In this video and the next, I draw from Dignitas Infinita (the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2024 document about human dignity) to lay some of the theological and philosophical groundwork that underpins the doctrine that every human being has infinite dignity. After that, I’ll have several videos showing some of the necessary, and radical, implications of this teaching.
In the video today, I unpack what Dignitas Infinita says are the “three convictions” from God’s Revelation that lay the theological foundation for our teaching on human dignity. Those are: That human beings are created in the image of God; that God became human; and that every human being is destined for Divinity.
“What Christ is by nature, we become by grace. Through the work of redemption, God not only restored our human dignity as his image, but the One who created us in a wondrous way, has now made us partakers in his divine nature in an even more wondrous way (cf. 2 Pet 1:4). Divinization, then, is true humanization (becoming fully human). This is why human existence points beyond itself, seeks beyond itself, desires beyond itself, and is restless until it rests in God” (In Unitate Fidei 7).
