Dignity Beyond Dust

Secular materialism, in its hubris, celebrates the ignominy of being merely dust. Christianity, on the other hand, in its humility, depends on the Spirit of God to breathe the image of God into dust so that man may gain a dignity beyond it.

"So is God, the great demiourgos, the universal framer of all, represented as an artificer, who first prepares his matter, and then forms it as it seemeth good unto him. And this is mentioned for two ends:-- First, To set forth the excellency, power, and wisdom of God, who out of such vile, contemptible matter as a heap of dust, swept as it were together on the ground, could and did make so excellent, curious, and glorious a fabric as is the body of man, or as was the body of Adam before the fall. Secondly, To mind man of his original, that he might be kept humble and in a meet dependence on the wisdom and bounty of his Creator; for thence it was, and not from the original matter whereof he was made, that he became so excellent." (John Owen, Pneumatologia)