Bringing The "Image of God" Into Focus, Part 2: The Story Teller

The Story Teller

In Part 1, I proposed the hypothesis that the art of moral story telling could be used as a diagnostic feature for detecting the emergence of human culture as distinct from animals.  In other words, human beings tell moral stories and animals do not.

To substantiate this hypothesis, this post examines the research article, Cooperation and the evolution of hunter-gatherer storytelling.

The abstract states that "storytelling is a human universal".  This is the basis of my hypothesis in a nutshell.  By storytelling, the authors include both producing and consuming stories, whether around a camp-fire or for the television.  To collect data, they went on-site among the Agta people, a Filipino hunter-gatherer population.  Relevantly, this population group is believed to be descendants of the first colonizers of the Philippines over 35,000 years ago.  While this is not an isolated population, in fact many claim some level of affinity to the Christian faith, much can be learned from them about storytelling as it has impacted the human experience from the deep past.  The Agta maintain cultural practices that are tens of thousands of years old and the stories they tell are an integral part of maintaining that culture.

What's in a Story

To address storytelling in a scientifically rigorous manner demands that what is meant by a story must be clearly defined.  Here, storytelling is defined to encompass a spectrum of narrative forms, from ritualized storytelling in large groups to day-to-day anecdotal conversations.  The components of a story include character, setting, events, causal connections, and resolution; they may be fictional or non-fictional; and they may be used to broadcast social norms concerning such issues as sex, marriage, sharing obligations, and norm-breakers.  Some stories may be merely a humorous joke or the details of a past experience.

Thinking about stories this way, it is easy to see that storytelling is an integral and obvious part of the human experience. Imagine for a moment a group of Neanderthal or of early modern humans sitting around a camp fire eating a fresh kill.  One way to analyze the intelligence of such creatures is to look at the artifacts around the campsite.  How sophisticated were the stone tools that were employed to butcher the animal?  What techniques did they employ to fashion the weapons for the hunt? These questions are asked in part because they can be answered.  But other questions, ones to which we also really want to know the answers, are quite a bit more difficult to probe.  Did they tell jokes?  Did they relate the exploits of the hunt to those who stayed back at the camp? Did one of them stand up and recite the story of a lesson learned handed down from their ancestors? If not, then they were not behaving in a human way; but if so, then they were.  That at least is my premise.

The Critical Role of the Storyteller

In the study of the Agta people group, the reputation of individuals was assessed to determine who were the most skilled storytellers compared to who where the most skilled at hunting and gathering and to find out how important storytelling is to individuals and groups.  To learn this, they also examined the reproductive success and desirability as a camp-mate for each individual.  A critical finding was that for both men and women, skilled storytellers tend to have more children and are more desired as camp-mates than skilled hunter-gatherers.  Furthermore, the researchers conclude that storytellers may perform an important role in hunter-gatherer societies by organizing cooperative systems through serving the function of 'broadcasting' cooperative norms.  Storytellers convey a strong message of cooperation, sex and social equality, and inequality aversion.  The stories told appear to promote cooperation within a camp and also empathy toward strangers.

The research uncovered that there is an individual benefit to being a skilled storyteller.  This benefit is reflected in increased reproductive success and the receipt of greater resources.  This provides a pathway by which storytelling, a behavior that benefits a whole group, can increase over time through individual-level selection.  In other words, if the capability to tell stories can be passed on to one's offspring, then once a group gains a good storyteller, its future generations should have an increasing and steady supply of good storytellers.  From this, it would be expected that the capacity to tell stories, and by extension to hear and be moved by them, would quickly become fixed, that is ubiquitous, within a population.

This study also suggests that storytelling facilitates widespread human cooperation and furthermore that storytelling and cooperation are mutually reinforcing. Once storytelling was introduced into the world, it may have literally exploded onto the scene as the most transformative element in human history.

However, in order to tell a story, the teller and the listener need a language.

The Origin of Language

Steven Anderson, in his book, Languages: A Very Short Introduction, estimates that the age of spoken language began between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago and writes: 

"Researchers on the evolutionary origin of language generally find it plausible to suggest that language was invented only once, and that all modern spoken languages are thus in some way related, even if that relation can no longer be recovered... because of limitations on the methods available for reconstruction."

The Biblical story of Adam resonates with the assertion cited above that "language was invented only once."  Genesis 2:19-20 states that "God brought [every beast and bird] to the man to see what he would call them.  And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.  The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds... and to every beast...".  Not only was God dialoging with Adam, but Adam was also responsible for dramatically expanding the vocabulary of the language that they were using.  God may have taught Adam some basic language, and then Adam filled it out and passed it on.  We can thus entertain the hypothesis that Adam was the God-tutored inventor of human language.

