The Tragic Misunderstanding of Atheist Humanism | Henri de Lubac | From Chapter One of The Drama of Atheist Humanism
A wonderful piece of sculpture adorning the cathedral of Chartres represents Adam, head and shoulders barely roughed out, emerging from the earth from which he was made and being molded by the hands of God. The face of the first man reproduces the features of his modeler. This parable in stone translates for the eyes the mysterious words of Genesis: "God made man in his own image and likeness."
From its earliest beginnings Christian tradition has not ceased to annotate
this verse, recognizing in it our first title of nobility and the foundation of
our greatness. Reason, liberty, immortality and dominion over nature are so
many prerogatives of divine origin that God has imparted to his creatures.
Establishing man from the outset in God's likeness, each of these prerogatives
is meant to grow and unfold until the divine resemblance is brought to
perfection. Thus they are the key to the highest of destinies."Man, know thyself!" Taking up, after Epictetus, the Socratic gnôthi seauton, the Church transformed and deepened it, [1] so that what had been chiefly a piece of moral advice became an exhortation to form a metaphysical judgment. Know your- self, said the Church, that is to say, know your nobility and your dignity, understand the greatness of your being and your vocation, of that vocation which constitutes your being. Learn how to see in yourself the spirit, which is a reflection of God, made for God. "O man, scorn not that which is admirable in you! You are a poor thing in your own eyes, but I would teach you that in reality you are a great thing! ... Realize what you are! Consider your royal dignity! The heavens have not been made in God's image as you have, nor the moon, nor the sun, nor anything to be seen in creation .... Behold, of all that exists there is nothing that can contain your greatness." [2] Philosophers have told man that he is a "microcosm", a little world made of the same elements, given the same structure, subject to the same rhythms as the great universe; they have reminded him that he is made in its image and is subject to its laws; they have made him into part of the mechanism or, at most, into an epitome of the cosmic machine. Nor were they completely mistaken. Of man's body and of all that, in man, can be called "nature", it is true. But if man digs deeper and if his reflection is illuminated by what is said in Sacred Scripture, he will be amazed at the depths opening up within him. [3] Unaccountable space extends before his gaze. In a sort of infinitude he overflows this great world on all sides, and in reality it is that world, "macrocosm", which is contained in this apparent "microcosm" . . . in parvo magnus. That looks like a paradox borrowed from one of our great modern idealists. Far from it. First formulated by Origen, then by Saint Gregory Nazianzen, it was later repeated by many others. [4] Saint Thomas Aquinas was to give much the same translation of it when he said that the soul is in the world continens magis quam contenta—containing it rather than contained by it—and it found fresh utterance through the lips of Bossuet. [5]
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