Persons, Dignity, and Vindication

People are not just so many cattle. If cattle are mistreated, it is a shame to the abuser. My indignation, however, is not that this or that particular head of cattle was mistreated, but that cattle in general should not be so mistreated. If a human being is mistreated, my indignation is both with respect to human beings in general and that human being in particular. If every man and woman, boy and girl, has dignity, then their abuse (whether at home in private or in society and the public square) is an outrage not only because they are human, but because they are Robert or Cynthia, Bobby or Susie; their worth is personal and individual, not only collective.

I believe in heaven and hell and the final judgment of God on sin because human dignity is heavenly, human indignity is hellish and only God can judge. Someone may ask, "But if we stop racism or child abuse or genocide, won't that be enough to vindicate human dignity? Why bring God into it, not to mention heaven and hell?"

First, no one has ever stopped any of these abuses, they have only regulated them, and sins against human dignity are not OK just because I'm not suffering them. Second, suppose we could stop them: what's to prevent subsequent generations from resurrecting them again (especially since our present fight against them has been so difficult)? Third, my abhorance today of slavery or the Holocaust does nothing to affirm the worth and value of slaves or Jews to the dead and unrepentant slave owners or dead and unrepentant Nazis. There is a public vindication that is lacking without heaven and hell that we long for in all our calls for justice. We do not simply want to be vindicated in our own eyes of crimes and abuses against us, we also want the world to see that we are vindicated. And God promises such vindication (Luke 18:1-8, Matt. 25:31-46). Injustices that are righted are part of our joy, but not all of it. Those who are abused not only rejoice in the vindication of others (whether present or past), but they also long to participate in it by being vindicated of their own indignities as well.

The question I haven't addressed, though, is in what does human dignity consist? Why is human indignity so hellish? A worthy question to be handled later.