Dignity is seemingly a little thing. We rarely discuss dignity in theology other than as a minor anthropological category. We rarely discuss dignity in Christian living other than as something we should somehow “respect in others.” Almost every religious worldview throws “dignity” around, from atheists to Muslims, and we all just kind of assume we mean the same thing.

Once you dig a little deeper, though, you realize two things:

• Dignity relates to how we treat one another, how we treat ourselves, how we build families, and even the goal of our government.
• We don’t all have the same definition of dignity.

What is dignity? Let’s begin with some failed definitions and then consider a Judeo-Christian counter.

Failed Definitions of Dignity

“Dignity is freedom” is a common naturalistic definition. Jeremy Waldron gives one definition of dignity in these terms, saying:

Dignity is the status of a person predicated on the fact that she is recognised as having the ability to control and regulate her actions in accordance with her own apprehension of norms and reasons that apply to her; it assumes she is capable of giving and entitled to give an account of herself (and of the way in which she is regulating her actions and organising her life), an account that others are to pay attention to.[1]

Defining your own happiness is only one kind of freedom; there is also the freedom to “become your own hero,” to have prosperity and honor. in the words of the politician Vivek Ramaswamy:

The American Dream isn’t just about green pieces of paper. It’s about every kid in America having a path to live their best lives & to see themselves as true heroes at the end of it.[2]

A third kind of “dignity as freedom” is freedom from want. People are dignified when they have a nice place to live, good food to eat, good medical care, and all the conveniences of “modern life.”

Defining dignity in terms of freedom is attractive at first glance—how can a person grow and discover themselves without the freedom to choose their own path in life? Shouldn’t each person determine what “norms and reasons” apply to themselves without outside interference?

A fatal flaw lurks in the neighborhood of freedom as dignity: relationships.

For instance, in Waldron’s definition of dignity as self-definition, “others are to pay attention to” a person’s accounting of their norms and reasons. Whatever another person chooses, those around them must accept and “pay attention to” them by accommodating their choices:

[Dignity] means finally that she has the wherewithal to demand that her agency and her presence among us as a human being be taken seriously and accommodated in the lives of others, in others’ attitudes and actions towards her, and in social life generally.[3]

Defining dignity as a certain set of material goods turns voluntary relationships providing those goods into forced relationships. The builder must build a house for you, the doctor must provide medical care for you, and the farmer must grow crops for you.

Defining dignity as the right to “become your own hero” suffers from many of the same problems. Others must recognize your talents and intelligence, placing you in the correct position of power, and then listen to and heed your ideas.

How should this work?

If Sue demands her dignity requires the freedom to be recognized in a particular way, and Sally demands her dignity requires the freedom not to recognize Sue in this way, how can we resolve this?

If Sally demands Amy give her medical care, but Amy demands her dignity requires she only work so many hours a week, or her dignity requires financial rewards for giving care, how should we resolve this?

If, in economic terms, humans and animals only form relationships because they “may obtain benefits from group living by exchanging goods and services and coordinating their efforts,”[4] there does not seem to be much to the concept of dignity.

In all these cases, all relationships are merely transactions built around a self-centered person.

If this is all dignity means, we can safely disregard it as a way to build a society.

Dignity in Christianity

When God creates humans, he gives them just four commandments:

• Guard and keep the Garden
• Exercise dominion over the Earth
• Be fruitful and multiply
• Don’t eat of “that” tree

And we are told two things about the first man and woman:

• They are made in the image of God
• They are made for one another

Through the narratives of Genesis 1 and 2, we also discover humans are designed to be in relationship with God. Most Jewish and Christian discussions about human dignity center on the image of God, even though the concept is not well defined in the Scriptures. Throughout the Scriptures, however, we find dignity in God’s purpose for man and God’s relationship with man.

Exodus and Dignity

One particular narrative where dignity plays an outsized role is the Exodus. In one of the most striking statements on dignity during the Exodus, God calls Israel his “firstborn son.”

