“Down to Earth”: an Anthropology

When I told my mom some of the classes I would be taking in my last few quarters at Fuller Seminary, she expressed her delight and then said, “And how are you going to stay down to earth?” I chuckled and jokingly said, “I cannot help but stay down to earth. Both my feet tread the earth every day.” In retrospect I think I should’ve added, “When we soar too close to the sun, our wings melt, so I will be sure to stay nearer to the ground.”

I have fond memories of growing up in rural South Carolina and being able to smell the soil as the dew evaporated in the morning. I miss that smell.

While we live, we may develop the desire to soar to the heights of human achievement, but as soon as we are born, gravity begins pulling us into the grave. This is not my attempt at seeming cynical, but I would like to remain well grounded in recognizing my own finitude, something of which teenagers are prone to be ignorant.

Quite a few folks point out similarities between humans and animals, and I think rightly so. It doesn’t take much imagination to note similarities between humans and animals. Other folks point out the vast differences between humans and animals, and again I think rightly so. Genesis may be considered to be too archaic for providing insights into anthropology, but I think Genesis paints a rather illuminating picture. It plants us firmly on the ground like many of the other animals, and it notes that humans are spirited: we are spirited dirt people. Now what this signifies precisely is the beginning of debate. Perhaps, along with Hamlet we will declare that humans are “the paragon of animals…and yet what is this quintessence of dust?” (2.2).

We Christians, especially in America, don’t know what the heck to do with apocalyptic literature most notably in the canonical witness. Our rather frightful incapacity for reading apocalyptic literature leaves us thinking that we are extraterrestrial creatures visiting the earth only for a short while. This couldn’t be farther from the canonical witness’ portrait of what it means to be human.

Our modern forefathers had a thing or two to say about what it means to be human. That great wizard Pascal spoke wisdom that will continue to echo in our ears for generations to come: “Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, a man would still be more noble than that which kills him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this. All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality” (347).

Recalling the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, Voltaire would probably not have been too far off from echoing Pascal’s conclusion that we are but feeble things, and in light of several recent major disasters, Pascal’s remarks about our frailty have been accentuated further.

Descartes is famous or infamous for declaring, “I think therefore I am.” However, some folks have facetiously pointed out that according to Descartes’ own rationale he cannot even say, “I think therefore I am,” only “thoughts are being thunk.” In any case, I sure hope I am more than merely a thinking thing. Descartes’ reflections, and for that matter Pascal’s, may have been of some worth; however, we would likely do ourselves a disservice by not moving beyond Descartes’ rather limited and dubious conclusions. His conclusions were not quite conversant with Genesis’ anthropological portrait nor were they trying to be.

Wittgenstein has greatly influenced contemporary theological conversations and rightly so. You might say that he has dusted away the cute homunculus from the alleged seat in our skull, and this spring-cleaning has not been to our detriment. In moral discourse, MacIntyre has made an assertion or two, and fortunately for us morality apparently has a body.

Unlike our animal friends, we humans are monomaniacs when it comes to telling stories about ourselves. It might be said that we are walking narratives more concrete, hilarious, grotesque, and subtle than any of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories.  

Whatever fancy descriptions we use for anthropology especially a theological anthropology, we should likely remember to keep things down to earth. After all, we are dirt people.