Research Article
How Secular Reason Undermines Human Dignity and Values in the West: The Christian Path to Restore Humanity
Joshua Ishaya Mamza*
Issue:
Volume 14, Issue 3, September 2026
Pages:
107-114
Received:
17 November 2025
Accepted:
1 December 2025
Published:
11 July 2026
DOI:
10.11648/j.ijp.20261403.11
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Abstract: This article examines the gradual displacement of the Christian doctrine of the imago Dei as the primary ground of human dignity in Western intellectual history. From the seventeenth century onward, successive philosophical movements privileged autonomous reason, empirical sensation, or historical process over divine revelation as the source of epistemological and moral authority. The analysis proceeds chronologically, drawing primarily (though not exclusively) on the historical surveys of John M. Frame (2015) and W. Andrew Hoffecker (2007), while noting significant primary texts. The cumulative effect was the removal of a transcendent anchor for objective human value, resulting in various forms of relativism and consequentialist ethics. The article concludes by outlining a constructive approach by which confessional communities may re-articulate the intellectual and institutional resources of Christian anthropology in societies that once held human beings with dignity.
Abstract: This article examines the gradual displacement of the Christian doctrine of the imago Dei as the primary ground of human dignity in Western intellectual history. From the seventeenth century onward, successive philosophical movements privileged autonomous reason, empirical sensation, or historical process over divine revelation as the source of epi...
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