Truth
Jason Cherry
Jul 28, 2025
Introduction
To be authentically human is to behave creaturely. God is the Creator. Humans are the prize of creation, made in God’s image. To be fully human is to embrace your creatureliness. You are created. God created you. This is God’s world. There is more to it than you can see or understand. The good things you have are a result of the Creator. Therefore, to behave creaturely, in other words, to behave humanly, requires (A) recognizing the mysterious character of the universe; and (B) receiving with gratitude God’s good gifts.
Mystery and gratitude lead to worship; thus, full humanness is when you worship what is supremely good and right. Since God is the most good and most right thing in the universe, that means full humanness is to worship God. And this isn’t just worship. It’s wisdom. It’s the kind of discernment that keeps a person humble, curious, and open to God.
Wonder
Why can humans wonder, but animals can’t? To wonder, or to marvel, is to perceive all that is unusual and exceptional, such that you are moved and shaken. This is a pathway to beholding the good and being transformed by it. The ability to wonder is one of God’s greatest gifts to man. Your pet turtle doesn’t marvel. Your puppy dog, tail wagging, doesn’t wonder. But man does marvel. Jesus marveled (Mark 6:6; Lk. 7:9). Human beings can experience the wonder of creation, the sort of thing Psalm 19 talks about. To wonder is to know you don’t know, which leads, wondrously, to more knowing. And this is the answer to the question. Animals can’t wonder because animals don’t desire knowledge.
The human soul has the capacity to know, understand, and receive all of reality. Through perception, intellect, imagination, and contemplation, the soul can take in not just one kind of thing, but everything that exists—material and immaterial worlds, visible and invisible realms. To be human is to be open to a reality that is not ourselves, to stand in wonder and amazement at what is not ourselves.¹
Humanness
So then, what is the truly human disposition? In Joseph Pieper’s classic book, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, he gives five answers to the question.²
1. “Neither to conceive or comprehend like God”
Imagine a man who reads a few thick theology books and now walks about as if he’s cracked the code of the cosmos. He speaks of eternity with the confidence of a plumber discussing leaky pipes. But what he’s really done is shrink the divine down to something tidy, something he can shelve. If studying theology leads to self-congratulation or pride, you’ve studied it inhumanely. The truly human thing is to stand before the mystery of God with a mind lit by awe, not arrogance.
2. “Nor to harden and dry up”
Picture the woman who has been disappointed once too often. Her heart is now coated in irony and wrapped in clever phrases. She doesn't laugh easily, and she distrusts every good thing as if it were a trick. But in armoring herself against pain, she’s sealed herself off from joy. The truly human heart must stay tender enough to weep and wide enough to be surprised.
3. “Neither to shut oneself up in the supposedly clear and enlightened everyday world”
Think of the man who says, “I believe in what I can see, death, taxes, electric bills, and grocery lists.” He scoffs at poetry, prayer, and anything with wings. He lives as if enchantment were for children and truth can be scanned at checkout. But the world is not a spreadsheet. The truly human soul remains open to the Real that glimmers beyond appearances.
4. “Nor to resign oneself to remaining ignorant”
Consider the student who says, “We’ll never really know the answers, so why bother asking?” It sounds humble, but it’s laziness in disguise. He numbs the ache of wonder by calling it foolishness. But the truly human thing is to long for truth as one longs for home, even if the road is long and the signs are unclear.
5. “Not to lose the childlike suppleness of hope”
Suppleness refers to someone’s pliability or ability to be alleviated. So, imagine the young child whose big outdoor plans are ruined by the weather. The skilled mother can redirect the child’s disappointment into a new adventure, and the child soon forgets the plans for outdoor fun. This is the “childlike suppleness of hope” that Pieper speaks of. So, now envision the opposite. Consider the elderly cynic who says, “I’ve seen too much to hope anymore.” He thinks wisdom means expecting the worst. But it isn’t. True wisdom still believes in spring after winter, in dawn after night, and that goodness is not an old wives' tale but the deeper plot of God’s story. To be human is to hope like a child, even when grown old.
Children
When Jesus was with the little children, he told the disciples to receive the Kingdom like a child (Mark 10:13-16). These are small children brought by their mother. Jesus takes them in his arms. They lay happy in Jesus’ arms in their helpless dependence. So too, the Kingdom of God is filled with those who are happily and helplessly dependent on the King of the Kingdom. Children are experts at receiving their parents' gift of help. Adults are hesitant to receive help. They say, “You shouldn’t have” or “I can’t accept this help.” Children are models of how the Kingdom of God is to be received.
Why do adults have trouble being helpless and dependent? Children are willing to believe incomprehensible things. Adults, however, are disturbed by the presence of incomprehensible things. So, adults craft a framework that tries to make sense of the world and make sense of their experiences. For example, if someone grows up in a broken home, they frame their understanding of the world in such a way that explains their experience and makes sense of it. If someone endures terrible suffering, they frame their understanding of the world in such a way that explains their experience and makes sense of it. If someone encounters things they can’t understand, they frame their understanding of the world in such a way that explains it and makes sense of it.
Adults craft a framework to make sense of the world, and then they look at the world through that frame, convinced that they can explain everything and that they have the world figured out. This is why people tend toward skepticism as they grow older, because that’s part of the frame they construct to try and make sense of all the incomprehensible things in the world. This frame also includes how they understand God.
Conclusion
So, from time to time, you need to examine yourself and see if you are still human; see if you are still a child, because as Shakespeare said, there are more things in heaven and earth than you could ever dream of. In other words, there are more things in heaven and earth than your limited, adult, conditioned frame can hold. There is more to this God and this universe than you can imagine or account for. And since you are an adult rather than a child, you tend to be disturbed by these incomprehensible things.
What is the proper response to the incomprehensible love of the God of the Universe? Trust—not skepticism—is required when you face this God. Dependence—not self-reliance—on what God has revealed in Scripture. Trust and dependence are required not only to understand God and his world, but to understand yourself, a human being made in the image of God.
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of the books The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.
Other Articles
https://trinityreformedkirk.com/collection/the-forgotten-requirement-of-the-dominion-mandate
https://trinityreformedkirk.com/collection/re-enchantment-revival-or-regression
Footnotes
¹ Joseph Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture (Ignatius, 2009), 109-118.
² Joseph Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture (Ignatius, 2009), 119.