Doxologies Alone Are Appropriate

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

The Bible declares that man is made in God's image.  We are the only creature upon the earth so designated.  But what does that designation mean?

One thing it does not mean is that part of man has the spark of the divine.  Thinking along these lines always degrades human beings, on the one hand, and curses humankind by heading straight into neo-platonic heresies, on the other.  Rather, the Word of God declares unequivocally that man, in body, soul, spirit, heart--that is, man in all his aspects--reflects and bears the image of God Himself.

To strike out the neo-platonism that lurks always at the edges of Christian doctrine we repeat that our body reflects the image of God, despite the fact that God Himself is "without body, parts, and passions".

As Douglas Kelly puts it:

. . . while the image of God is not corporeal as such, yet man's body does correspond to that divine image in a way not true of even the highest animals.  Koenig summarizes these corresponding features of man's body to the divine likeness:
a.) man's countenance which directs his gaze upwards.
b.) a capacity for varying facial expressions.
c.) a sense of shame expressing itself in the blush of man;
d.) speech.
[Douglas F. Kelly, Creation and Change: Genesis 1:1--2:4 in the Light of Changing Scientific Paradigms (Fearn, Ross Shire: Mentor/Christian Focus Publications, 1997), p.197.]

 It is the last aspect (speech and language) which seizes our attention as being particularly after God's image.
The eternal name of the Son is Logos, or Word.  Speaking of the Son, John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word (Logos) was God."  [John 1:1]

Within the eternal Godhead there has always been Word or communication, and to be a human person ("in His image") is to communicate by means of words.  This means that God created us to talk to us and we to Him.  [Ibid.]

This is one reason the Scriptures speak extensively on the proper use of the tongue, as well as its misuse.  It is this faculty which so obviously distinguishes man from all other created beings upon the earth.  It is this faculty which makes up the eternal name of the eternal Son of God.   It is the misuse of this faculty by man which is so evil and rebellious and grotesque.

And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. [James 3: 6-10]

What a triumph for the Satan when he can take the human attribute which so clearly bears the image of God, the word, and perverts it to the utterances of evil.  What a contrast when the tongue is tamed by the Spirit of God and used for righteousness:  Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:4]

Linguist Noam Chomsky has argued that man, and man alone, is "wired" for language and speech.

The rate of vocabulary acquisition is so high at certain stages of life, and the precision and delicacy of the concepts acquired so remarkable, that it seems necessary to conclude that in some manner the conceptual system with which lexical items are connected is already substantially in place. [Ibid.]

Kelly continues:

Chomsky speaks elsewhere of "initially given structures of mind" and "deep structures", which give rise to "universal grammar, invariant among humans".  His research  on the uniqueness of the human species as regards language has not been welcomed in some evolutionist circles, who have labeled him as "a creationist" (which he denies).  . . .

Oller and Omdahl are surely to the point in writing that "our capacity for language cannot have originated within the narrow confines of any finite duration of experience . . . .  If all the eons of the space-time world could be multiplied clear to infinity, the material world would still fail to account for the abstract conceptions that any human being can easily conceive of through the gift of language."  Only a speaking God could have made speaking persons.  [Ibid, p. 197f.] 

There is only one apt and proper response in the face of such glories:  the Psalmist declares:

 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. [Psalm 139:14]