Statement of Faith Article 3

We believe that God created Adam and Eve in his image, but they sinned when they were tempted by Satan. The result is that all human beings are sinners by nature and by choice, alienated from God, and under his wrath. Through God's saving work in Jesus Christ we can be rescued, reconciled, and renewed.

God's gospel alone addresses our deepest human need.

What does it mean to be human? This is the question that every bioethical issue seemed to boil down to at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School's Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. When does human life begin and end? Is human life different qualitatively from other life? How much are we willing to pay to sustain a human life? What is the reason for so much human dysfunction? The questions go on and on. It seems that though our knowledge of the world around us has exploded since the dawn of the scientific age, we remain a mystery to ourselves. We are a part of the natural world as animals among animals, yet instinctively we feel that we are more than that—we are spiritual creatures, conceiving of eternity, longing for immortality.

The ancient Hebrew psalmist wrestled with the question "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is a human being that you are mindful of him, a son of man that you care for him?" (Ps. 8:3–4). So does physicist Stephen Hawking: "We are such insignificant creatures on a minor planet of a very average star in the outer suburbs of one of a hundred thousand million galaxies. So it is difficult to believe in a God who would care about us or even notice our existence."

But the puzzle of humanity also has a moral dimension. We are capable of acts of great compassion and even heroic virtue. Some even sacrifice their lives to rescue others in peril. Yet some deep stain of corruption still plagues human life. The evidences of the darkness of the human heart are pervasive in human history, yet such darkness still surprises us. Something seems to have gone dreadfully wrong.

Where can we go for help as we wrestle with this riddle? I believe that we must turn to God if we are to find the answer to this baffling riddle. God our Creator has spoken to us through his Word and has revealed his answer to the human dilemma. He speaks both of our dignity and our depravity. And, as importantly, he has also revealed the one way that human depravity can be destroyed and human dignity reestablished. We will think about these things this weekend at LAC.

To His glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor