Where Does Human Dignity Come From?

For example, consider naturalism, the denial that God and any other nonnatural entities exist. Given the fact that it assumes an evolutionary account for humans, one where we are merely the product of random mutations with no ultimate purpose or meaning, how can it account for the fact that humans have real dignity?
- John Marriott & Shawn Wicks, Before You Go (book)

To start out, I think most misunderstandings between Theists and those with a Secular worldview is rooted in the fact that Theism has a top-down understanding of meaning and values. Like in the times where a single King ruled the people, theists imagine a single authoritative source above us providing the rules (defining our shared values or sense of "right" and "wrong" in that sense). In fact, biblical theism explicitly describes God as the ultimate "king" of all existence (projecting an ancient human leadership role - and an authoritarian role at that - onto the idealized invisible being of their dreams).

On the other hand, a secular worldview like Humanism, has a bottom-up understanding of meaning and values. Like in more democratic societies today, where every citizen has a voice and vote in selecting those who represent us to make our laws, the authority to define our values comes from the bottom up, from "we the people" ("We the people... do ordain..." begins the U.S. constitution in its preamble).

Another distinction is how in Theism, God is the objective (authoritative, top-down) source of both truth and meaning. But for a secular worldview that assumes Humanity is the subjective (bottom-up) source of both our current understanding of the truth and the source of our values and meaning (even those expressed in our religions, theism and otherwise, all human inventions), things flow in the opposite direction. Here, we have an admittedly incomplete and still being worked out picture of truth - and Science is a means to carefully approach our gradually better grasping it (the incomplete and tentative nature of our understanding being a matter of humility from a secular perspective).

However, unlike Theism with a Personal source for objective truth (infusing it also with what the God personally values and purposefully intends), we recognize that Science is just a specific tool with a more limited purpose: helping we subjective beings investigate objective reality better, since time has revealed it doesn't come all that naturally to us to do it well. We do not look to Science in a top-down fashion as an objective source for our meaning and values the way Theist do with God. Our values and meaning come from us, as it takes a personal subject - or conscious being - to value something and make meaning of it (Science is not a conscious being). Where as the scientific method is intentionally optimized for objectivity in a way that avoids the influence of human bias and emotion. But what humans value and find meaningful is rich in human bias and emotion! We therefore would not confuse or corrupt science as a tool by demanding it satisfy us in these ways (though we can still find it quite meaningful(1)).

Further, the authors mention that we naturalist - or methodological naturalist, in my case - do not assume any "ultimate purpose or meaning" for human life. And this concern is a very top-down one at that. I say this, because by "ultimate", I take it the authors mean a single official and authoritatively set-in-stone final and complete "purpose or meaning" for our existence. And I admit that we do not assume we have nor are we persuaded that we have ever needed one (though we can observe theists often seem very concerned about this for reasons that seem less forthcoming I think. Just what exactly do they fear?). From a bottom-up values and meaning perspective, such a thing is not only unnecessary (we believe every ounce of meaning humans have ever experienced was from humanity itself, religious thoughts included) but also often undesirable. For we've observed across history how such an idea of presumed absolute single authoritative set-in-stone understanding of truth has often been yielded to harmful ends of human oppression and suffering (e.g. religious persecution).

Given all these distinctions, the authors ask, "how can it [a secular worldview] account for the fact that humans have real dignity?" Again, by "real" value the authors seem to mean "real" in that a single authoritative source has settled once and for all, no matter how anybody else feels otherwise, that human beings have "real" value, dang it! Because how could it be enough of a source for seeing humans as being valuable that we ourselves value one another? Well, I for one, value what I value because I find it valuable - and do not need an outside source to co-sign that which means something to me in order for me to find it meaningful (Ps: think for yourself).

Worse, if the biblical theist's source for affirming human dignity is the Bible, I do not find it a source for valuing human beings the way that we do in a modern pluralistic democracy. For example, the dignity we give people today, in modern terms of equality and human rights, includes the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion and the freedom not to be enslaved. But the concept of people being valuable - and even made in God's image - in the Bible was contextually understood in such a way that God could command His people to treat other "image-bearing" humans in a fashion that involved their enslavement, murder through genocide (including men, women and male children - everyone except the female virgins) and being put to death for deviating from the one official religion allowed in their "perfect" divine law - to sample just a few un-dignified horrors.

So I'd ask in reply, how can it be that biblical theism can account for the modern human dignity as enshrined in modern concepts of equality and protected in modern human rights? The biblical writings are merely an ancient snapshot in time of an adolescent phase of our culture's collective journey of moral development through cumulative historical lessons learned. And it would take us far backwards in that journey if we assumed our ideas during that immature phase were "perfect" for all time, as some somehow still imagine we should today.

So where instead do our modern ideas of human dignity, equality and human rights actually come from? From us, the bottom up, from within us! They come from modern human empathy and reason as shaped by our upbringing in a culture shaped by our long history (which many of us are taught): many lessons learned from failures of reason and empathy alike including much oppression and tribalistic sectarian violence which has informed the rights and deliberative processes that now stand as walls against them. And our empathy for those oppressed at many stages in the history is powerfully empowered through art and film that puts us in the shoes of those being oppressed. Those lessons including many more that occurred in the 2,000 years and counting since the theists divine source of authoritative objective truth was closed for revisions. Our modern ideals reflect even more lessons than even from a few hundred years ago when our very young nation's constitution was first written, hence its several more recent amendments.

We are compelled to value each other and ensure that human worth is respected in our laws. That is the source of our dignity and it makes our shared lives better. We have ample reasons to keep and defend it without calling upon the ancient top-down authoritarian values of the biblical theist. And being so compelled, we will raise the next generation to do likewise - and become fully morally developed, reflexively empathetic, human beings in their own right and continue the story of progress forward.

FOOTNOTES

1. Science as a subjectively meaningful experience for humans:
   1. The meaningfulness of the explorative quest for truth itself.
   2. The thrill of discovery and wondrous reflections on what new insights may mean to us, tell us about who and what we are (e.g. Carl Sagan).
   3. And the joy and significance of what we may be able to do to make things better for people and the world by applying the insights it yields (e.g. medicine, technology, etc).