"Treat others as you would like to be treated."

We often hear it said that we should, "treat others as we would like to be treated". Of course, it is given no context nor can we truly understand how "we would like to be treated" without God's love. Growing up in a public school, this phrase is repeated often and is seemingly intended to serve as the moral theory behind our praxis without citing any specific religious tradition. This adage is adapted from the Gospel, however, once it is removed from its context, it loses its foundation (cf. Mark 12:31). If one is still moved to assimilate this adage, the question remains: "What do I deserve, that I can understand what others deserve?" This question if left unanswered can bring many problems. Jesus counterbalances this relativity saying, "Love each other as I have loved you"(John 15:12-14). However, one must first receive Christ's love to understand in what way and to what magnitude Christ has/does love us. Despite this relative ambiguity, God has given us a foundation upon which we can understand ourselves, and thereby with what intensity we are called to love others.

First, the question of what we deserve can also be derived from Sacred Scripture. At the beginning of the Bible, we are introduced to our dignity. First and foremost, man was created "very good" amongst all and only good things (cf. Genesis 1-2). From this alone, we can understand that we are worthwhile. Something good should not be exploited or abused without a breach of our innate sense of justice. However, God did not create us only to be good. God made man little less than Himself (cf. Hebrews 2:7-9, Psalms 8:5). We are "made in God's image and likeness"(Genesis 1:26-28). We were made to become God's children, and this gives man a nearly unintelligible large dignity, which as a result fails to be capable of human description and even beyond material experience (cf. John 1:12-13, cf. 1 John 3:1-3).[1] However, we struggle with loving ourselves a right, because we despise parts of our self and tend to love ourselves as we are not and so hate ourselves as we are.[2] We have a dignity of such value to God, that He lowered Himself from the status of God to human slave, He came to His creation without really being accepted, suffered in nearly all ways, suffered the most gruesome death, and returned to those who betrayed Him with peace (cf. John 1:10-12, cf.  Philippians 2:1-11, cf. John 20:26). God still considers man worthy of life, despite all this, the thought of any lack of worthiness is put to rest.

Next, we are instructed with intensity, we are called to love others. Our consciences to various degrees witness to that.[3] We are called to love God with all of our abilities, faculties, and strength (cf. Deuteronomy 6:5, cf. Luke 10:27, cf. Mark 12:30-31, cf. Matthew 22:37). This is not a one-way obligation as Satan would have us believe nor as paganism would expect (see & cf. Genesis 3). This love is more than reciprocated as demonstrated above. However, this intensity is not reserved only to just God but anywhere He dwells. This, again, has already been demonstrated above, that Christ loved with all His being (John 3:16, John 13:1). There is no greater love than that (cf. John 15:13). It is this love to which we are called to love others an hour away (cf. John 15:12-14). In doing so we become one with Christ (cf. John 15:1-11). Pope Benedict XVI draws a connection between man's call to love and his being made in God's image: "The Bible gives one consequential answer to these two queries: the human being is created in the image of God, and God Himself is Love. It is, therefore, the vocation to love that makes the human person an authentic image of God: man and woman come to resemble God to the extent that they become loving people.".[4]

In conclusion, there is no possible way to describe with any sort of accuracy what man's dignity is without mention of God's love and the dignity that affords. It is in God where all relativity is absolute. In God and Him alone is our worth. It is our likeness to Him, we restore when we love as He loved. Our problem is answered, in that we are shown love by God. We were made for love and our dignity is serving that love. We can even backtrace from it what the ideal/expected "how we would like to be treated" is. We are called to love so if we hope to fulfill this command, we know we must first receive love to understand properly how we "would like to be treated". Our understanding of how others ought to be treated is also witnessed by the conscience. We are not called to simply avoid breaching justice, to not stand in the way of the happiness of others, but to love. Recognizing the good creation in the self is presupposed by this action and yet in a way informed by it.[5] In God, our path to happiness is as simple as loving rightly, instead of grasping after fleeting, fickle, self-defeating, and endless searching. We see a reflection of the human relativity of love between the Father and the Son, Whose communion we partake in by loving. "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15:9-11). Yeah, we need to love our selves even as it affects our ability to love others, it does not follow you must always put yourself first, but to love deeply you need to be at peace with yourself and recognize yourself as God's creation. This is very different from "self-love" of the culture even if not mutually exclusive. We will look further in our next Post.

Additional thought: This is another dimension to what Psychology and Sociology cannot get right without reference to Christ.

FN:

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 356-357, 1699.
2. Thomas Aquinas, _Summa theologiae_, I-II, q. 29, a. 4, at New Advent, www.newadvent.org
3. _ST_, I-II, q. 94
4. Benedict XVI, Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the participants of the Ecclesial Diocesan Convention of Rome, 6 June 2005.
5. Second Vatical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on The Church in the Modern World _Gaudium et Spes_ (7 December 1965), §24.

Written by Carter Carruthers & also available soon at Missio Dei