French playwright Moliere once uttered this curious line: “Nearly all men die of their medicines, and not of their maladies.”(1) Musician Tori Amos asserts something similar in the chorus of one of her songs: “She’s addicted to nicotine patches/she’s afraid of a light in the dark.” Both of these artists are perhaps known for exposing the hypocrisies of society in biting verse. Through satire, Moliere sought to amuse but also to instruct his audience with the peculiarities of human behavior, while Amos croons of life as she sees it, through blunt, often angry, lyrics.

Certainly, artistic observation of humanity can rouse insight and inspire an inward look at our own lives. Do these artists communicate a common truth about the human condition? I think they might. We have all known people who seem blind to their own maladies, people who would prefer their pain to change. But I also believe there is something that communicates the complexities of human behavior even more accurately.

Abraham Heschel referred to Scripture not as humanity’s theology, as it is often received, but as God’s anthropology. In these ancient Scriptures, human behavior, human emotion, human duplicity is all depicted with curious accuracy. And often, in these pages, that God knows us far better than we know ourselves is displayed in the form of a question. To study the great questions posed in Scripture is a remarkably convicting study in human nature and behavior. But even more remarkable, the New Testament scriptures offer an answer to these questions of what it means to be human. In the person of Jesus Christ, we are shown one in whom the Triune God’s purposes of creation are fulfilled, the future of creation embodied, and humanity is given the invitation of one who is making us more human.

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