What Is Man?

by Tom Wacaster

“What Is Man?”  This question was posed by the Psalmist as he likely gazed upon the stars and considered the vast universe in which we live (Psa. 8:4).   In the vast array of the cosmos, man may seem rather insignificant.  From the viewpoint of a scientist (especially one that happens to be an atheist), man is but a speck in the large universe.  The earth covers about 260 billion cubic miles, and yet I have read that all of the earth’s population could stand on an area about the size of the state of Oklahoma with room to spare (whoever came up with that interesting bit of trivia must have never visited India).   From the standpoint of time, we are but a moment in passing, and as Job noted, our days are “swifter than a weaver’s shuttle” (Job. 7:6).  From a chemical standpoint we are made up of approximately $15 worth of material (adjusted for inflation of course).  There is enough sulphur to rid one dog of his fleas, enough fat to make six bars of soap, enough phosphorus to make 20 boxes of matches, enough lime to whitewash a chicken coop, enough iron for a 6-penny nail, and enough water to fill a bathtub.  Not much is it? 

Rudyard Kipling has defined the woman as a "rag and a bone and a hank of hair." The evolutionist looks at man as just a little lower than the cosmic energy and a little higher than the tadpole. The materialist would insist that man is wholly mortal, and consequently, no part of him survives beyond the grave.  Look at man pessimistically and he is "nature's mistake."  Another has described man as "insensible to birth, neglects life and suffers in death."  Man's course has been described by another as "school tablets, aspirin tablets and stone tablets."  But the little country boy's essay is the best: "Your head is kind of round and hard, and your brains are in it and your hair on it. Your face is the front of your head where you eat and make faces. Your neck is what keeps your head out of your collar. Its hard to keep clean. Your shoulders are sort of shelfs where you hook your suspenders on them. Your stummick is something that if you do not eat often enough it hurts, and spinage’ don't help it none. Your spine is a long bone in your back that keeps you from folding up. Your back is always behind you no matter how quick you turn around.  Your arms you have got to have to pick with, and so you can reach for the butter. Your fingers stick out of your hand so you can throw a curve, and add up rithmatic. Your legs is what if you have not got two of you cannot get to first base, neither can your sister. Your feet are what you run on. Your toes are what always get stubbed. And that's all there is of you except what's inside and I never saw it yet."

Of course all of these descriptions focus upon the physical to one degree or another.  But man is more than just the physical; made in the image of God he is God’s crowning achievement.  He is a combination of body and spirit of which the body will someday return to the dust of this earth and the spirit unto God.  “Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal.  Dust thou art and to dust returnest, was not written of the soul” (Longfellow).  When once the seas have vanished and the earth burned up in unimaginable fire; when the stars have fallen and the sun burned to a cinder, you and I will still have a being.  That cannot be said of any other living creature upon the face of this earth.   And yet the realization that I will exist for all eternity is quite sobering.   The realization of that compels us to search till we find the answer to life’s most challenging questions, among which is the question now under consideration: “What is man?” Asking the question is easy; obtaining the answer and acting upon it is a different matter.