What Are We? Three Views on Human Nature
By Rod Dreher
Rawlings School of Divinity
CLED 800: Biblical & Theological Foundations of Education
Genevieve Hamer
July 3, 2022
What Are We? Three Views on Human Nature
The basic idea behind Antiques Roadshow is that members of the public bring to a traveling
roadshow what they believe to be antique items—cabinets, chairs, coins, vases, and so on—and
have the items examined and appraised by experts who identify the items, give background
information on their provenance, and place a value on them. In sum, the specialists scrutinize
each item and give an estimate of how much it might fetch at auction.
Antiques Roadshow can be quite educational, but its popularity is undoubtedly due to its
entertainment value, and that value peaks whenever there’s a large discrepancy between the
owner’s expectation and the specialist’s evaluation. The woman who discovered a dusty old
book in her attic is informed that it’s one of a handful of first-edition copies published in the
17th century and now worth several hundred thousand dollars. Meanwhile, the fellow who
brought what he believed to be a rare Ming Dynasty vase, which he was planning on selling in
order to fund a very comfortable retirement, is excruciatingly deflated when the expert points
out three tiny but significant words etched under its rim: Made in Taiwan. And all of this is
captured on camera for our viewing pleasure!
There is a central question that drives viewer interest in Antiques Roadshow, a question
posed of every item discussed:
What is its value? (Put baldly: What is it worth?)
In order to answer that central question, however, two prior questions must be asked and
answered:
What kind of thing is it? (The question of its nature.)
Where did it come from? (The question of its origins.)
One cannot determine the value or worth of an item without knowing something about its
nature and its origins. And once those three questions have been answered, a fourth is raised:
How should I treat it? (What should I do with it?)
If it’s a first-edition copy of a rare 17th-century book, you should treat it very carefully! You
should respect it. You should protect it. If on the other hand it’s a cheaply manufactured piece
of pottery with nothing whatsoever to distinguish it, well, perhaps you could put it in the garage
as a receptacle for all those random nuts and bolts you daren’t throw away.
Anthropology and Worldviews
The topic of this lecture is anthropology: the study of mankind. But what, you might ask,
does Antiques Roadshow have to do with anthropology? Just this: the four questions
mentioned above can also be applied to us—to human beings.
What value or worth do we have?
What are we by nature?
Where did we come from?
How should we be treated?
Moreover, these four questions are logically connected in much the same way that they’re
connected for antique items brought to the roadshow. We cannot know how to treat other
human beings without knowing the value of human beings—the worth of a human life. We
cannot understand the value of human beings without knowing something about our nature
and our origins.
Consider for a moment some of the great cultural and moral debates of our day. Abortion.
Euthanasia. Racial equality and civil rights. Sexual morality and sexual liberty. Religious
freedom. Environmentalism and animal rights. Embryonic research. Genetic enhancement.
Gender identity. All of these issues—and many others—turn on the issue of anthropology; that
is to say, on the nature and origins of human beings.
Furthermore, there are multiple anthropologies competing within our culture today, which
leads to polarized positions on these ethical debates. But anthropologies don’t come into
existence ex nihilo. They aren’t self-sustaining and free-floating. Every anthropology is situated
within, arises from, and finds its justification within a broader worldview—a wider perspective
on ultimate reality, ultimate truth, ultimate meaning, and ultimate value.
In the remainder of this essay, then, I propose to consider three prominent worldviews and
the competing views of human nature that they embody and entail. Why three? Here I wish to
take a cue from philosopher Alvin Plantinga by suggesting that in the West today there are
“three main competitors vying for spiritual supremacy: three fundamental perspectives or ways
of thinking about what the world is like, what we ourselves are like, what is most important
about the world, what our place in it is, and what we must do to live the good life.”[1] Plantinga
labels these three perspectives “Christian theism,” “perennial naturalism,” and “creative anti-
realism.” I propose to simplify matters by referring to them (in adjusted order) as Naturalism,
Postmodernism, and Christian Theism. The main burden of the following discussion will be to
argue that in the end only one of these worldviews—Christian Theism—can supply any firm
basis for human dignity and human rights. But before launching into that discussion, I should
say a brief word about worldviews in general.
