In a contemporary landscape often defined by shifting linguistic norms, the vocabulary used to describe human vulnerability has become a significant point of contention. Recently, during a presentation titled “Dignity in a Posthuman World” delivered within a church setting, an exchange occurred that highlighted a deep-seated philosophical rift regarding the nature of the human person. The discussion centered on how secular culture views human dignity versus how biblically grounded Christians ought to perceive it. This interaction serves as a vital case study in understanding the difference between attributed dignity and intrinsic dignity and why the language we use to describe disability matters profoundly for a biblical worldview.
The Secular Performance View versus the Biblical Endowment View
To understand the debate over terminology, one must first recognize the two competing frameworks of human value. The secular culture predominantly adopts a performance view of human value. Within this framework, dignity is grounded in specific performance traits, such as cognitive abilities, self-awareness, the capacity to have desires, or having aims and aspirations for the future. Philosophers like Peter Singer and Michael Tooley are notable proponents of this view, arguing that human dignity and value are tied to traits that are not shared equally among all people and which may fluctuate or disappear throughout a lifetime.
In contrast, the biblical perspective offers an endowment view. On this view, human value is not something earned through performance or mental capacity; rather, it is grounded in whose image a person bears. This creates a fundamental distinction between attributed and intrinsic dignity. We may correctly grant attributed dignity to individuals based on their accomplishments—such as a university professor finding a cure for cancer—because their actions contribute significantly to human flourishing. However, that professor possesses no more intrinsic dignity than a “beach bum” who might be perceived as wasting his life. While we may regret a lack of flourishing in the latter, their fundamental value as an image-bearer remains identical to that of the most accomplished scholar.
The Linguistic Conflict: Person-First Language
The tension between these views came to the forefront when the term “disabled persons” was used to describe those struggling with cognitive or physical impairments. The use of this phrase prompted an immediate and heated objection from a parent of a child with special needs, who argued that the term was “dehumanizing”. She insisted on the use of “person-first” language, specifically the phrase “persons with disabilities,” claiming that a failure to use this rhetoric stripped the individual of their humanity.
While such objections are often rooted in a sincere desire to protect the dignity of loved ones, a deeper analysis reveals that this linguistic shift often relies on secular, rather than biblical, premises. After careful reflection, it becomes clear that yielding to the request for person-first language may inadvertently validate a worldview known as body-self dualism.
The Danger of Body-Self Dualism
Body-self dualism is a secular concept that separates the “real self” from the physical body. It posits that the true identity of a person is found in their thoughts, aims, and cognitive processes, while the body is viewed as mere matter. By insisting on the phrase “person with a disability,” the speaker attempts to separate the disability from the person’s identity, as if the disability is an external attachment rather than an intrinsic part of the individual’s physical reality.
Biblically, however, the human person is a dynamic union of body and soul. We are not mere spirits trapped in husks of matter; our bodies are essential to who we are as image-bearers and they matter deeply to God. Attempting to separate the truth of a person’s bodily condition from their identity is a Gnostic tendency that denies the biblical narrative. A person who is paralyzed or cognitively impaired does not need to deny the reality of their body to claim equal value. Their dignity does not rest on what their body can or cannot do, but on the fact that they are human beings created in the image of God.
This perspective is shared by many within the disability community who find “people-first” language problematic. For example, a disabled attorney who became a quadriplegic following a diving accident expressed frustration with those who pushed him to deny his body’s reality. He argued that the Bible does not permit such a separation, as our physical conditions are part of our lived identity as image-bearers.
Theological Consistency and the Identity of the Sinner
The biblical precedent for linking physical or spiritual conditions to identity is found in how Scripture addresses humanity’s moral state. Jesus and the biblical authors consistently refer to fallen humanity as “sinners,” not as “people with sin”. By linking the condition of sin directly to identity, the Bible tells the objective truth about our spiritual state.
If it is appropriate and theologically accurate to tell the truth about our spiritual condition by calling ourselves sinners, it follows that it is not dehumanizing to tell the truth about our bodily condition. Whether a person is physically, mentally, or cognitively disabled, acknowledging that fact does not diminish their status as an image-bearer. In fact, insisting on “person-first” language can become a form of “sloppy language” that assumes the premises of critics who wish to dehumanize based on performance traits. We must be careful not to absorb non-biblical worldviews in our attempt to be compassionate.
