How being creatures gives us dignity

A recent realisation for me has been that the unbridgeable divide between Creator and Created, between God and Human, does not just honour God as God but also gives human beings dignity.

Karl Barth comments:

It is only the heathen gods who envy man. The true God, who is unconditionally the Lord, allows him to be the thing for which He created him. He is far too highly exalted to take it amiss or to prevent it.... There can be no doubt that with an autonomous reality God does give to man and to all His creatures the freedom of individual action

(CD III/3, p. 87, HT Colin Gunton)

The key thing in that quote is that human dignity is a gift. Because it is not ours, then the gift can be a massive as the giver can afford and as permanent as the giver is unchangeable in his attitude towards us.

The dignity of any human being lies in the indissoluble intertwining of element and instituting word. It is attributed to him or her — bestowed, given on loan — by the One who promises and gives himself unconditionally to humankind: namely, God. Thus, my dignity as a human being is attributed to me "without any merit or worthiness on my part". This dignity is at the same time categorically withheld from me and categorically granted to me; it is given to me totally without merit—and precisely because of this, it cannot be taken away from me by any other human.

(p.279, Oswald Bayer, "Self-Creation? On the Dignity of Human Beings" Modern Theology 20:2 April 2004)

Because all that we have is from God he is not going to jealously want back what he has given us. He does not resent our creative activity but encourages us in it.

the figure of Prometheus, who epitomizes the very notion of self-creation, is often played off against the creator-God of the Christian creed. But this is unjust because the "Prometheus" of the young Goethe revolts against a jealous and merciless Zeus and not against the One who—as the Almighty and at the same time Merciful One—grants the dominium terrae to humankind, entrusting them with it, all the while remaining himself free from envy.

(ibid, p. 276)

Because we are "acknowledged as a person prior to invoking any language of merits or qualities" (p. 280) we have dignity whether we are bright or stupid, pretty or ugly, physically strong or weak. This understanding should "utterly revolutionize the bio-ethical debate" (p. 280) but it should also encourage me and enable me to be creative without fear, and love without evaluating the worthiness of those I love.