Human beings are able to love because God is love. Believing that God is free, rational, just and relational is helpful in explaining many human experiences and the way the world works. But this belief about God is not particularly helpful in answering the question of why God created the world, human beings, the human individual. The Christian tradition believes that God is Love (1 John 4:8). God creates the world, every creature and every human being out of this perfect love. Unlike other creatures, human beings, as images of God, are both loved and are capable of love. Human persons are capable of knowing and loving themselves and, more importantly, they are capable of knowing and loving others with a profound intensity. It is this deep love, this deep gift of self, that Christian's believe triumphs over even the greatest trials, even death.

Each human being is unique and fundamentally equal to all other human beings. This is the case regardless of place and time, regardless of the development or expression of any specific abilities, regardless of any other features, physical or otherwise. The reason for this is that every human being is created, known, called and loved eternally by God (Psalm 139:13).

Every human being has an absolute moral worth and dignity. This dignity of all human beings is at the core of Christian moral reflection. In the Incarnation, God becomes a human being, Jesus of Nazareth. In so doing Jesus unites God's self to all of humanity. This is the ultimate expression of the supreme worth and dignity that God bestows on all human beings. Human beings have such worth and dignity and are so loved by God that God became a human being and suffered and died for them. Jesus was raised bodily to life, overcoming death. The promise of resurrection, eternal life with God and life to the full is made to every human being.

The paradox of identity is that it is both something that is always already true and unchanging and something that changes and develops over time. The Christian tradition affirms, on the one hand, that each individual is a unique creation of God possessing an inviolable inherent worth. God created you, loves you, and will always love you. On the other hand, it also takes seriously the reality that this unique individual is nonetheless situated in history. Each person grows through different stages of life, from childhood, through adolescence and adulthood, to old age. In all of these stages the essential core identity of the person remains constant. You are still essentially the same person that you were when you were born and the you that you will be when you die. But it also makes sense to talk about becoming a different person as we learn and grow through these stages of life. The child is different to the parent and the parent is different to the grandparent. Yet we can experience being all of these different people as we go through life. Still, we can only experience them by going through life. You can only experience being a grandparent by becoming a grandparent and can only make grandparent part of your identity if it is the case in real life. So, as we enter into different stages of our lives, we will often have to revisit and re-evaluate some aspects of our identity.

The Catholic perspective promotes human dignity, the essential worth or dignity of the human person as made in the image and likeness of God. Each human being is unique and unrepeatable and loved and called by God. This means that every human being, in every circumstance, is good. This is not to say that they are morally good. Our moral goodness or moral badness is based on the moral decisions we make. Rather, to affirm the worth or dignity of the human person is to affirm that it is a good thing that he or she exists, that his or her existence is desired by God and that his or her existence is worthwhile. The dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2013). Catholic thinking about sexuality and relationships is based on this basic affirmation of the equal worth of all human beings.

The sanctity of life is one way of giving expression to this basic affirmation of the worth or dignity of all human beings. When the Catholic Church affirms the sanctity of life it affirms that it is good that a particular human being exists rather than the reverse. the existence of each human person is willed by God and human beings have no right to destroy that existence. To say that life is sacred is to say, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done, no matter what you will do, the simple fact that you exist as a specific human being is enough for you to be considered worthy of life, worthy of respect and worthy of those things that will help you to flourish rather than perish.

Men and Women are fundamentally equal. Man and woman are both human beings. Theologically speaking the creation of human beings precedes the creation of the sexes. Women and men are of equal worth or dignity in the eyes of God. Both male and female are made in God's image and both are called to share in the future God promises. Yet, this fundamental equality does not mean that being a man and being a woman is the same thing. Rather it is equally good to be man as it is to be a woman and neither sex should think of itself as superior in some fundamental or essential way to the other. Man and woman share the same humanity. They are both made in God's image sharing a basic mutuality. Both are called to live in a covenant of love (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1991). Consequently, sexism, that is, the unjust discrimination to the detriment of a person on the basis of his or her sex is not to be tolerated. Since all human beings, whether male or female, share the same dignity or moral worth each gender has an equal claim to the natural human rights that proceed from this worth. Similarly, each gender has a duty to work for the common good and to respect the dignity and rights of others. True, all human beings are not alike from the point of view of varying physical power and the diversity of intellectual and moral resources. Nevertheless, with respect to the fundamental rights of the person, every type of discrimination, whether social or cultural, whether based on sex, race, color, social condition, language or religion, is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God's intent (Vatican Council II, Gaudium et Spes, para. 29).