Man The Christian View

Transcript

[Underlined: Man] (The Christian View) The Christian view of man, according to Niebuhr, is distinguished from all other view by the aspects of human experience to each other: (1) ? It emphasizes the height of self ? transcendence in man?s spiritual stature in its doctrine of ? image of God.? (2) It insists on man?s weakness, dependence, and finiteness, on his involvement in the necessities and contingencies of the natural world, without, however, regarding, [Page 2] this finiteness, as , of itself, a source of evil in men. (3) It affirms that the evil in man is a consequence of his inevitable though not necessary unwillingness to acknowledge his dependence, to accept his finiteness and to admit his insecurity, an unwillingness which involves him in the vicious circle of accentuating the insecurity from which he seeks escape.? Niebuhr, NDM, I, 150.