Roughly stated, a worldview is an overall philosophical outlook on the world: an all-
encompassing perspective on everything that exists and matters to us. A worldview reflects
both descriptive and normative content: it concerns not only how things are, but also how
things ought to be. We can talk about a worldview as the perspective of an individual person:
his or her fundamental guiding beliefs, assumptions, ideas, and values. We can also talk about a
worldview as a generalized type, as I will be doing here.
The content of a worldview can be carved up in different ways, but to keep matters relatively
simple we will consider the three aforementioned worldviews under four headings:
1. Its view of God
2. Its view of ultimate reality
3. Its view of truth and knowledge
4. Its view of goodness and value
The first two of the four would fall under the traditional label of metaphysics, the third under
epistemology, and the fourth under ethics or axiology. A worldview—or “world-and-life view”
as some prefer to say—will include views on all four areas. Moreover, those positions will
largely determine the anthropology embedded in that worldview.
II. Naturalism
Naturalism may be defined very simply as the thesis that only the natural universe exists.
Naturally enough, this raises the question of what counts as ‘natural’—an issue that turns out
to be vigorously debated even among professing Naturalists. A fairly standard definition would
be as follows: something is natural if and only if it can be studied and explained, at least in
principle, by the so-called natural or empirical sciences (i.e., physics, chemistry, and biology).
A common view among Naturalists is that all of the sciences can be reduced to physics:
biology can be explained in terms of chemistry, which in turn can be explained in terms of
physical entities and properties. On this view, Naturalism turns out to be some version of
physicalism. As one Naturalist philosopher, Alex Rosenberg, succinctly put it: “The physical facts
fix all the facts.”[2]
Within the Naturalist camp we may also distinguish between hard and soft Naturalists. Soft
Naturalists allow for the reality of minds and mental entities (such as thoughts and ideas)
provided that they are metaphysically grounded in physical entities (e.g., the mind is something
non-physical that is somehow generated by a physical brain). Hard Naturalists, in contrast, will
deny altogether the reality of minds and mental entities. On that view, strictly speaking, there
are no such things as minds. (One has to wonder what’s going through their minds.)
Naturalism is closely associated with scientism, the notion that scientific knowledge is
paradigmatic for human knowledge, and (in its more radical forms) that scientific knowledge is
the only true knowledge.
Perhaps the most memorable summary of the Naturalist worldview can be credited to Carl
Sagan: “The cosmos is all that was, or is, or ever will be.” While the number of card-carrying
Naturalists may be relatively small, the basic worldview of Naturalism exerts a
disproportionately strong influence on academic and culture today.
Let us consider Naturalism as a worldview, under the four headings previously stated.
Naturalism’s view of God
Simple—there is no God! God is a supernatural being and therefore God does not exist.
Naturalism, by definition, rejects the idea of any transcendent supernatural cause, from which
it follows that the universe is either eternal or came into existence spontaneously without any
prior cause (both positions are defended by Naturalists today).
Naturalism’s view of ultimate reality
The ultimate reality is physical, material reality. Everything that exists ultimately has its basis
in physical entities: matter and energy. As Rosenberg puts it, “The basic things everything is
made up of are fermions and bosons. That’s it.”[3]
It follows that the universe is ultimately impersonal in nature; there is no moral agent or
rational intellect behind the universe. Nature is ultimately non-moral, non-rational, and non-
personal. It’s all just physical stuff. Consequently, there is no ultimate meaning or purpose in
the universe. In the final analysis, nothing exists for a reason and nothing happens for a reason.
