Worthy of Self-Love

All humans are valuable so that they should love themselves.

There is concrete, knowable evidence for your value. Though many philosophers and scholars argue how the dignity of humanity is established, God is why. Many of these humanitarians gathered together to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an international work adopted by the United Nations for a foundational document of international human rights law. The collection of professionals was impressive, especially the variety of backgrounds and ideologies represented. How could such a variety produce anything witu unanimous agreement? On the creation of this important document Jacques Maritain said,

          "It is related that at one of the meetings of a Unesco National Commission
          where Human Rights were being discussed, someone expressed astonishment that
          certain champions of violently opposed ideologies had agreed on a list of those
          rights. 'Yes', they said, 'we agree about the rights but on condition that no one
          asks us why.' That 'why' is where the argument begins." (Human Rights:
          Comments and Interpretations, italics added)

The value of human beings is inherent in the mind of said human beings, be it the mind of a Catholic philosopher, a French jurist, or a Chinese diplomat. But that ailment we call depression would have us ignore this fact. The educated people who contributed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights all recognized this universal fact which is truly established by God himself: we are valuable, deserve a good life, and are born to love life. Looking to God's inspired word we find the true foundation of this fact.

On the first pages of the Bible, God is not satisfied with just creating this universe and the animals therein. He creates a creature unlike the rest, one like himself. The size of the stars cannot compare to us human beings. Humans are no match for the strength of a lion. We lack the beauty of the simple rose. But humans have something nothing else in this universe does, the image of God imprinted upon them. To no other piece of the universe was this given. Philosopher Mortimer Adler said, “The dignity of man is the dignity of the human being as a person—a dignity that is not possessed by things"—that dignity stems from the image of God.

          (Gen 1:26-27 ESV) Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after
          our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the
          birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every
          creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in
          the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

The meaning of this image of God is debatable: Is it our consciousness? Our reason? Our morality? Our capacity for dominion? This is the simplest answer I can give, the image of God is the difference between us and the animals. Deeper into this topic: it seems to me that this image of God is the capacity for reason and goodness and thus, the ability to know God, the free will of choice, and the ability to obey or disobey. This image of God is put into action when Adam and Eve eat of the tree of which they were prohibited. None of the animals or vegetation or stars in the sky were given this command because they cannot comprehend the command or the goodness of the command.

The spectacular creation of human beings creates value. Human beings are separated from other creatures made by God. He created the stars, sky, and animals, so they have value too, but man’s value is greater because of the special effort God used in creating them. They are neither angel nor beast, neither purely mind nor pure body, but having a conjunction of body and spirit, and thus, having within ourselves a choice to be like angel or beast, a constant battle between spirit and flesh.

Don't tell me you are worthless. For some strange reason (love) God made you special. This isn't one of those times where we say, everyone is special so actually no one is special—listen, when God says something is special, it's special. No arguing. God is the Creator of this world and he is the ultimate Appraiser of things. When he made mankind in his image he said it was good, so don't go arguing with God, bucko. Things are only as valuable as God gives value to them; beauty is the eyes of God and you, my dear friend, are quite the catch.

When in high school I attended a Christian youth event where the churches' youth groups in the area got together for a night of food, worship, and fun. The preacher got up in front of the kids and he said, "Repeat after me: I'm a child of God. I ain't trash. 'Cuz God don't make trash." Let that be a reminder to us all: God don't make trash.