The Image of God: An Absolute Status
A common error in defining the image of God (Imago Dei) is attempting to tie it to specific functions, such as the ability to commune with God or possess a moral compass. If the image of God is defined by these capabilities, then those who lack them would logically be “less” of an image-bearer. This would turn the image of God into a performative trait rather than an inherent endowment.
Scripture does not provide a list of functions that constitute the image of God; instead, it simply affirms that all humans possess it by virtue of being human. Scholars such as John Kilner, in his work Dignity and Destiny, argue that this status is universal and applies to all bioethical issues, including abortion and euthanasia. We are not more dignified than a person with a cognitive impairment; we are simply different in our performance abilities.
Equipping the Believer for Persuasive Defense
Understanding the intrinsic dignity of all human beings is the necessary foundation for pro-life advocacy. To effectively protect the vulnerable, believers must be equipped to defend these views persuasively in a culture that increasingly favors the performance view of human value. This defense can be structured into three clear steps:
- State the Case with a Syllogism: Clearly establish that it is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being and that abortion (or any act that targets the innocent) does exactly that.
- Defend with Science and Philosophy: Use science to show that the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. Use philosophy—specifically the SLED acronym (Size, Level of development, Environment, and Degree of dependency)—to show there is no essential difference between an embryo and an adult that justifies killing the former.
- Answer Objections: Invite questions and handle them with the logic of the pro-life view, ensuring the focus remains on the humanity of the victim.
It is also important for advocates to have realizable expectations. Arguments are rarely won in the heat of the moment. Rather, they are often won weeks later in the quiet of a person’s own thoughts, as the rational weight of a well-presented argument forces them to “rearrange their mental furniture”.
The Call to Rescue
The responsibility to speak for the disabled and the unborn is not based on a subjective “private revelation” or a personal “call”. Instead, it is an objective command found in Scripture, such as in Proverbs 24, which instructs believers to “rescue those being led away to death”. We cannot plead ignorance of the dehumanizing strategies used by the culture to justify the destruction of innocent life.
Furthermore, the confidence to engage in this work does not come from our own righteousness. Every believer must acknowledge their own status as a “wretch” or a “sinner” who falls short of God’s requirements. Our value to the Kingdom is found in our identity as children of Christ, and our work is an act of gratitude for the favor God has already bestowed through the sinless Savior.
Conclusion
The debate over whether to use the term “disabled persons” or “persons with disabilities” is more than a mere squabble over semantics; it is a conflict between two fundamentally different views of what it means to be human. By embracing the term “disabled persons,” we acknowledge the biblical truth that our bodies—in whatever state of strength or weakness—are inseparable from our identity as image-bearers.
We must reject the secular impulse to separate the self from the body, as this dualism ultimately undermines the intrinsic dignity of all people. Instead, we should find confidence in the endowment view, recognizing that our value is not performative but is a gift from our Creator. As we move forward into a posthuman world, our language must remain anchored in the objective truth of the Imago Dei, ensuring that we respect the dignity of every human person from conception to natural death.
Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated from the episode’s YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability: filler words and the mid-show announcements have been removed. It may still contain transcription errors.
Hello friends. Let me tell you about an experience I never saw coming, especially in my own church while I’m teaching a Sunday school class. I’ll tell you about it on this edition of the Case for Life. You know, here on The Case for Life program, we are about one thing, equipping you to think biblically about questions like human value, pro-life, what it means to respect the dignity of the human person. These are topics we focus on almost exclusively. And I want to tell you about an event that happened in my Sunday school class a little while ago that really threw me for a loop because I did not expect it.
Here’s what happened. I was giving a talk entitled Dignity in a Posthuman World. And I was in that talk talking about how the secular culture views human dignity versus how biblically grounded Christians ought to view human dignity. The secular culture, I argued, confuses attributed dignity with intrinsic dignity. Now, here’s what I mean by that. The secular culture thinks that our dignity is grounded in performance traits like cognitive abilities, having desires, having a sense of awareness, having a want to go on living, having aims and aspirations for the future.