Humans are designed by God to live in community.  But Adam lived alone in a garden planted for him by God and to which God had led him.  Genesis 2:18-20 carries the narrative forward: "It is not good that the man should be alone" so "[God] will make a helper fit for him" because "there was not found a helper fit for him" among "every living creature".  God solved this problem through the special creation of a woman to whom Adam gave the name Eve.  Eve was made of the same stuff as Adam.  She was just like him.

If Adam lived any time before 40,000 years ago, then there would also have been Neanderthal on the earth at that time, and other early modern humans.  But as the story goes, these other creatures were not fit for Adam.  I suggest that they were not fit because they were not capable of learning to dialog in a human language.  They were not fit to tell stories and to be moved by them.  Eve on the other hand could relate to Adam human-to-human.  They both spoke with God and they spoke with each other, relating in part via the mechanism of storytelling.  Adam and Eve had sons and daughters who presumably inherited their storytelling ability, thus founding the world's first community of humans interacting through story.

In a well-known Greek story a Titan named Prometheus makes humanity from clay and gives them fire stolen from the gods by which they are to found civilization.  But science tells us this story is wrong.  Fire was not stolen from God but is a natural phenomena probably first mastered by hominins such as Neanderthal.  Furthermore, the use of fire did not bring about the sudden emergence of human communities.  Rather, it is the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and the genesis of storytelling that seems much more fundamental to humans and their civilization and much more aligned to the understood science.  The real heroes are the Bible's Adam and Eve through whom was brought the power of story, not as something stolen, but as a gift given by God.

The Origin of Us All

Adam and Eve's descendant Cain is told to have founded a city.  The Hebrew word translated city implies a guarded settlement providing a safe place to sleep at night.  It seems that this accomplishment would have required various modes of storytelling to elicit cooperation and to sustain a community as revealed by the study of Agta hunter-gatherers.  In Acts 17:26, Luke writes "[God] made from one man every [ethnic group] of mankind to live on all the face of the earth...".  That all people groups would owe their heritage to Adam, the original bringer of language, makes sense seeing that language is such a powerful medium by which to group people.

The Bible reveals deeper truths than what science can uncover on its own.  The Bible answers the why questions.  Why did God make man and give him the gift of storytelling?  The Apostle Luke answers this in Acts 17:26: "that they should seek God.. and find him.  Yet he is actually not far from each one of us."  This destiny that God has for mankind through Adam -- to find and to know and to tell of God -- has the art of storytelling in its core.

From the perspective of Bible-believing Christians, it seems somewhat obvious that Adam is the first human and that he spoke a human language and was the father of all nations.  But from a scientific perspective, the puzzle has to be put together piece by piece before the picture becomes clear.  Perhaps the scientific picture is beginning to look like a familiar old story-- a story about one man and one woman and their encounter with God which changed the world forever and began the story of us all.

Bringing The "Image of God" Into Focus, Part 1: What Makes Us Human

This post entails a more detailed examination of what may be indicated by the Biblical phrase, "the image of God", and also looks at how scientists, theologians, and Christian philosophers view the jump from "animal" to "human" in the narrative of human origins.

What are the big questions?

Life arose on Earth at least 3.5 billion years ago.  For the next billion years, only primitive bacteria existed before complex eukaryotic cells spring onto the scene.  These are the same cell types that make up all plants and animals on Earth.  None-the-less, it is almost another two billion years before the first complex, multicellular animals take residence in the shallows of the primitive oceans.  Over the succeeding 500 million years, an amazing diversity of plants and animals fill the earth profusely.  Repeated Earth-shaking events devastate life bringing extinction events that wipe out as much as 90% of all types of life.  Each time, the remaining lifeforms arise and diversify spectacularly.  Finally, just 1 million years ago, after three-and-a-half billion years, a creature rises from the African savanna.  It strides forward on two strong, hirsute legs, arms swinging at its sides.  Eyes forward-focused stare out beneath the shadow of a heavy brow.  We call this creature Homo antecessor - ancestor of human beings.  But despite a passing resemblance to a human being, scientists, philosophers and theologians can agree that it can be regarded as no more than an intelligent animal.  Over the succeeding hundreds of thousands of years, other waves of creatures arise, intriguingly gaining in resemblance to modern humans.  However, these creatures defy expectations that we hold for human beings.  For hundreds of thousands of years, these creatures carry on shaping stone in the same way as their ancestors.  Innovation is stagnant.  Behavior of these creatures is a mix of the habitual and the instinctive.  They have an intriguing cleverness, fashioning rock into choppers, blades, pounders and points.  They hunt, they gather, they range across the Earth, they go extinct in waves.