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’ ”
Exodus 4:22–23

This statement does not seem all that significant from a distance of over three thousand years. Consider, however, the view of human worth in ancient pagan religions. Many ancient religions held the person had very little value because only members of the royal family—specifically the king or princes—were considered the sons of god, according to J. Richard Middleton, however, Judaism decisively shifted this view by holding every person is a son of God.[5] Nahum Sarna illustrates this point through the salutations given to the kings of Mesopotamia: “The father of my lord the king is the very image of Bel (ṣalam bel) and the king, my lord, is the very image of Bel,” and the name of the Pharaoh in Egypt, Tutankhamen, which means: “[T]he living image of (the god) Amun.”[6]

Note God’s call was not just to release Israel because Israel is his son. God’s call is tightly coupled with God’s purpose for their release—to worship him in the wilderness.[7]

Paul and Dignity

This idea of dignity being tied to relationship and purpose carries through to the Apostles’ writings. For instance, in Romans 16:22, the scribe who either aided in writing or transcribed Paul’s letter to the Romans attaches a personal greeting to those receiving the letter: “I, Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.” This passage is significant in understanding Christian values on individual humans because Tertius means third. Boice notes Roman slaveholders would name their slaves in order of their birth, so Tertius was likely the third slave born in the household of his owner.[8]

Regardless of his status before men, Tertius’ status before God was emphasized by including a separate greeting.

Purpose and Design

From a Judeo-Christian perspective, then, dignity is tied to two things:

• The person’s relationship with the Creator (God)
• The Creator’s purpose in creating that person

How do these compare to the three failed definitions of dignity?

God designed humans to be free—to have free choices[9] and be free from oppression. Freedom from God’s design, however, is no freedom at all. There is no dignity in allowing the untamed wilderness to reign if God created you to create gardens.

Stripping God’s meaning of freedom out of dignity causes each person to treat those around them as “non-playing characters,” responsible just for making their decisions into reality.

God designed humans to have honor and material plentitude, but God did not create humans to become their own heroes. There are heroes in God’s design, but they are heroes because of their sacrifice of self rather than their service to self.

Each failed vision of dignity strips something vital out of the whole person, reducing individual people to one aspect of their entire being. As Lewis and Demarest say:

“Persons as spiritual beings are not things to be folded, mutilated, or spindled. As self-transcendent spirits humans are self-conscious and self-determining subjects and moral agents. Christians see in all other persons active beings who should be free from coercion to think, feel, will, and relate.”[10]

Any time we take a partial truth for the whole truth, there will be a heavy price to pay—this is no different in human dignity than in any other place.

Government and Dignity

One final question of interest on this topic: How, then, should governments (and other organizations) be designed in relation to human dignity?

Should we design governments to maximize individual human economic output and “progress?” This replicates the first failed vision of dignity—treating others as economic units.

Should we design governments to maximize individual pleasure? This leads to a populace invested in nothing more than “the next hit.” Drugs and debauchery will abound, and government agents will forever be curtailing the rights of those who want to create in order to support the rights of those who want to destroy. Since the “ultimate pleasure” is always sexual, the government will devolve into a program to maximize sexual encounters while eliminating undesirable side effects.

Should we design government to maximize emotional support? In this case, the government will become nothing more than a vehicle for laws about who can say what and when they can say it. Government agents will spend their time patrolling for “hateful speech” and teaching people how to “respect others” through speech.

All three of these paths ultimately lead to tyranny of one kind or another.

To avoid tyranny, we need to return to a realistic vision of human dignity grounded in our relationship with our Creator and our Creator’s purpose.

 

---

[1] Jeremy Waldron, “How Law Protects Dignity,” The Cambridge Law Journal 71, no. 1 (2012): 202, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23253794.

[2] Vivek Ramaswamy [@VivekGRamaswamy], “To Live Their Best Lives,” Tweet, Twitter, March 12, 2025, https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1899636328872227319.

[3] Waldron, “How Law Protects Dignity,” 202.

[4] Dennis L. Krebs, “Morality: An Evolutionary Account,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3, no. 3 (2008): 151, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40212242.

[5] J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005), 206.

[6] Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1989), 12.

[7] At least this is the call God placed before Pharoah. In reality, God was calling Israel out to form a nation that would eventually produce the Messiah.

[8] James Montgomery Boice, Romans: The New Humanity, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991).

[9] This has implications for the debate within Christianity over high determinism and libertarian free will.

[10] Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demarest, Integrative Theology: Knowing Ultimate Reality: The Living God, vol. 1, Integrative Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1987), 1:172.