I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast. The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand the test of scrutiny. As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people in the right direction.

For episode 9, I wanted to take some time and talk about the concept of human dignity, the Imago Dei, and social media. This might not seem like a topic worthy of discussion because after all, who doesn't agree that all humans carry inherent worth and therefore should be treated with a baseline of dignity.

I am going to state what is an uncontroversial statement. Everyone, and I mean everyone, regardless of whatever synthetic classification we desire to put ourselves in, possess inherent worth and that inherent worth is inextricably linked to human dignity. To pull it apart even further, whatever race, ethnicity, people group, religion or lack thereof, sexual orientation or preference, or socioeconomic status, or sordid past, or gender, whatever else, the treatment and perspective we should all receive from one another in theory should be equivalent to that of a sibling within our family, a sibling you love.

To put it in layman's terms, there is never a reason we should see any other human being on the face of the earth anything less than someone we love. I know that sounds fluffy at first, but you're going to need to bear with me a little bit as I arrive at that conclusion and why the journey itself is so important to the conclusion.

As a disclaimer, I want to say that as I name these different synthetic classifications that we all use, race, ethnicity, people group, gender, religion, etc., I seldom find them helpful. In fact, on balance, I find them to be much more harmful than helpful. One of the reasons I find them to be much more harmful than helpful is because these synthetic classifications begin to be the source of seeing another person as the other.

We begin to see one another as groups belonging to that synthetic classification, straight or gay, Asian or brown, male or female, as opposed to just seeing each other as human beings. I want to give you an example. I could be in a restaurant with a bunch of other Koreans as that was the case for me growing up in Koreatown Los Angeles and feel right at home since I look like everyone else.

As a side note, Koreatown Los Angeles has the highest concentration of ethnic Koreans outside of Korea. So growing up in Koreatown Los Angeles, I had Korean everything. There were Korean tutoring centers, shopping malls, auto repair shops, as I mentioned restaurants, Korean tax centers. There are about 100,000 Koreans residing in Los Angeles today.

Not the county, I'm talking about the city. So that's a lot of people and a lot of Koreans residing within a small area. It is very easy to get lost in the community because you really don't have to learn English because the community itself is self-sufficient. Now going back to the restaurant, as I sit in this Korean restaurant in my head, I could feel like I belong because when I look at everyone, they look like me.

But then what if I start seeing everything through the lens of one of the synthetic classifications? Age, sex, gender, religion. If I were to do that, I would go from a sense of real belonging to a very real sense of isolation and loneliness. In this restaurant, not everyone is the same age as me.

In this restaurant, not everyone is the same gender as me. In this restaurant, and you can go on. So instead of seeing people as people, if I start to see people through the lens of the synthetic classifications, I make within myself this cage of loneliness and isolations. Classifications, synthetic classifications, do have some utilitarian value.

But what I'm saying is, on balance, they have been more harmful than helpful and have been the source and have spawned this sense of cynicism that has been fueled from the suspicion of the other. And that has caused us to see each other as less than people because they don't share the same synthetic classification as you.

And if you have a distaste for a certain synthetic classification, you will begin to see through that lens of distaste. We automatically flood representative ideas of those supposed exemplars of said group. Nobody would ever explicitly articulate it as that, but isn't that what we are doing when we denigrate each other based on a certain synthetic classification?

And aren't we all guilty of this at times? But this distaste is often flipped upside down when we share lives with one another. When you meet a person and share life with that person who is part of maybe a synthetic classification you have a distaste for, you begin to see that the said person is not all that bad.

Maybe you even begin to like that person. Our distaste and our philosophy behind our distastes begins to get challenged. I would submit to you at this moment in time, in our culture, the biggest wedge, more than any other synthetic classification, is ideological. Ideological classifications drive the biggest wedge in society and the church.

I am not saying that racism doesn't exist, ageism doesn't exist, and every other ism doesn't exist because it exists because sin exists and we all suffer from an innate posture of depravity. Many times we will judge the intentions of another's heart and classify it as some type of ism based on suspicions we have for one another rather than giving people the benefit of the doubt.

That judgment then begins to become our reality, doesn't it? But that judgment, like we talked about many times, is smashed when we begin to interact with people. And that is partly why these lockdowns have been so detrimental for us as a nation and as a church because we are embodied souls and the sharing of lives many times contributes to breaking down real divisions and sometimes the ones that only exist in our head.