The kinds of things you hear people like Peter Singer talking about, Michael Tulie and others who ground human dignity and value in traits that none of us share equally and that may come and go in the course of our lifetimes. The biblical view is very different. Human value is not grounded in things we do. It’s not grounded in traits like self-awareness or self-consciousness or any of those things. Rather, our dignity is grounded in whose image we bear. On the biblical view, we have what’s known not as a performance view of human value, but an endowment view of human value.
And let me explain the difference between the two as I did for the class that day. On the endowment view, a university professor and a beach bum are fundamentally equal in their intrinsic dignity. Yeah, it’s true. The beach bum, we might argue, is wasting his life away on the beach, not accomplishing anything that that contributes toward human flourishing. We can agree on that. While the university professor is out there applying himself, maybe doing good, perhaps finding a cure for cancer or some other deadly disease or coming up with theories we need to understand reality better.
Okay, whatever. The point though is that despite the fact that the university professor has greater attributed dignity based on applying himself in a way that contributes to human flourishing. He certainly has greater attributed dignity than the beach bum. We attribute to him dignity in virtue of what he has performed or accomplished. And that’s right. We should. But it doesn’t follow that the beach bum and university professor differ in their fundamental or what we call intrinsic dignity. We might regret that the beach bum has wasted his life and not flourished according to his nature as an image bearer.
We can certainly grieve that or regret it. But it doesn’t follow his fundamental dignity is any different. It is identical to that of the university professor. And of course what the culture does is it is forgotten completely the idea of intrinsic dignity and only today recognizes attributed dignity. And I explained that to the class and I made the point that I was happy that our church was doing a very good job caring for disabled people and those with special needs and that it was right that our church do that because they are equally imagebearers to us.
We are not more dignified than the person who is struggling with cognitive impairment. Okay. And I made the point that disabled persons are not non-persons, that they have equal rights, not only a right to life, but a right to have dignity in virtue of whose image they bear. And I made that claim and I didn’t even get the words out of my mouth before the parent of a special needs child raised her hand in the class and rather pointedly and with well more than that rather heated said I don’t even hear what you’re saying right now.
Can you please change your dehumanizing language? They are not disabled persons. They are persons with disabilities. You need to change your rhetoric. And she was especially offended that someone in my profession wouldn’t recognize that. Now, before you pile on her, let me just give you a little background here. She and her husband are raising their own special needs child and they have done an exemplary job of doing it. Not only that, they have taken their time and resources to help other families in the church who are also parenting children with special needs.
Okay, so this is a couple that’s living out their faith. And by the way, I don’t question for a moment their pro-life credentials. I know them to be pro-life. But I do want to take a look at her suggested change of language that I shift from saying disabled person to persons with disability. And somehow if I don’t make that shift, I’m dehumanizing those that have those disabilities. Well, I decided that day in class really not to challenge her. I decided to just chew on it for a couple of weeks and come to some conclusion about what I thought.
And after I did think about it, I came to the conclusion I could not in good faith yield to her request. And I’m going to tell you why. Because her request does not assume a biblical view of the human person. It actually assumes the secular cultures view of the human person. And let me explain what I mean by that. The biblical view of the human person is this. All humans have equal dignity and value because of whose image we bear. It’s the endowment view I just spoke about a moment ago.
The secular cultures view is that we are separate from our bodies that our bodies mean nothing. It’s a view it’s a view known as body self dualism. It says there is the real me which is my thoughts, my aims, my ideals, my cognitive processes, and then there’s my body, which is mere matter. Now, notice what happens when we say they’re not disabled persons. They’re persons with disability. That assumes a view of the human person where I separate out my body from who I am, from my identity.
And that is not a biblical view of the human person. We’re a dynamic union of body and soul biblically. We are not mere spirit. That’s a gnostic view. That is not a biblical view. And what tends to happen is some disability activists who mean well are trying to get us to change our language where in essence we deny the truth about our bodies. I got a letter from a disabled attorney who wrote me a piece and said, ‘You know, I’m really troubled by people who try to tell me that I am not my body, that I am not a quadripolgic.
And he had an unfortunate diving accident when he was a teenager that left him in that condition. He’s a lawyer, but he now, of course, is, you know, restricted to a wheelchair. He cannot do the kinds of things that you and I can do. Effortlessly, but he is working on a book about his disability. And he said, you know, one of the biggest problems is people are always pushing me to deny my body’s reality. And the Bible doesn’t let us do that.
