English theologian E.L. Mascall wrote in a number of his works on what it means to be human in a fallen and redeemed world, beginning in his very early work Death or Dogma, and a little later in Via Media. But he treats the matter most fully in his ‘American Bamptons’ of 1958, which were published in Britain under the title, The Importance of Being Human. Is man nothing more than ‘the successful cosmic bandit’, or is he ‘the uniquely favoured creature upon whom God has stamped his own image’? We will see how Mascall answers his own question!