That is the travesty of this whole thing. How many stories have you heard of family members no longer speaking to one another because one votes for another political party and both are appalled at their choices? How many social media posts have you read of people denigrating, disparaging, and even outright verbally assaulting other people or certain thought leaders because of a position they hold?

Don't get me wrong, we should have substantive discussions about these issues because some of these issues are extremely important. Some are weightier than others. Some are even maybe of the utmost concern. But even then, shouldn't we speak and act in a way that correlates with the fact that all people are made in the image of God?

All people are made in the image of God. Behind a digital projection is an actual person. Theologians like to use the Latin term "Imago Dei" for image of God, "Imago Dei." I want to park right here just for a little bit and expand on this term and flesh out what this means.

And that's part of the journey that I was explicitly referring to in the beginning of this episode because it is really important to flesh this out. Kyle and Dalich in their Old Testament commentary write regarding the image of God, "The image of God consists, therefore, in the spiritual personality of man, though not merely in unity of self-consciousness and self-determination, or in the fact that man was created a consciously free ego, for personality is merely the basis and form of the divine likeness, not its real essence.

This consists, rather, in the fact that the man endowed with free self-conscious personality possesses, in his spiritual as well as his corporeal nature, a creaturely copy of the holiness and blessedness of the divine life. This concrete essence of the divine likeness was shattered by sin, and it is only through Christ, the brightness of the glory of God and the expression of His essence, that our nature is transformed into the image of God again." John MacArthur states in a sermon with respect to the Imago Dei, now these are going to be some long quotes, but they are absolutely worth it.

They are absolutely worth it. He says this, "God is a plurality. God exists in Trinitarian relationship, and I have been made for relationships. That is the ontological aspect, or the aspect of nature, which is the image of God, personhood and relationship. There are also some ethical things, and I've already hinted at them.

As a person who is self-conscious, there are ethical features. I know right from wrong, I understand virtue, I understand morality, I understand righteousness, I understand sin, I understand holiness, I understand disobedience and rebellion, I have the capacity to do what is right, I have the capacity to do what is wrong, I have a capacity for a holy and loving fellowship with my heavenly Father, I have a capacity to know God, to know Christ, to know the Holy Spirit, I also have a capacity as a person in the image of God to know what's right and to know what's wrong, to know what's good, to know what's bad.

It is true that as a human being, I resemble the creatures in my physical, corporeal form. I am made up of flesh, I am made up of the same components, I am made up of the same atomic material, the same raw elements. But what makes me distinct is my invisible part.

It's the part that you can't find in my DNA. It's the part that is not in the chromosomes. It's that invisible self. It's that true person that makes me like God, that is capable of relationship with you and with God. And the question has been asked for the centuries, "Does the body of man bear the image of God?" No, not in the purest and truest sense.

I don't want to get into splitting philosophical hairs here, but we are dust to dust and that's not like God. The personhood is eternal and that's like God. And we are capable and shall enjoy personal relationships forever with one another in the kingdom of God and with God himself.

But while the body is not so much the expression of the image of God, the body does serve as a vehicle through which the image of God is manifest. To put it this way, if I didn't have a body, I'd have a hard time relating to you. So while the body is not the image of God, because God is a spirit and has not a body, my body gives me the vehicle in a corporeal world, in a physical world, for the image of God to manifest itself.

Augustine used to say, "Man's body is appropriate for his rational soul, not because of his facial features and the structure of his limb, but rather because of the fact that he stands erect, is able to look up to heaven, and gaze upon the higher regions." John Calvin sort of felt the same way, that God has caused us to stand up so that we can face each other and so that we can look up and face him.

Sort of emblematic and symbolic of our ability to have relationships. The body is not the image of God, but the body is a vehicle. Henry Morris wrote about this, wrote this about that, "We can only say that although God himself has no physical body, he designed and formed man's body to enable it to function physically in ways in which he himself could function without a body.

God can see, hear, smell, according to Genesis 8.21, he can touch and he can speak, whether or not he has actual physical eyes, ears, nose, hands, or mouth. Furthermore, when he has designed to appear visibly to man, he has done so in the form of a human body, such as in Genesis chapter 18, and the same will be true of angels.

