Claim. Because love requires an inexchangeable counterpart, the relational value of human beings as God’s object partners is “greater than that of God Himself” — a divine-constraint follows from love’s two-place structure.
Elaboration. “As an absolute being with an absolute ideal for His creation, God pursues beings who can relate to Him with absolute value … A being that can relate to God has a value that is greater than that of God Himself” (3.1. Original human value is akin to that of God, 68-134, 1973.7.29). The reason: “God cannot exchange it with Himself, for if He did, He would be left alone as a result … This is why God invests Himself and exhausts His own strength and His own energy.” Humans are also explicitly substantial-form: “When creating an object to reflect His love, whom would God make it resemble? … the Book of Genesis is correct in saying that God created human beings in His image” (ibid, 170 -167, 1987.11.15). The implication: human dignity is not bestowed by accomplishment but by relational position — God’s love-economy requires it.