of time but as an un- changing state beyond time. We have, perhaps, some dim inkling of this in experi- ences of which we say that in them we had 'no consciousness of the passage of time.'

Man's nature in this world is a psycho- physical organism, in which soul and mind and body are so intimately related as to be mutually dependent. Under conditions of time and space a physical body is essential to man, but the ego or central core of per- sonality, which is sometimes called the soul, can exist under other conditions than those of time and space. The "resurrection of the body ''3° asserted in Scripture is not the resuscitation of the flesh, 31 nor does it imply a doctrine of the inherent indestructibility of the soul. I t is the assertion of the victory of a man's personal identity over death in virtue of the power of God.

Sin is every wrong attitude or action which springs from a wrong relationship to God. Thus the term 'sin' covers not merely wrong actions (sins), but also wrong states of mind and attitudes of personality. The term 'sin' always has a reference to God. Deliberate disobedience t o the known will of GOd or rebellion against His law ~ guilty, s~ but in regard to many wrong attitudes and anti- social actions there may be very little guilt or none at all. Sin is a matter of wrong relationship to God; guilt is a matter of personal responsibility, a quite different question. I t is not only our sins (in the plural), our deliberate wrong-doings, from

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x82

~4Ps. cfii, 13.

aSIs. vii, 9.

~s3n~. iii, I9.

~Matt. xiil, 4o£

~sPs. ¢xxx, 4.

* 'Jno. iv, 4 o.

R E L I G I O N IN E D U C A T I O N

which we must turn away in penitence, but also our unworthy (even if involuntary) thoughts of God, our uncharitable mis- judgments of our fellow-men, and our wrong attitude to life and to the world of things around us.

It has been said that without judgment there can be no God. Man is a being subject to the judgment of God. 3~ But we must disembarrass our minds of any idea of a schedule of rewards and punishments such as might befit the notice-board at a police station, but not the personal relations of a Father and His children. 34 In the relations between God and men the punishment of men is inherent in the offence, not some- thing added to it. The Bible speaks of judg- ment in three ways, sometimes as the inevit- able working out of national sin in the course of history, 35 sometimes as that which is re- vealed in the attitude men adopt towards Jesus Christ, s6 sometimes as the Last Judg- ment.87 But in all cases it means the 'visit- [ng upon' men, or the bringing home to Lhem, or the causing them to realize, what •hey are and what they have done. Judg- ment is the necessary precondition of recon- :iliation, for not till a .man recognizes what ae has been and done can he turn to God n truth and reality. That at last, if not ~efore, all false judgments and self-decep- :ions should be torn away from us is a neces- sary element in mercy. The judgment of ].od is not the less terrible because it is not ~part from mercy. 3 s

Since the coming of our Lord the most mportant and decisive fact about any man s that Christ has died for him. 39 The fact :hat God loves man gives man his dignity,

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T H E

*°Jno. xiv, ~6-~8.

• aLuke xxiv, 49; Acts i, 8.

• S~7ob v, 7.

48Luke xiii, 16.

~4Gen. iii, 16f.

C H R I S T I A N D O C T R I N E OF M A N I83

his worth, his hope. There are two modes or stages in the relationship between man and Christ.

First, there is the influence of the love of Christ working through the Holy Spirit before there is conscious response on the part of man. Second, there is the personal and conscious relationship of the believer to his Lord, which may amount, as the author of the Imitation puts it, to 'a marvellous intimacy' ( f amiliaritas stupenda nimis ) .

The Christian theology we inherit does not enable us clearly to distinguish the in- fluence of Christ from the influence of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts and minds of men. 40 As we may say of a boy without distinction of meaning that there is much of his father in him or that he shows his fa ther ' s spirit, so we cannot distinguish between life 'in Christ' and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the name we give to God abiding in, or immanent in, the world that He has made. I t is a personal Spirit, God Himself, in His children, not a vague impulse of our own. I t is not a heightening of our natural powers, but something strictly supernatural because it enables men to be and to do and to bear that which is beyond the power o f ' t he natural man. '41 Man is a being capable of receiving the Holy Spirit of God.

"Ma n is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, T M and any doctrine of man must indicate the significance of his suffering. Nowhere is the paradox of the Christian faith more apparent. Suffering is an evil; it is the work of 'Satan'; .3 it is connected with the 'Fall' of man. 44 The alleviation of

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J ~Matt. x, 8.

*ePs. cxix, 7I.

tTPhil, iii, Io.

R E L I G I O N IN E D U C A T I O N

suffering is, therefore, an integral part of the Christian warfare. ~ n On the other hand, suffering may be redemptive as weaning the sufferer from a too great entanglement in this passing world and casting him back upon God;4 s and, further, suffering in Christ has been redeemed, so that those who accept it as from a Father's hand are thereby more closely united with their Lord. ~ 7

Man's relation to Nature is two-fold. On the one side, as a physical, created being he is part of Nature: on the other, as a rational and spiritual being he is above Nature and belongs to the spiritual or super-natural world. But, because he believes that Nature is created by God and is an expression of the mind and purpose of God, Nature to him is sacred and not to be used for his conveni- ence or indulgence; all material things, as being capable of conveying spiritual mean- ing and blessing, have a sacramental quality. Similarly in "relation to history man is not merely dealing with his fellow-men, but also participant in the working out of the gracious purposes of God.

But the Christian doctrines of the Church and of society cannot be treated here.

Professor T. E. Jessop, in Law and Love: A Study of the Christian Ethic (S.C.M. Press, 6s.), challenges the assumption so commonly made in these days that moral rectitude or stoic fidelity to duty is a genuinely Christian ideal. Christ, says Professor Jessop, went "beyond goodness and badness" in a love which was generous, childlike and objective. "What is wanted in morals, then, is a principle that shall safeguard and enhance individuality, and love is the only one I know." This, of course, is love in the New Testament sense, which is far more than affection or unselfishness or mere pacifism. Though one-sided, the book is a valuable corrective of the other one-sidedness particularly prevalent in much school interpretation of what it means to be a Christian.

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