They are spirits, and there are occasions when they take on bodies. There is something, says Morris, about the human body, therefore which is uniquely appropriate to God manifesting himself on occasions. He must have designed man's body with this in mind. Accordingly, he designed it not like the animals, but with an erect posture, with an upward gaze and countenance, capable of facial expressions corresponding to emotional feelings, and with a brain and a tongue capable of articulate, symbolic speech.

He knew, of course, that in the fullness of time, even he would become a man, and in that day, he would prepare a human body for his son, and it would be made in the likeness of men, just as men have been made in the likeness of God. Well said.

So we are created in the image of God, personhood, relationship, and understanding of right and wrong and morality, which is critical to all our relationships, particularly our relationship to God." That was John MacArthur in a sermon, and I took that and I didn't want to truncate it because not only is it so relevant, but because I didn't want any of the details to be missed.

Elsewhere, John MacArthur states concerning man in a different sermon, "First of all, he was made in the image of God. That's the first thing. He was made for personality and relationship. Second thing, he was made as king of the earth to rule and subdue creation. The third, he was made as propagator of the human race to populate the earth, and fourth, he was made to be the recipient of rich and plentiful bounty all around him." Far above the animals, one last distinguishing characteristic.

If you're going to talk about personality, if you're going to talk about relationship, listen carefully. You'll have to talk about language, right? How much of a relationship can you have if all you can do is grunt? You say, "Well, I'm working on it with my husband. That's about it." Well, and that's right.

Relationship comes down to communication, doesn't it? Animals can't relate. They don't have self-consciousness. They don't have personhood. They don't have relationships. They do whatever they need to do instinctively to achieve one end in life, and that is food and preservation. But when you come to mankind, you come to the ability to speak language.

This is remarkable, and I told you a few weeks ago that there was a whole article in Newsweek magazine, scientists trying desperately to figure out unsuccessfully how man evolved the ability to speak languages, to speak abstractly, to reason abstractly. Linguistic studies demonstrate, as Oler and Omdahl, two linguists, have stated that apparently human beings and only human beings are specifically designed to acquire just a range of language systems, just as the range of language systems that we see manifested in the world's 5,000 plus languages.

Interesting. There are about 5,000 languages in the world, and only human beings can acquire those languages. You say, "Well, what about a dolphin?" When you say jump, don't they jump? They don't jump because you said jump, and they abstractly understand that those letters form a word, and that means to go into the air.

There's a certain sound that results in a fish going into their mouth. They learned that. Oler and Omdahl have said that 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.

Wow. That's technical language. To say there's something going on in the abstract reasoning capability of a human brain that demands the acquisition of language to satisfy it. We all begin to see that with children, don't we? They begin to speak, and they begin to acquire the complexity of communication and language.

Noam Chomsky, who is a great Jewish linguist, has shown that the ability to learn language is given in being human. He demonstrates that even the higher apes are unable to deal with a number system or with any abstract properties of space or in general with any abstract system of expressions.

Chomsky speaks elsewhere of initially given structures of mind and deep structures in humans which give rise to universal grammar. Listen, invariant among humans. That's true. You can take any language that exists and translate it into any other language that exists because the structural components of language are identical. They're literally part of the fabric of the image of God so that we who are relational beings with personhood can connect.

All the hard wiring is there. His research, by the way, this Noam Chomsky, on the uniqueness of the human species as regards to language is so convincing that he is not welcome in evolutionist circles. They have labeled him as a creationist, which he denies. Unlike apes and other living creatures, human capacity for language is a door into the eternal realm, it's a door into the presence of God, and it demands the recognition that we have been created on a heavenly platform for communication with one another and communication with our Creator who made us in His image.

All are in Omdurait. 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 to clear 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.

Amazing. Only a speaking God could have made speaking persons, right? God communicates and so do we. So we are made thusly in His image. Next week we'll go to those remaining points, man being king of the earth and propagator of life and recipient of rich blessing." Noam Chomsky. He is not a Christian.

MacArthur is quoting him here extensively and talking about his research to drive home the point that within our ability to speak and the varied languages that exist, they inherently point to a Creator. Does this remind you of any event in the book of Genesis? I want to quote John MacArthur one last time, and this will be the last one.

