There is a brief phrase of Paul's which defines the relation with almost
scientific accuracy--"Ye are complete in Him." In this is summed up the
whole of the Bible anthropology--the completeness of man in God, his
incompleteness apart from God.
If it be asked, In what is man incomplete, or, In what does God complete
him? the question is a wide one. But it may serve to show at least the
direction in which the Divine Environment forms the complement of human
life if we ask ourselves once more what it is in life that needs
complementing. And to this question we receive the significant answer
that it is in the higher departments alone, or mainly, that the
incompleteness of our life appears. The lower departments of Nature are
already complete enough. The world itself is about as good a world as
might be. It has been long in the making, its furniture is all in, its
laws are in perfect working order; and although wise men at various
times have suggested improvements, there is on the whole a tolerably
unanimous vote of confidence in things as they exist. The Divine
Environment has little more to do for this planet so far as we can see,
and so far as the existing generation is concerned. Then the lower
organic life of the world is also so far complete. God, through
Evolution or otherwise, may still have finishing touches to add here and
there, but already it is "all very good." It is difficult to conceive
anything better of its kind than a lily or a cedar, an ant or an
ant-eater. These organisms, so far as we can judge, lack nothing. It
might be said of them, "they are complete in Nature." Of man also, of
man the animal, it may be affirmed that his Environment satisfies him.
He has food and drink, and good food and good drink. And there is in him
no purely animal want which is not really provided for, and that
apparently in the happiest possible way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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