“And the man and his wife were both naked,
and were not ashamed.”
Genesis 2:25
Sometime in either my freshman or sophomore year of college I took a class called Human Ecology. It fulfilled one of the two biological science general education course requirements for a bachelor’s degree and was essentially a course that explored the inter-relatedness of human society and the natural world. Early in the class to make the point that human beings share things in common with the other animals in this world, the professor identified what he considered to be the two major biological traits that distinguish us from other animals. Pointing to his head with one hand and repeatedly demonstrating the grasping function of his thumb and his other four fingers he said: “These are the only two things that make us different: our brains and an opposable thumb.”
I suppose if you look at this question from the perspective of evolutionary biology it is not far from the truth. At the very least, it is a helpful perspective in that it mitigates some of the arrogance brought on by that big brain and maybe helps us to think twice about how to live in a state of respectful humility with the rest of the natural world. And this was certainly part of my professor’s point. But it is not the whole story. And it is not the only perspective from which one can look at this question of how we are different from the animals. For what that big brain also does is give us the ability to admit what we do not know and therefore also postulate the existence of a being other than ourselves who might know what we don’t.
If we see ourselves as creatures made by the thoughtful and intentional actions of a Creator, then there is another short list of similarities and differences we can compile when we compare ourselves with the other animals God has created. The story of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 is a helpful source in constructing this list. What makes us similar can be summarized in words like dust and death, and what distinguishes us is identified in the words like image and dominion.
The Psalms are a helpful commentary on Genesis. For on the one hand these poets lead us into the stark awareness that we return to the dust from which we come (Ps 90) and that we cannot “abide in our pomp” because like the beasts we perish (Ps 49). On the other hand they celebrate our special status in creation as ones who are on God’s mind in a different way: That God made us “a little lower than God” and has given us “dominion over the works of [his] hands” (Ps. 8).
But irrespective of which of these two sets of lenses we use to explore this question of our similarities to and our dissimilarities from the other animals, we are delivered into a place where we must face the same question. We have to decide what we will do with this information. We have to ask: “So what?” How will we make use of our privilege and what will we do with the truth that we have limits? We are brought to a place where we must consider our moral choices in how we will relate to this world.
And when I come to this point I am glad for my theological lens. For it gives me direction in how to deploy my big brain and it gives me compassion for a world that comes from the loving thoughts of a benevolent creator who looked at it all when it was finished and said: “This is very good.”
There is a strange little detail at the end of Genesis 2 that brings this together for me. We’re told that the man and the woman were “naked and not ashamed.” Another way to say this is: They knew who they were, they saw themselves clearly and they were ok with that. Naked and not ashamed: vulnerable and undefended, yet confident and empowered.
When we know who we are, people created in the image of God, made by God for relationship with God, one another and the rest of creation, we are not anxious about what we are not. We shrug our shoulders at the fact of our nakedness because we know that our vulnerability is not the only truth that defines us. We can humbly make use of those big, yet limited, brains because we receive them as a gift from God and use them in gratitude to him and for his glory.
The way Eugene Peterson renders the third Beatitude concerning the blessedness of the meek provides us with a good summary and an apt conclusion:
You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—
no more, no less.
That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
Matthew 5:5
David Rohrer
April 27, 2020