It’s full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Naturalism’s view of truth and knowledge
Naturalists will typically affirm that there is such a thing as objective truth. Only science,
however, can really deliver that truth. Objective truth means hard scientific facts—or what can
be reduced to such facts. If your belief cannot be scientifically established, it isn’t knowledge. If
your belief presupposes any non-natural entities, it isn’t true. It can’t be true. On this view,
truth and knowledge range over natural entities alone, and they’re circumscribed by the
methods of science.[4]
Naturalism’s view of goodness and value
Whatever goodness is, it has nothing whatsoever to do with God. Goodness isn’t defined by
the nature, character, or will of God. If there is such a thing as goodness, it must be defined in
wholly naturalistic terms. This puts Naturalists in something of a predicament, because it is
widely recognized that science cannot deliver value judgments. Science tells you how things
are, not how things ought to be. (The same applies generally to ordinary sense experience.)
Nevertheless, Naturalists have offered various theories of goodness and value, particular
moral goodness and moral value. Here I will mention only two theories of moral goodness
popular among Naturalists:
1. Subjectivism: moral goodness is defined in terms of human preferences. On this view,
something is good if I prefer or desire it. Thus, if I prefer company to solitude, then company is
good. (There are, of course, collectivist versions of this theory, according to which something is
good if we—whoever ‘we’ happens to be—prefer or desire it.)
2. Utilitarianism: moral goodness is defined in terms of human pleasures. As the classical
principle of utility has it, morality directs us to promote “the greatest happiness for the greatest
number.”
With this bare-bones outline of the Naturalist worldview in place, let us turn our attention to
anthropology. Recall the four questions delineated in the introduction:
What kind of beings are we? (The question of human nature.)
Where did we come from? (The question of human origins.)
What value or worth do we have?
How should we be treated?
Once we grasp the essentials of the Naturalist worldview, answers to these four questions
follow relatively straightforwardly.
What kind of beings are we?
We are physical, material beings. There is no soul distinct from the body. When my body
ceases to exist, I cease to exist.[5] We are, in essence, biological organisms: especially advanced,
complex mammals.
Where did we come from?
Naturalism has its own creation myth, and it’s an evolutionary narrative. The story begins
with cosmological evolution—the natural formation of a stable physical cosmos containing stars
and planetary systems. The next chapter features chemical evolution—the chance formation of
the first organic materials, and, eventually, the first living cells with reproductive powers. The
door is thus opened to biological evolution: the progression from single-celled organisms to
complex multi-celled life forms by primarily Darwinian processes. Finally, following the
emergence of consciousness and intelligence, the story shifts to cultural evolution: the
development of language, social practices, art, technology, and so forth.
For the Naturalist, all evolutionary processes are entirely natural and therefore undirected.
As George Gaylord Simpson famously put it, “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural
process that did not have him in mind.”[6]
What is our value? What are we worth?
Objectively speaking, we have no value, simply because there is no objective value on the
Naturalist view. A human organism has no more intrinsic worth than any other arrangement of
atoms. On the Naturalist view, no particular arrangement of atoms is objectively better or
worse than any other arrangement. The universe just is what it is!
Consequently, the only way one can ascribe value to a human being is subjectively. You are
valuable for me if you are valuable to me. Your worth is what you are worth to me. Value and
worth will be entirely in the eye of the beholder.
How should we be treated?
For a strict, consistent Naturalist, this is a question without an answer. It’s a pseudo-
question, because it’s not a question that has any objective scientific answer. From a
thoroughgoing Naturalist perspective, the question “How should we treat a human being?” no
more has a right or wrong answer than the question “How should we treat a pile of leaves?”
Nevertheless, Naturalists will inevitably run it through their various moral theories.
Subjectivists would answer thus: we should treat people as we prefer or desire to treat them.
(The immediate problem with this answer should be obvious to anyone with a high-school level
knowledge of twentieth-century history.) Utilitarians, meanwhile, would answer thus: we
should treat people so as to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number. On this
view, we should note, any human may be treated as a means to an end, namely, the happiness
of other humans. An individual human has merely instrumental value toward a collective end.
On neither of these views—Subjectivism or Utilitarianism—are there any absolute duties or
constraints on human actions.
