Incarnational Human Dignity

Many would agree that all human beings possess basic rights reflecting their dignity. But explaining why we have this dignity has proven elusive. This essay argues that a defensible grounding of human dignity can be developed by appealing to the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. If God assumed our nature to save the world, as Christians believe, this would be an honor for all human beings and a source of immense worth. I argue this theistic account can avoid the Euthyphro problem. It also outperforms many secular theories, which notoriously fail to include the cognitively impaired as bearers of dignity. In light of this, an argument from dignitarian rights to theism begins to look promising.