Our bodies are part of who we are as imagebearers. They matter to God. And we don’t need to separate the truth about a person’s body from their mind in order to respect who they are. The biblical view would be I don’t care if you’re a quadripolgic. I don’t care if you can’t walk. I don’t care if you can’t do the kinds of things the rest of us can do. You are equally an image bearer in virtue of whose image you bear, not because of the functions you perform.
So I don’t need to deny the truth about my body, whatever condition it might be in to claim that I have equal value and dignity because that dignity does not rest on what my body can do. That dignity rests in whose image I bear. So we’ve got to be very careful that when we defend disability those with disabilities, we don’t absorb a non-biblical worldview in doing so. On the Christian worldview again we are valuable because of the image of God in us.
Now a lot of people have tried to figure out what does that exactly mean and I have read biblical scholars try to come up with all kinds of definitions. I mean I can think of u one professor who said well the image of God means we can communion commune with him that we have a conscious moral compass in play that we are able to respond to the Holy Spirit and he lists all these things that entail the image of God. Of course the obvious problem is those who can’t do those things then would be less of an image bearer than those who can.
And it makes the image of God a performative thing, not an endowment thing. And that’s not the biblical view. I have looked far and wide in scripture and I can’t find any passage that says here’s what it means to have the image of God. What I can find is plenty of scripture that teaches that all humans have it. And it doesn’t say they have it in virtue of being X, Y, or Z. It just says humans are imagebears. In fact, if you want a great study on that, I commend to you John Kner’s book, Dignity and Destiny, where he does an exhaustive study on the image of God and how that applies to things like abortion, euthanasia, doctor assisted suicide, how we approach bioeththics in general.
Again, I commend that book to you, Dignity and Destiny by John Kner. But the thing is this what happened in that Sunday school class is a well-intentioned believer who is doing admirable work in so many areas of her life. She had absorbed the secular cultures view of dignity and human value and it led her to respond with language that does not align with the biblical narrative. And as Christians, we never want to separate our bodies from our identity. We are not mere bodies.
We are not mere souls. We are a dynamic union of body and soul. And the Bible cares about both. And anybody who tells you differently is mistaken. Now, on a parallel note that’s somewhat related, I want you to note how Jesus addresses us. He calls us sinners. He does not say that we are people with sin. He says we are sinners and that is repeated throughout scripture. He links the sin to our identity. Okay. Now, if it’s okay to tell the truth about our spiritual condition, why is it wrong to tell the truth about our bodily condition?
We are not people with disabilities. Some of us are in fact disabled. Some of us have cognitive disabilities. Some of us are physically disabled, others are mentally disabled. Doesn’t matter. I can acknowledge the truth about that person’s disability and at the very same time say it doesn’t mean squat in terms of their imagebearing status. So, I think we need to be careful about that and not let ourselves lapse into sloppy language that really assumes the premises of our critics who want to dehumanize people based on the performance of traits they think and deem necessary.
All right, we’re going to take a break. When we come back, I’m going to talk to you about my Christmas gift to you and what that means. And I’ll come back with that in just a minute.
Welcome back everybody. Here is my New Year’s gift to you. First, before I get into that gift, let me address a reason why some of you will not receive it. But you should receive it. And the reason you won’t is this. You have already disqualified yourself being useful to God because you recognize that in your sinful humanity, you fall very short of God’s expectations and requirements for your life. Okay, I want you to understand something. God uses a lot of people to communicate his truth that fall short.
I want you to think about Jonah. He’s in the belly of a big fish. He’s running from God. God gave him a job. You go to Nineveh, sir, and you require them to repent because I’m going to destroy them. And Jonah doesn’t want any part of this. So, he decides he’s going to run from God. He boards a ship going the opposite direction. And you know the story. God causes a storm and Jonah gets thrown overboard to save the ship and he gets swallowed by a big fish.
People say he got swallowed by a whale. We don’t know if it was a whale. The Bible didn’t tell us, but it was a big fish. All right? And he’s alive in the belly of the fish. And while he is in the belly of that fish, and he’s in the belly of that fish because he blew it big time, Jonah says these words, “Salvation is of the Lord.” Can I say to you that when you’re in the belly of a big fish because you haven’t always lived up to the things you know you should, it is a mighty good thing to remember that salvation is of the Lord.