Postmodernism
I should begin this section with an apologia for my use of the label ‘Postmodernism’. No
doubt the terms ‘postmodern’ and ‘postmodernism’ have been used to describe a multitude of
different movements and viewpoints. On some definitions, every single person in the West
today is postmodern![7] Here I propose to use the term simply as a covering label for various
philosophies that share some common themes. These themes arguably originated with
Immanuel Kant, can be traced through Friedrich Nietzsche and the twentieth-century
Existentialists (such as Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre) and find their most radical
expression in the Deconstructionist movement and other anti-realist spin-offs. They are also
found, however, in much cruder forms across the cultural landscape today.
The essence of Postmodernism, as I envisage it here, may be expressed in this proposition:
there are no absolute norms and there is no objective reality. There are no absolute standards
over us, to which we are all subject—and that includes moral standards. Moreover, there is no
objective reality in the following sense: there is no reality that exists independently of us, that is
to say, independently of our thoughts and our language. At any rate, there is no relevant and
accessible reality that exists independently of us.
On the Postmodernist view, what is ‘real’ and what is ‘true’ are ultimately defined by us. This
stance is sometimes called constructivism: ‘reality’ and ‘truth’ are constructed by us, in the way
that we impose or project our thoughts, our ideas, our values, and our goals onto our
experiences and thereby (in effect) create the world.
In terms of academic influence, Naturalism is most dominant in the sciences, whereas
Postmodernism tends to hold sway in the humanities. Having previously considered Naturalism
as a worldview, let us now do the same for Postmodernism.
Postmodernism’s view of God
There is no God in the classical sense. There is no transcendent personal Creator who exists
objectively and absolutely. The only God or gods that could exist must be at root human
projections rather than independent realities. Postmodernism may appear quite religiously
liberal and pluralistic, but make no mistake, it has an absolutist and exclusivist core: it simply
cannot tolerate an absolute God.
Postmodernism’s view of ultimate reality
There is no ultimate reality in any absolute or objective sense. There is no ultimate reality
that simply is what it is, independently of us. There are only relative realities: relative to
individuals or to cultures. In one sense, then, there is no ultimate reality for the Postmodernist.
But in another sense, there are multiple ultimate realities: what’s ultimate is simply what’s
ultimate for you, in terms of your construction of the world.
Postmodernism’s view of truth and knowledge
Truth is not something to be discovered so much as something to be created. (Note the
contrast here with Naturalism, which typically holds to the objectivity of truth.) For the
Postmodernist, truth is a social construction. It arises out of the choices and preferences of
human societies. In short, something is true because we have decided that it is true, either
individually or collectively. We have projected a particular interpretation onto our experiences.
As for knowledge, there is no such thing as knowledge in the classical sense (roughly, a well-
grounded or well-justified belief that reflects an objective reality). Postmodernists typically view
‘knowledge’ along one of the following lines:
a myth—a throwback to a modernist pipe-dream;
a concealed attempt to exert power over some individual or group;
a matter of internal coherence within one’s own interpretation of the world.
Postmodernism’s view of goodness and value
There are no absolute norms; there are no objective criteria of goodness. Nothing is
objectively good or bad (i.e., independently of us). Rather, if something is good, that is because
we have decided that it is good. If something is valuable, that’s because it is valuable to us.
Nothing has an intrinsic and objective value, simply in virtue of what it is.
With this (again bare-bones) outline of the Postmodernist worldview, let us now focus on
the consequences for anthropology. The central tenet of a Postmodernist anthropology comes
to this: human nature cannot be something that is defined independently of us—by the creative
purposes of God, say, or by objective scientific facts. This entails that there is no objective,
determinate answer to questions such as “What is a human being?” and “What does it mean to
be human?” We ourselves are free to define what it means to be human, whether individually
or collectively. Consequently, what we call “human nature”—if we can meaningfully speak of
“human nature” at all—will be relative, fluid, and ultimately up for grabs.
