Two Contrasting Conceptions of Human Dignity
In Book I of the City of God, Augustine contrasts Greco-Roman (pagan) and Christian conceptions of dignity.
Cato the Younger and Lucretia are paragons of pagan virtues, of man and woman, respectively. They committed suicide out of a strong sense of dignity. Lucretia killed herself to protest her innocence as a rape victim; Cato the Younger, a Stoic, would rather die as a free man than live under the rule of a tyrant.
This conception of dignity is manifest not only in ancient Rome, but also in ancient China. There is a Chinese saying, “宁为玉碎，不为瓦全”, literally meaning, “Rather be broken as jade, than be preserved as clay”. The underlying idea is that some lives are so void of dignity that they are not worth living. In modern times, this idea has found many expressions, including Patrick Henry’s speech, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”
Like Tertullian before him, Augustine clearly perceives the paradigm shift that separates Christianity from humanism based on pagan value. Human dignity is subject to human opinions, which are fickle and flawed at best, cruel and depraved at worst. If some lives are worth living, while other lives are not, then, not only suicide, but also infanticide and other forms of homicide would be justified. One such example in ancient Rome is that infants were exposed by their parents to die.
To put it bluntly, human dignity becomes an insidious idol, when innocent victims are sacrificed on its altar. Augustine asks incisively, “If Lucretia was adulterous, why praise her? If chaste, why slay her?”
By contrast, Christianity teaches that every person is of intrinsic dignity, because he is created in the image of God, and nobody has the right or authority, unless he is given such authority by God, to destroy a life, because all lives belong to their Creator. Human dignity reaches its highest fulfillment in the Person of Christ. In Christ, there is chastity and purity beyond the pollution of man; In Christ, there is freedom beyond all the tyranny of men; In Christ, there is everlasting love beyond the fickleness of human affections. Understood in this way, each and every life is worth living, even a life full of dishonour, pain and suffering is worth living in the sight of God. For that is the life Jesus lived on earth, and that is the Sacrificial Life many Christians have lived throughout history.