Between 200 thousand and 100 thousand years ago, human-like creatures seem to gain a noticeable upgrade in their skills, yet these still-basic skills continue to remain largely static over countless generations.

Then, by 45,000 years ago, amazing paintings, carved musical instruments, and sophisticated weapons can be found all over the world.  Human beings become permanently encamped throughout the world with genetic descendants living in the same regions today.

At some point, the world changed from being inhabited by clever animals to hosting a new kind of creature - human beings.

The questions are many, beginning with when and how did the transition from animal to human being happen?  Was this change gradual or abrupt?  Were there multiple kinds of humans, or just one kind?

What are the big issues?

So far we have considered the forensic evidence, but what about the narrative evidence?  The Bible records the most ancient stories in the world.  Stories passed down for thousands of years until written language was invented.  These stories speak powerfully to the emergence of the human experience.  In addition, the Bible contains prophetic messages from God the Creator that reveal essential truths about the origin of humanity.  Between all that we learn from field research combined with revelation from God and stories from our ancestors, it would seem that we should posses a clear picture of human origins.

There is a human need to understand who we are, where we come from, and what our purpose is.  This internal longing for explanatory reasons is surely a part of what distinguishes us from animal kind.  The Bible provides the fundamental answers that we need to thrive as humans while science enables us to satisfy our human curiosity. However, there is an issue of trust at stake -- an issue of belief.  This comes down to the gulf between perspectives provided by the Bible on one hand and forensic science on the other.

Does science fill in the details around the Biblical narrative or does it tell another tale altogether?  Does the Bible provide the answers to the big questions of Where did we come from? and Why are we here? Or, are we left to find meaning apart from its rich heritage?

The Bible tells us that God, the Creator of the Universe, made man on Earth in His image, referring to both males and females.  I believe this.  I hold this to be a profound truth.  Jesus Christ came to Earth to show us who our Creator is and to provide a way for us to fulfill our destiny and to be welcomed into the presence of our Creator.  I believe this Earth, even this Universe, is a temporary home for humankind.  This life is a transitory state beyond which some will be ushered into the presence of our Creator.  God placed us on this Earth, for a time, for our souls to be tried, tested, and forged.  We are here to bring glory to our Creator and then to forever bless Him and be blessed by Him.

But in order to fulfill our destiny, we must believe it.  And to believe it, some of us must have our deeper questions answered, our doubts assuaged, and our curiosity satisfied.

And so, the biggest issue for many individuals lies in seeing the harmony and resolving the discrepancies between the clues gleaned from the natural world and the mysteries revealed in the Bible. That in a nutshell is the purpose of this blog and my purpose for writing.

What is the Image of God?

In simplest terms, theologians and Christian thinkers agree that the Image of God is something which separates man from animal.  Human beings bear the image of God.  Animals do not.  Human beings were created in the Image of God.  Animals were not.

From a scientific standpoint, it is often understood in terms of behavior and capability.  While there are many similarities between the way humans behave and the way animals behave, there are also differences.  While there are similar capabilities, there are also differences.  Fundamentally, humans behave in ways that animals cannot and have capabilities that animals do not possess.  Furthermore, these behaviors and capabilities set humans apart from all animals.  A human is as much above an animal, as an animal is above a bacteria.  The step change is profound.  But how and when did this change come about?

In order to answer that question, we need to think carefully about what it means to be a human being. Both Biblical exegesis and scientific observation can shed light on what it means to be human.

On the scientific side, the basic approach is to categorize hominins like Homo neanderthal and creatures such as chimpanzees as either human beings or non-human beings.  Then the scientist will examine their behaviors and capabilities and try to discern when the genetic lineage most directly aligned with modern humans diverged from the behaviors we consider less than human.  That identifies the critical branching off point between human beings and animals.

On the theological side, the oldest efforts to categorize what make us human falls into a category called substantive theories.  In these theories, humans are comprised of qualities and characteristics that set them apart from animals.  These qualities typically involve physical, intellectual, psychological, cognitive, rational, volitional, and spiritual aspects related to bearing God's image.  A contrasting view holds that the image of God is a functional role, specifically man's dominion over the earth.  In this view, humans have been given a mandate from God to manage the earth; animals have not.  Additionally, the relational view of the image of God points to the relationships that humans establish and maintain, both with God and with each other.  These views are not mutually exclusive and Bishop Hibbert [1] suggests that these can be seen as three sides of a triangle, the foundation of which is the substantive view and the sides of which are the functional and relational view.