In answer to our four questions, then:
What kind of beings are we?
Simple: we are whatever we define ourselves to be. As I’ve noted, that act of definition can
operate individually or collectively, but a truly consistent Postmodernism (so I would argue)
must say that it operates individually, at the level of the conscious subject.
Where did we come from?
Frankly, it doesn’t matter, except to say this: we do not find our origins in the creative act of
an absolute personal God. Perhaps we evolved; perhaps we were seeded by aliens; perhaps
something else altogether. It makes no difference in the end, because Postmodernism seeks to
decouple human nature from any objective historical events.[8]
What is our value? What are we worth?
Our value is whatever value we ascribe to ourselves. On the Postmodernist view, humans
have no intrinsic, objective, universal value. We have no value that is independent of our own
preferences and judgments. If we value ourselves highly, then we are highly valuable; if we
don’t value ourselves highly, then we aren’t highly valuable. Moreover, these valuations are
subject to variation from person to person, from culture to culture.
How should we be treated?
This is a particularly tricky question for a Postmodernist, for there are no absolute norms
that could supply an objective answer. The typical answer given, however, is that we should
treat others with pluralistic tolerance and without judgment. Inclusivity is in! Exclusivity is out!
So much for the Postmodernist worldview and anthropology. Before turning to the third
worldview—Christian Theism—I wish to make a few cursory observations about how
Naturalism and Postmodernism differ with respect to their view of human nature, as well as
what they have in common.
At first glance, Naturalism and Postmodernism appear to be polar opposites. Naturalism
presents a depressingly low view of human beings: we are basically highly-evolved animals,
which in turn are just complex arrangements of physical particles. (As Marvin Minsky, the MIT
professor and pioneer of artificial intelligence put it, humans are essentially “meat machines.”)
Postmodernism, on the other hand, ascribes to us virtually God-like power and authority. We
are the creators of the world—indeed, the creators of ourselves! We are the ultimate authors
of reality. The world is what it is, and has the meaning and value that it does, because of us—
because of our thoughts, our words, our activities.
At a deeper level, however, these two worldviews must be regarded as close siblings;
indeed, as non-identical twins conceived in the same womb. For these two worldviews are
united in denying the existence of a transcendent personal Creator, and thus united in affirming
human autonomy while rejecting any absolute reference point for truth, reason, meaning,
purpose, and value. And for this very reason, neither of these secular worldviews can give an
adequate account of the objective value of human beings and human life.
Naturalists can be (and have been) quite open about this. Postmodernists (as is their wont)
tend to be more equivocal about it. Nevertheless, both worldviews are engaged in a kind of
metaphysical alchemy: an attempt to derive meaning and value from ultimate meaninglessness
and valuelessness.[9]
The dilemma for worldviews that reject a personal absolute God is precisely this: either they
must make man nothing or they must make man everything. Man is either promoted to the
level of deity or demoted to the level of dirt.
It seems appropriate at this point to remind ourselves of the words of Psalm 8:
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above
the heavens… When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that
you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [Heb. elohim]
and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your
hands… O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Consider how the inspired Psalmist’s anthropological reflections begin and end with the
glory of God—a thoroughly theocentric vision—while encompassing a view of man that is
neither demoralizingly low nor blasphemously high.
Christian Theism
For the purposes of this section I will define Christian Theism as the worldview presented in
and presupposed by the Bible. Each of the points of the Christian worldview I lay out below is
either explicitly stated, implied, or taken for granted by the biblical authors. The reason I
identify the Christian worldview with the biblical worldview is straightforward: Christianity is
defined by Christ, and Jesus himself affirmed that the Scriptures were the very word of God.[10]
The Christian worldview is Christ’s worldview, and the worldview of Jesus was—and is—the
biblical worldview.
Such preliminaries established, let us consider some of the defining tenets of Christian
Theism under the four now-familiar headings.