This is with respect to man. John MacArthur states with respect to man, "Man is transcendent. The truest part of man cannot be reduced to any chemical formula. The truest part of man cannot be seen in DNA. It cannot be found in chromosomes. It cannot be found by dissecting his brain.

It cannot be found by cutting open his heart. It cannot be found by tinkering with his nervous system. You can take all of the scientific experiments you want on the anatomy of a human being, and never will you discover the true part of man, which is that intangible reality that he is a transcendent being which has no chemical constituents.

Man is distinct from every other created creature." In Ecclesiastes 3, verse 11, a wonderful statement is made. He has made, speaking of God, everything appropriate in his time. He has also set eternity in their heart. What a great statement. He has set eternity in their heart. That's true only of man.

Down in verse 21 of Ecclesiastes 3, "Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward, and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth? The writer is saying, 'Man, his spirit goes up. Any other creative being upon death, his spirit goes down, goes into the ground as if it were out of existence because God has set eternity in our hearts.

You can take away our body, and we will live forever.'" So the image of God isn't talking about some kind of physical form. The image of God indicates attributes not shared at all by animals. And the bottom line word I gave you was personal. Man is a person, personhood.

These are his distinctives, self-consciousness. Animals are conscious, but they are not self-conscious. They're conscious to their environment, they react to their environment, but they don't know they're reacting to their environment. It's merely instinctive. But man is conscious, and he reacts to his environment. And he knows how to react because he reacts cognitively.

Man has reason rather than instinct. Man has a capability to think abstractly. Man has the ability to appreciate beauty, to feel emotion, to be morally conscious, and above all, as we all pointed out last time, man the capacity and the need to personally relate to others, to other people, and especially to God.

Being able to love Him and worship Him, that's personhood. Man has the ability to love. Man has the ability to fellowship, to converse, to commune. And man is the only creature in existence, in time, space, world, that has language. Now all of that points to the Trinity. And that's why, as I told you the last time, verse 26 indicates, "Let us make men." For the first time, God is introduced here as more than one, because He is making man in His image, and man is made for personal relationships.

God discloses the fact that He Himself is a Trinity, as we well know, and as unfolds throughout the rest of Scripture, particularly the New Testament. So that God, in the relationship of the Trinity, establishes the pattern for man's relationships. Now that's the ontological essence of man, the ethical essence of man.

He has a capacity for moral behavior. He has a capability to be holy and righteous. He has the ability to be sanctified. He has the ability to obey God. He has the ability to receive divine and eternal salvation." Human dignity is inextricably connected to the Imago Dei. Do you see why attributing human dignity to every single person who walks on the face of the earth is so important, and why we need to be reminded of this, especially in the era of the internet troll, in the era of the grumbler, the murmurer, the gossiper, the divisive person, the divisive man or woman?

Because the vast majority of us live in what I'm going to call the public celestial sphere of the digital world, it is so easy for us to forget that behind a digital projection is an actual human being. But the nastiest of trolls will come out, the lamest of gossipers, the ungrateful coward ready to tear down the one, because at some point the one has offended them, or they haven't gotten what they wanted, never doing it face to face, but planting little traps with whispers.

Things we would never say and shouldn't say to one another come out with ease, because we've reduced the other as less than human. At least that is one reason amongst many other contributing reasons. The ironic aspect to this is that the vast majority of online tough guys or the keyboard warriors are perhaps a little less than what their digital projections convey them to be.

The vast majority of gossipers will claim to be doing it out of some noble pursuit, and many will claim to be tearing down of a godly zeal when their own life shows very little actual spiritual fruit. To add more meat to the bones here, let me quote to you several places in the New Testament.

Matthew 12, 36, Jesus states, "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak they shall give an accounting for in the day of judgment." Matthew 15, 15-20, Peter said to him, "Explain that parable to us." Jesus said, "Are you also still lacking in understanding? Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is eliminated?

But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and those things defile the person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, acts of adultery, other immoral sexual acts, thefts, false testimonies, and other slanderous statements. These are the things that defile the person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the person." Galatians 5, 13-15, Paul exhorts us, "For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters.

Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another." We're definitely seeing lots of consuming right now, aren't we?

With respect to social media, as this ties in, at least for the purposes of this episode, listen to what Jaron Lanier has to say on this issue. Jaron Lanier, J-A-R-O-N, last name Lanier, L-A-N-I-E-R, he's been working in Silicon Valley since the '80s, and he's known as the founding father of virtual reality.

