Abstract
What is man that You take thought of him, wonders the Psalmist, And the son of man that You care for him? The Psalmist goes on to observe that man has been made a little lower than God, and crowned with glory and majesty! (Ps. 8:45 NASB). This confession of praise gets at the complex nature of the human person as made in Gods image to act with authority as the divine representative in the created order. When exploring the nature of the human person, the Christian tradition has rightly emphasized both the material as well as the spiritual aspects of humankind. The derogation of one at the expense of the other leaves us with a partial, and in some cases distorted and truncated, picture of human nature.