Christian Theism’s view of God
Needless to say, the existence of God is the most foundational presupposition of the biblical
worldview. There is but one God, and that one God has definite attributes. As the Westminster
Larger Catechism summarizes the matter:
God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-
sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all
things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and
abundant in goodness and truth.
Some distinctives of the Christian view of God need to be noted here, in contrast to other
monotheistic religions. God is both personal and absolute. God is both transcendent and
immanent. God is both One and Many (the doctrine of the Trinity).[11] Furthermore, from this
understanding of the nature of God, it follows that God is the sovereign creator of everything
that is not God.
Christian Theism’s view of ultimate reality
God, and God alone, is the ultimate reality. God alone is self-existent, self-sufficient, and
absolute. God is the source and author of every other reality, the definer of every other reality.
Everything other than God exists only because of God. Everything other than God—every
created thing—is what it is only because of God’s sovereign decree. Nothing exists
independently of God in the slightest respect. All this to say, Christian Theism posits a sharp
Creator-creation distinction.
Christian Theism’s view of truth and knowledge
What is the Christian view of truth? We might be tempted to say (with considerable
justification) that truth is simply correspondence with reality. I suggest however that we ought
to say something deeper and more consistently theocentric. Truth doesn’t exist in the abstract,
independently of God. Rather, truth is grounded in the mind of God. Truth, we might say, is
ultimately identical with God’s thoughts.[12] For that very reason, truth exhibits both internal
coherence (because of God’s essential unity) and external correspondence (because God defines
reality).[13]
As for a Christian view of knowledge, surely the first point to affirm is that God is the
ultimate knower. We can have knowledge because—and only because—God has made us
derivative knowers and has provided us with divine revelation and cognitive faculties fitted to
appropriate that divine revelation. In other words, Christian Theism affirms a revelational
epistemology.
Christian Theism’s view of goodness and value
God is good, of course, but God is not merely good. God is ‘the Good’—that is to say, God is
goodness as such. On the Christian Theist view, God himself is the absolute norm—the ultimate
standard of truth, goodness, and beauty. Therefore, whatever has value, has value because
(and only because) of its relationship to God. Something is valuable, objectively speaking,
simply because God values it and delights in it.[14] Moral goodness is grounded in God’s
character and God’s will. Right and wrong are defined by God’s law, which in turn is a revelation
of his righteousness, holiness, and loving-kindness.
These, in briefest outline, are some of the defining points of the Christian Theist worldview.
Let us now turn from theology (in the narrow sense) to anthropology. What is the Christian
Theist view of human nature? Once again we will answer by way of four distinct questions.
What kind of beings are we?
From a biblical perspective, the first thing to say is that we are creatures. Second, and more
specifically, we are creatures made in the image of God:
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.
(Genesis 1:26-27)
The significance of this biblical affirmation cannot be underestimated, and it has the most
profound implications for how we view ourselves and treat one another.
Third, we should note that we are gendered creatures. “In the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.” The human race is structured around a basic gender binary:
man and woman. Moreover, we dare not overlook the Hebrew parallelism in this verse: man
and woman are equally created in the image of God.
Fourth, we are social creatures—designed by God for community:
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a
helper fit for him.” (Genesis 2:18)
Thus we see the creation of the woman as a fitting companion for the man, and thereafter
the institution of marriage and the family. (While I wouldn’t want to overstate or overextend
the point, as some theologians may have done, there’s an important sense in which human
community is a created reflection of the inner divine community of Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit.)
Fifth, we are not merely physical creatures. We consist of both body and soul. The soul is an
irreducible spiritual aspect of our being which can survive the death of the body and therefore
does not merely ‘supervene’ upon the physical.[15]
Sixth, we are fallen creatures. Here I cannot improve upon the summary statements of the
Westminster Shorter Catechism:
Q. 17. Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?
A. The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.
Q. 18. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?
A. The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the
want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly
called original sin; together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it.
Q. 19. What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?
A. All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so
made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever.
In summary: we are creatures, made in God’s image, gendered, social, both physical and
spiritual, and corrupted by sin in every part.
