Homo Sapiens - Homo Creatus

I was listening to a lecture by RC Sproul on Marxism and something dawned on me that I had never thought of before. It has to do with how we characterize ourselves as a species and how I think we should be defined instead. This is all born from a feeling that I just can't shake that we make far too much of ourselves.

Now, according to science, the species of primate that we as humans belong to is Homo Sapiens. I have issues with that statement but that is not what this post is about. Homo Sapiens, in Latin, is roughly translated as "wise man". In other words, what sets us apart from all other species of primate (or other "Homo" that, presumably, existed before us) is that we have attained a higher level of cognitive ability that is characterized as "wise". Now, also presumably, that was our designation for the lack a better term. Given that we were classified as such during the Age of Enlightenment I rather think that it was more carefully considered.

Now, as interesting as Sapiens is as a qualifier for the human "species" I would like to throw my own designation into the ring: Homo Creatus or "man the created". As I look at many designations of the species that have been proffered (Sapiens, Faber, Adorans, etc.) there is a similar vein that runs through all of them. That is, plainly, that God created us that way. We know where wisdom, even the so called wisdom of this age, came from. We know where our ability to work and worship and even the desire to do so came from. Without having been created in this way or that we would have none of it.

Of course, designating ourselves as Homo Creatus puts us, in some measure, in the same box as bacteria, iguanas, and pineapple. A not too careful reading of the Bible sets us humans far apart from all of that, but we would do well to remember that our faculties, past, present, and future, are bound up in the willing creative act of God. It may do us well to get lumped in with the rest of his creation if only to remind us that the Enlightenment raised many more questions than it answered. Many more. But that is a topic for another day.