And I also think of passages like Ephesians chapter 2 where we’re told that God shows his love for us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. Wow. I mean, this is just amazing stuff. Christ dying for ungodly people so that they could be reconciled to their creator. The foundation for your confidence before God as one who does his bidding on pro-life work is not how good of a person you are. Can we just establish you’re not good?
In fact, you’re bad. The Bible would say you’re wretched and so am I. I’m a wretch. You’re a wretch. Okay, now let’s just deal with that. The answer to our wretchedness is not us doing enough good stuff to where we can finally decide, okay, I can do something useful for the kingdom. No, the answer is to place our trust holy and unequivocally in a sinless savior who stood in your place and mind and bear who bore the wrath of God so that we could be reconciled to our creator.
That’s where your confidence comes from. Or as I like to tell pro-lifers, you don’t do pro-life work to earn God’s favor. You do pro-life work because you have God’s favor. And you have that favor not because of anything you’ve done, but because of what Christ did on your behalf. So my first Christmas gift to you, or New Year’s gift would be more accurate, would be to say, “Hey, remember who you are. You’re a wretch and your value to the kingdom is not found in your good stuff.
It’s found in your identity as Christ’s child because your trust is in him. Okay. So, let’s be sure about our foundation for confidence. Next, what I want to give you is a way to communicate pro-life truth to either your Sunday school class, youth group, or maybe civics group, or maybe a handful of neighbors. I don’t know. But here’s what I want to challenge you to do in the new year. You must take responsibility for communicating your pro-life convictions. If you never communicate them, you’re never go you’re never going to see this abortion scourge go away.
It’s going to stay with us as long as Christians remain silent. So, what should you say? Okay, first thing you’re going to say is you’re going to state your case very clearly and you’re going to do it with the syllogism we’ve taught you many times. Premise one, it’s wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Premise two, abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being. Conclusion, therefore, abortion is wrong. Step two, you’re going to defend that syllogism using science and philosophy. You’re going to argue from science that the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings.
You’re going to argue from philosophy that there’s no essential difference between you, the embryo, and you, the adult. That would justify killing you back then. That differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying we could snuff you out then, but not now. You can use the helpful acronym SLED, to remember those differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. The third thing you’re going to do is answer objections because they’ll raise questions.
And of course, as I’ve mentioned before, we have a new tool that can help you handle those objections effortlessly. We call it Prolife 101. And in just one week, you can master the logic of the pro-life view, learn to recognize objections, and make a difference where you’re at by answering those objections persuasively. You can see our sites for information on that. So, think of these three steps. You’re first going to set forth your case with your syllogism. Secondly, you’re going to defend that syllogism using science and philosophy.
And then thirdly, you’re going to invite people to ask questions and you will answer them. Doing that is the most effective way to give people something to think about. Now, I want to give you another gift and that is this, the gift of realizable expectations. There’s a notion out there that if you don’t see the person, you know, just fall to their knees on the spot and admit that you’re right and say, “Okay, I’ve been so wrong being proabortion. I’m now pro-life.
Thank you for straightening out my twisted thinking.” That somehow you have failed and nothing could be further from the truth. I wish you could see some of the emails I get either after debates or presentations I make where somebody says, you know, as I was listening to you, I was getting angrier and angrier and thinking this guy is just nuts. But later when I was forced to think about what you said and couldn’t forget the things you said, I realized that maybe I was the one who was nuts.
And literally what happened as they began processing what they heard, their emotional side gave way to the rational argument that I had presented and it grind it ground on them and ground on them until they dealt with it. And this is something we know to be true. In fact, the great television debater William Rusher on his show Firing Line used to debate all kinds of people and he wrote a book called How to Win Arguments more often than not. And one of the things Rusher said was this that arguments are almost never won on the spot.
They are one weeks later when the person is alone with his or her thoughts and they finally admit to themselves in the quiet of that moment that you had the better argument. And now they’re going to be forced to rearrange their mental furniture. And I’ve seen this borne out so many times. It’s true. People aren’t going to just slap themselves on the knee at that moment and say, “Thank you for, you know, straightening out my twisted thinking.” Life doesn’t work like that.
