Humans were created in the image of God and have dominion over the rest of creation. Biblically, this hierarchy is clearly stated in Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” However, in the world today, there seems to be confusion over humanity’s place in the hierarchy. A human often takes one of the extremes of either seeing himself as God or seeing himself as no higher than animals.
In the first instance, humans fail to trust God to take care of them or fail to trust God’s plan for their lives, thinking they themselves can do better than God. Humans then take on the role of God and attempt to control the direction of their lives and what happens to them. There is an arrogance in this position with the human believing that he truly can control what ultimately happens to him in this life.
In the second extreme, humans put themselves on the same level as animals, which, morally speaking, means they excuse their sinful behavior as being simply instinctual. This leads to tolerance of things like sexual sin in our culture because humans claim that they cannot deny their natural instincts.
In order for humans to maintain their rightful place in the hierarchy of creation, they need to first realize that God is God, and we are not. In order to avoid living in the first extreme, we need to maintain our humility and our dependence on God. Second, humans need to realize that they are not base, instinctual creatures as are the animals. We need to dignify our lives by realizing that God has given us control over our basic instincts and we can choose to avoid the sinful actions that feel natural to us.