Against all the many varieties of contemporary humanism, the Bible asserts that God is the measure of all things, not humans. Worshiping God, understanding God, and bearing witness to God must all be decisively different because of the difference of who God is and the difference in the way he reveals himself. The Copernican Revolution changes its thinking and living forever, and in every way. Because of who God is, it is completely and absolutely impossible for “Man” alone to the measure of all things. To be sure, of all the life forms on earth only humans measure the world and life as we do. But those very measuring rods–reason, nature, and the scientific method–need to be measure and justified themselves, and none of them can justify themselves by themselves.
The truth, rather, is that “humanity before God” is the measure of all things, the standard of human responsibility, and the secret to a life lived well. None of us will understand or live life well until we see ourselves as individual women and men in relation to the One who is our Father, our Creator, and our judge. Such is the power of the sun that the earth goes round the sun, and not the sun around the earth. Faith in God is a revolutionary faith with a calling to turn the world the right way up.
Os Guinness, The Magna Carta of Humanity
Guinness observes that humankind has a tendency to define humanity downward, while the faith of the Bible defines humanity upward–as beings created in the image of God. This makes a tremendous difference, Guinness notes, in not only how we regard ourselves, but in how we regard one another. This belief endows the individual with dignity and worth, reminds the individual that they are accountable to their Creator, and charges the individual with the responsible to regard their neighbor, likewise, as a divine image-bearer. Regarding God as the measure of all things has implications for the individual, but also for the community.