Bishop Barrington Hibbert in a paper on the Image of God, writes:

"The substantive view of the image of God in man holds also that the image of God is universally given to all humans, and none has more of it than others. Therefore, even the non-Christian is still fully human as are devoted followers of Jesus Christ. All humans are endowed with the ability, by virtue of their image-bearing status to reason, to distinguish between available alternatives, to recognize the truth, and to make intelligent choices based on sound judgment of facts.  [Millard J.] Erickson states that this view of the image of God in man admits the possibility of a rational or natural theology, even without the aid of the Scriptures. Such a view holds that humans are able to gain some true knowledge of God and as such are ethical beings, and are capable of doing some good works apart from grace."

In order to utilize the theological view and the scientific view, one or more proxy behaviors must be identified that can be associated with ancient human behavior and contrasted to animal behavior.  In order to answer the question, what makes a Neanderthal more or less human than a chimpanzee, there has to be some kind of test.

Many thinkers in this field have pointed to language as the defining characteristic of human beings.  Debate exists as to whether or not Neanderthal possessed language and thus whether they should be grouped with animals or with humans.

I am going to propose raising the bar.  In my view, it is not merely the presence of language that distinguishes the image of God in man, but the ability to tell moral stories.  Now I am not saying that the image of God is merely the ability to tell moral stories, but rather that it is a useful diagnostic for detecting it.

Why moral story telling?

Fundamental to human abilities is that of moral reasoning, interpersonal relationships, and managerial functioning.  These correspond to the views of the substantive, relational, and functional aspects of the image of God, respectively.  In telling a moral story, a person is doing more than just providing directions to the nearest watering hole, warning of an approaching storm, or sharing tips on how to make the best flint blades.  Moral story telling conveys meaning between the story teller and one or more people by making a rational and emotional appeal to submit to an ideal for a given purpose.  In this process, the intellectual, psychological, rational, volitional, cognitive, and spiritual aspects of both the teller and the hearer are invoked.  Furthermore, story telling is inherently relational, attempting to bridge the understanding between people to create shared values and sympathetic understanding.  Finally, man's dominion over the earth and his ultimate destiny in God's kingdom are founded on and transmitted through story.  From the first words of the Bible to the parables of Jesus, God as the Word speaks of story as the vehicle by which we know and understand God and His purpose for us.

The Bible records the interactions between God and the first man He created, Adam.  Within this story are the mini-stories that teach us how man relates to God.  In this narrative, God tells Adam this story: "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."  This can be thought of as a little moral story.  A moral choice is presented.  A consequences is described.  Could one present such a story to an animal?  Could you offer such a choice to a chimpanzee?  It seems that most people would agree that you could not.

In another part of the main story, Satan comes along and tells a different moral story, this one to Eve, about the same tree: "You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  Here again is a moral choice and a promised outcome.

How does Eve respond? She sees that the fruit of the tree is good for food.  In this, she is like the chimpanzee.  She is reasoning like an animal.  The chimp would take a banana, end of story.  But Eve also sees that the fruit is a delight to the eye.  This is a higher response, that of perceiving aesthetic beauty. Maybe a chimpanzee would not consider such a thought.  Finally, she perceives that the fruit was desired to make one wise.  A moral choice is made.  A destiny is sought.  This goes beyond what any animal would consider.  This is a human choice made by a human moral faculty.  The immediate consequence of this choice is that her eyes are opened, meaning she gains understanding and perspective, which is a human faculty.  She also experiences shame over her nakedness and tries to cover herself with leaves for clothes.

What we learn from this story is that God engaged with humankind through their faculty to respond to moral stories.  In turn, they were to tell these stories to their children.

When we look at the archeological record of human history and consider the behaviors of early humans, Neanderthal, and emerging modern humans, what we would like to pinpoint is the moment when humans began telling moral stories.  That is when human beings began to exist and the first of them was Adam, and his wife was Eve.  That is where the human story really begins.

A note of caution about the proxy

As mentioned above, the image of God is given universally to all humans, and none has more of it than others.  Now story telling is only effective with story listeners, and so I am speaking of the whole process of telling and receiving moral truth through stories.  Also, we cannot say that those who are better at telling stories, or better at extracting their meaning have more of the image of God.  We also cannot say that someone incapacitated to the degree that they lack the ability to partake in the sharing of a story therefore lacks the image of God.  We are using the art of story telling as an indicator for humanity as a whole, not as a  proof of the existence of the image of God in a given individual.

[1] The Image of God in Man: A Critique of the Substantive View

Update (9/4/2020):

For a deep and excellent analysis of what constitutes the Image of God, please read The Intelligent Design of Humans: The Meaning of the Imago Dei for Theological Anthropology written by Steve W. Lemke while at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.