Are humans unique compared to any other species of life?
While there are more than five, these are five important and measurable differences.
When God brought humanity onto the scene, the biblical text notes we were made in God’s image or likeness. What exactly does “made in the image of God” mean, there is much thought and discussion about this, which you can look into as too much to cover here, but the important point to remember is: this was only imputed to humanity, and no other species on Earth. So, does this uniqueness in humans lead to measurable differences with all the other life forms on Earth?
We need to add archeology and biology to our study, and consider the behavior and artifacts of the bipedal primates preceding us, compared to human beings now. Is there a significant difference?
Differences 1 – 3: there is a unique chasm in symbolic capability, complex language and writing, and a significant gap in inventiveness. For example, archeological findings of Neanderthals through 200,000 years, shows tools and technology did not advance. Erectines have 2 million years of existence, and the tools they entered the timeline with were the same throughout.
This does not mean those who reject his payment of their debt on the cross will be with God in heaven, as the debt of their wrongdoing remains and will separate even those God loves from him as anything unholy will be separated from heaven.
Genesis 1: 26-27 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them
In complete contrast, humans show explosions of change, unparalleled by any other life form. During brief episodes of climate stability, when not everyone had to be consumed with food production, very complex development occurred.
Difference 4: the biblical text provides the most important difference in Genesis 1:26-27. God is spirit (John 4:24) and human beings are spiritual creatures uniquely provided with the physical apparatus or ability to engage in spiritual activity. and demonstrate moral values and duties.
The biblical text seems to indicate the image of God did not evolve, but was fully in place and functional with the first human male and female. Such a difference should be detectable. There are endless personal examples myself and others, throughout history, could provide of such spiritual engagement. However, personal anecdotes aren’t the best evidence to use when attempting to support a theory or belief. Instead, let’s use common experience or scientific studies because support or refutation of this idea should not be difficult to find.
Have you recognized humans feel compelled to ask and seek deep philosophical and theological questions. This has been made clear throughout historical, philosophical and psychological writings. As philosopher Kenneth Samples observes, “An intuition of God and a desire to be in right relationship with the divine characterizes the lives of the vast majority of people. The spiritual therefore focuses on the virtue of unity or wholeness. A spiritual need and drive seems to have been part of human culture from the beginning as well.”
While I have witnessed my golden retriever seemingly look off to the distance thoughtfully, I doubt he was contemplating his relationship with the divine. Do you suspect a lion ever stopped to pray thanks over the gazelle meal his family was about to receive, or the gazelle contemplated its purpose or meaning in the Universe?
Spiritual activity, if meant for relationship with others and God, requires extraordinary communication and social interaction capabilities, which is exactly what a team of European and American anthropologists discovered. The comparative study considered the mental capabilities of adult orangutans and chimpanzees against human children aged just 2.5 years. The 2.5 years age was chosen to remove any potential advantage human children would gain from education or literacy.
A term used for a now-extinct member of the genus Homo, including Homo erectus, who lived in Africa, Asia, and Europe during the Lower and Middle Pleistocene. Erectines walked upright, may have used fire, and are often associated with the Acheulean industries, especially with hand axes. https://www.archaeologs.com/w/erectine/en
Kenneth Samples, “Spheres of Awareness: 4 Unique Ways Humans Perceive Reality,” May 24, 2016.
Esther Herrmann et al., “Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition: The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis,” Science 317 (September 7, 2007): 1360-66.
There was no significant superiority manifested by the human children over the apes in the ability to learn from their environment, but the human children’s capability of social interactions to understand and share and gain knowledge was much beyond any capacity of the adult chimps or orangutans.
I anticipated this result, as a scientist friend of mine once lectured on more than one family of scientists, who wanting to confirm their suspicions chimpanzees or orangutans could develop socially similar to humans if given identical environments, began raising newborn orangutans on the same day they brought home their own newborn baby. What was found is the orangutans developed much faster initially, learning how to use eating utensils and follow rules, but after that initial display of superior learning, the orangutans plateaued, while the human child’s learning took off, and while the orangutans still would toss feces around the table, the human child advanced to social interaction capability levels beyond the orangutans’ capacity.