He wrote a book called, "10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Account Right Now." "10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Account Right Now." He gives these 10 reasons. Now I'm not saying that I wholeheartedly agree with everything that he says, but this is extremely insightful. These are his 10 reasons.

Social media is dismantling your free will. Number one, social media is dismantling your free will. Number two, quitting social media is the best way to push back against the craziness in our world. Number three, social media is turning you into a jerk. Number four, social media is killing truth softly.

Number five, social media is rendering your voice meaningless. Number six, social media is ruining your ability to empathize. Number seven, social media is making you less happy rather than more. Number eight, social media is intentionally harming your economic dignity. Number nine, social media is poisoning political process. Number 10, social media hates your soul.

He goes on to talk about how social media companies are really just behavior modification empires. And I hate telling people to watch the movie rather than read the book, but there is, I think still on Netflix, a film called "The Social Dilemma." The film is called "The Social Dilemma," and it captures the same points that Jaron Lanier is bringing up.

And he also happens to prominently appear in the docudrama as well, in the film as well. He points to one degree or another, and in totality, these are all valid because every single one of us are made in the image of God. We are embodied souls, and embodied souls are meant to share meaningful relationships with one another and not digital projections of one another.

Now, as you know, the fullest extent of this is found and only found when we have a correct vertical relationship with God, giving us that correct horizontal relationship, that unimpeded horizontal relationship that we can have with one another, and those relationships are pregnant with meaning and purpose. Moreover, you begin to see even greater weight to the imperatives that are given to us with respect to human conduct, right, a.k.a.

the one another's of the Bible. One another is actually one word in the Greek, allelon, allelon. We do not fulfill the allelons of scripture when we bite and devour one another, or when we internet troll one another, or when we gossip about one another, or murmur about one another, or create division with one another, as opposed to just taking the non-coward's way and having a frank and honest dialogue.

I'm going to end this episode here, but here's a list of what we disobey when we fail to see each other through the lens of the Imago Dei, and therefore impede on the practice of the allelons. Be at peace with one another, Mark 950. Be at peace with one another, Mark 950.

Don't grumble among one another, John 643. Be of the same mind with one another, Romans 12.16. Accept one another, Romans 15.7. Wait for one another before beginning the Eucharist, 1 Corinthians 11.33. Don't bite, devour, and consume one another, Galatians 5.15. Don't boastfully challenge or envy one another, Galatians 5.26.

Gently patiently tolerate one another, Ephesians 4.2. Be kind, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, Ephesians 4.32. Bear with and forgive one another, Colossians 3.13. Seek good for one another and don't pay evil for evil, 1 Thessalonians 5.15. Don't complain against one another, James 4.11. Confess sins to one another, James 5.16.

Love one another, John 13.34 and many others. Through love serve one another, Galatians 5.13. Tolerate one another in love, Ephesians 4.2. Treat one another with a kiss of love, 1 Peter 5.14. Be careful with that one. Be devoted to one another in love, Romans 12.10. Give preference to one another in honor, Romans 12.10.

Regard one another as more important than yourselves, Philippians 2.3. Serve one another, Galatians 5.13. Wash one another's feet, John 13.14. Don't be haughty, be of the same mind, Romans 12.16. Be subject to one another, Ephesians 5.21. Close yourselves in humility toward one another, 1 Peter 5.5. Do not judge one another and don't put a stumbling block in a brother's way, Romans 14.13.

Husbands and wives, 1 Corinthians 7.5. Bear one another's burdens, Galatians 6.2. Speak truth to one another, Ephesians 4.25. Don't lie to one another, Colossians 3.9. Comfort one another concerning the resurrection, 1 Thessalonians 4.18. Pray for one another, James 5.16. Be hospitable to one another, 1 Peter 4.9. There are many more.

There are many more. Encourage and build up one another, 1 Thessalonians 5.11. Stimulate one another to love and good deeds, Hebrews 10.24. Human dignity, the Imago Dei, and social media. For us, here and now, these are all interlinked. Theology is immensely practical. Thanks for making it to the end.

I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it. To Him be honor, glory, and eternal dominion. James Hong out. (upbeat music)