It doesn’t work like that in marriage. It doesn’t work like that in parenting. And it doesn’t work that way when you convey pro-life views that people have not thought of before. So, I want to relieve you of this burden that says, “I’ve got to change how people think.” On a related note, I want to also relieve you of something you might use as an excuse. You might say, “Well, God has not told me that I should be out there making a case for the pro-life view.” My first response is this.
Actually, he has. Because in the book of Proverbs chapter 10, we are told that we are to rescue those being led away to death. Or as some versions put it, those being led off to slaughter and that God will not hold us guiltless if we say, “Hey, we didn’t know. We do know, folks. We know what abortion is. We know what these dehumanizing strategies of our culture do to innocent human beings.” Pretending we don’t know and therefore aren’t responsible ain’t going to cut it on judgment day.
We do know and we do have a responsibility. But the second thing I would say to you is this. Why are you making your responsibility about what God subjectively or privately communicates to you? That’s not a good way to discern the will of God. Can someone please show me where in the scripture it says that we ought to expect personalized revelation from God that is somehow subjectively delivered to us via a tunnel from God to us or a pipeline rather. And the answer is it’s not there.
People right away said, “Well, wait a minute. What about Samuel? Samuel is proof that believers should expect private revelation from God.” wait a minute. That passage very clearly says that God called out to Samuel when Samuel was not yet a believer. You can’t use that as a model for how believers ought to respond. Other people say, well, in the book of John, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice.” That’s not going to work either. That is not about getting private personal relation or messaging from God.
That is not about personal revelation. It is about the effectual call of the shepherd to the sheep. And what Jesus is saying there is those that are his will his call to salvation. They will hear his call to repent and become his disciple. And by the way, they’re not going to resist that call. They are going to come. If the shepherd calls them, they come to the shepherd. All right? This is not about private revelation. And for too long, I’ve seen believers both burdened and use it as an excuse to not do what they ought to do by saying, “Look, I don’t have the call of God to do that.” Friends, we don’t need private revelation when we have the objective truth of God’s word telling us to rescue those being led away to death.
So, if I could give you a New Year’s gift this year, it would be that broad picture of what you ought to do. First of all, just to review, your qualifications are not based on your own righteousness. We already know you’re a wretch. In fact, look yourself in the mirror tomorrow morning when you get up and say, “You’re a wretch.” Not because your hair is sticking straight up or your teeth aren’t brushed, but because inside you and I still have a sin nature that very much loves rebelling against our righteous creator.
Secondly, I want you to remind yourself that your purpose for doing pro-life work is not to earn God’s favor, which you cannot do. You are doing pro-life work because you have God’s favor. And now you are free to fulfill his mission for your life. And at the same time, remind yourself that you’re doing this not because you got private revelation, but because scripture objectively gives us the command to rescue those being led away to slaughter. Then remember that step one is to simply state your syllogism that it’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings.
Abortion does that. Therefore, it’s wrong. The second thing you’re going to do is simply say, I’m going to defend that with science and philosophy, arguing from science that the unborn from the very beginning are distinct living and whole human beings. And then you’ll argue philosophically that there’s no essential difference between you, the embryo, and you the adult that justifies killing you at that earlier stage of development. Friends, why don’t you commit yourself to this for the new year? Take what I’ve just given you as a blueprint for persuasively communicating your pro-life views and do two things.
Number one, if you haven’t already, get our course, Prolife 101. Equip yourself to engage. And again, you can see our sites for information on how to do that. Secondly, commit yourself to communicating this pro-life truth to at least 500 people in 2026. Now, that may be you start off by approaching local homeschool networks or Sunday school classes in your church, but say, “Listen, can I come in and make a 20inut talk about why the pro-life view aligns with what we know to be true in scripture?” and go ahead and give that talk along the lines I just gave you.
These are things that make a real difference. People think, well, what difference will that make? A lot. I’m in this work full-time because I heard a dedicated pro-lifer willing to give a persuasive talk when there were only eight of us in the room, and it changed my life forever. You don’t know who you’re talking to. Go out there and make a difference this new year.