The researchers stated, “Humans are not just social but ‘ultra-social.’” The findings of this research team, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, led the title of their study to be, “Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition.” While the specialized skills of social cognition are evident from the study, no evidence was documented or cited to support the unique social cognition skills had evolved. Where is the evidence that modern day humans exhibit higher social cognition capabilities than the earliest humans? Where is the evidence that hominids preceding humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) had comparable social interaction capability? Not only was no such evidence provided or cited, but the archeological record indicates the earliest humans had the capabilities for social interaction and spiritual activity as humans today.
Difference 5: human beings demonstrate moral values and duties. In addition to having a spiritual component, the biblical text provides another difference: human beings are moral creatures, having moral values and duties we are accountable to (Romans 2:14-15, Hebrews 9:14, 1 Kings 2:44, James 4:17). In stating, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned (Romans 5:12),” the Bible observes only one species can “sin”. Supplementing this, the previous verse, Romans 5:11, notes humans also require, and have unique potential for, reconciliation in their relationship with God.
Morality given in the Bible is objective, discoverable, and is backed by an Authority in the position to know and enforce true right and wrong. Acting against such morals prescribed by God is a “sin,” and only applicable to human beings.
Do you think a spider sins? Maybe sinfully ugly, but is that a “sin”? I am convinced every dog I have had, at times willfully and knowingly went against what was asked of him/her, but I do not have any reason to consider any actions of any animal a sin. Do you, and if so, why?
Herrmann et al., 1360. As cited in: Hugh Ross, “Uniqueness of Social Cognition in Humans,” October, 22, 2007.
Animals are guided by instinct and learning, and even if my dog violates my will, there is no reason given biblically, or otherwise, to consider it a sin and requiring reconciliation in a relationship with God.
Nature documentaries sometimes show animals do things seeming so wrong, such a lion killing hyenas without provocation, or monkeys mistreating others animals. What an animal does may seem “bad,” “wrong,” or even “evil” to someone, but there can not be objective, or universal “bad” or “evil” unless there is a foundation upon which to base an act “bad” or “evil” for every instance, in any place, and at any time, and this would require an authority beyond all human and animal opinion, in a position to know.
The only authority fitting such a need would be God, but no evidence-supported God has made such proclamations for animals. On the other hand, such a proclamation was made in the Bible for human beings, the Bible even noting humans have a propensity to commit evil acts, and therefore, we should be able to determine tests to confirm or deny such a claim. And we do, an example of which is given next.
As cited in a blog by Dr. Hugh Ross:
A team of evolutionary biologists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology recently performed such a test. The team put chimpanzees in cages where the chimps could withhold food from other chimpanzees by pulling on a rope. The researchers found that the chimpanzees would not withhold food from their compatriots out of pure spite. They would only do so, in a statistically significant manner, in response to a chimp that stole its food.
Interestingly, if a human stole its food and gave it another chimp, there was no significant response toward the chimp that received the food. Also, the team made no attempt to test whether or not chimpanzees would engage in “altruistic punishment” (punishing fellow chimpanzees who stole food from other chimpanzees with whom they had no social contact), though they hinted that they would do so in a future study.
The research team concluded that spiteful behavior appears to be unique to the human species. Only humans will engage in malicious behavior toward their compatriots for no other reason than the fact that they want to hurt someone. The team also commented on humanity’s flip side, namely, that only humans will engage in “pure altruism” (self-sacrificial acts performed to reward or rescue another human being with whom no social context has ever existed or could ever possibly exist). The team thus confirmed the Bible’s repeated commentaries on the state of humanity: uniquely evil among all life on Earth but also uniquely righteous.
Keith Jensen, Josep Call, and Michael Tomasello, “Chimpanzees Are Vengeful But Not Spiteful,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 104 (August 7, 2007): 13046-50. “As cited in: Hugh Ross, Uniqueness of Human Capacity to Express Malice,” November 12, 2007.
A thought-provoking next question would be: if humans are uniquely part of God’s plan, then what is the best explanation for inclusion of bipedal primates, or species so similar to humans? And there is a very interesting, and tested, answer.