In every faction of life, there are entire careers and swaths of experts dedicated to the task of appraisal. From serving to industry, and health to finance, perhaps there is no stream of human life that is not quantified and evaluated. Through all of this, humans have grown accustomed to criticism and competition. And in our ever-increasing digital world, the evaluations have become more personal while simultaneously shifting to be more anonymous. The old adage, "every man's a critic" has perhaps never rang more clearly than in a world in which every person values his/her own voice to the discredit of every one else's.
The issue at hand, however, is one that is far deeper: the quest for value. It is an entirely human trait to search for value, to claim value, and to extol value. It is our fervent search for value and worth that supports nearly every realm of human life, from clothing to cars and everything in between. And it is the person's innate, seemingly-insatiable pursuit of self-worth that has attached the current cultural moorings with many a variety of barnacles of lust, greed, pride, idolatry, and a whole host of other counterfeit human valuations.
All in all, the enigma that compels our own scouring for self-worth is one of the grave realities of life. And we should not think that we can accept a neutrality in this arena, for there can be no surrenders whilst squatting on the field in a firefight. Every worldview must grip this question and offer an answer. The validity of the response is the very weight of truth. If atheism could offer a valid answer to this question then the whole system may be tenable; yet, as it is, humanity can have no real worth if it is comprised of millennial-long chaotic genetic reproduction in the mindless and purposeless void of evolutionary processes. Another answer must be given.
Humanity has always possessed a deeply innate sense that we are, after all, valuable. We truly feel that our lives have actual worth. But this worth is not an extrinsic one. It cannot be based on what a person can do or does, who they are in a societal sense, what resources they possess and in what great measure; none of this is an accurate attestation of true value and actual worth. If we were to hold to any of these sources of value, then it would be no wonder that we don't consider unborn babies worthy of birth and why wouldn't we euthanize other ethnicities or birth deformities for they could never ascend to satisfactory levels of comparative worth.
Clearly, this is unacceptable. Another rubric must be used, a different source of intrinsic value must be asserted. It is at this point that only Christianity holds sway in presenting a reasonable and thorough answer to the dilemma of human worth. Christianity holds that every single human being is valuable. This value is not based upon race, gender, age, culture, intellect, strength, money, clothing, or any other man-made criterion for evaluation. Christianity asserts that every single human being is valuable solely because they are made by God Almighty Himself and that they bear His image.
This means that the mute, the dumb, the deaf, the disabled, the strong, the smart, the funny, the awkward, the shy, the gregarious, the likable, and the repellent are all worthy for they all possess an equal measure of intrinsic value by virtue of their nature: they are God's creatures, made by Him, and made in His image. This is the only true, intrinsic, non-partial source of human value. Any other source is but a shadowy counterfeit of the real.
It is inescapable that the individual (you and me) will have to make a decision about where his/her value arises from and will it be the same rating system used for every person or not. For instance, I play guitar and I value that part of myself. If I only valued other people who shared that value, then I would not value very many people. But on the other hand, if I affirm that my value and worth comes not from myself but from the God that made me, then I will value everyone by that very same standard, that God made them too. It stems from this fact, that all humans were created equally in the image of God, that humans are made capable of living the life that created-ness affords and desires. Let us then never lose sight of our true nature, for in it is the source of our truth self-worth.
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