Is this why human dignity arguments are so difficult today?

I am not a theologian, but I occasionally play one in my scholarship.  As part of a project exploring the theological sources that shaped Martin Luther King, Jr.'s work (and the lessons King offers for our understanding of a lawyer's work), I'm reading Agape & Eros by Anders Nygren.  "Agape" love is a recurring and central theme in King's work, and he apparently was influenced by Nygren's book.  Here's a quote from Nygren that warrants further reflection:

Agape is creative love.  God does not love that which is already in itself worthy of love, but on the contrary, that which in itself has no worth acquires worth just by becoming the object of God’s love.  Agape has nothing to do with the kind of love that depends on the recognition of a valuable quality in its object; Agape does not recognize value, but creates it.  Agape loves, and imparts value by loving.  The man who is loved by God has no value in himself; what gives him value is precisely the fact that God loves him.  Agape is a value-creating principle.

Is Nygren (a Lutheran bishop and theologian) correct from the perspective of Catholic theology?  (I'm guessing that he is.)  Does a human being have any value apart from God's love for her?  Does agape -- particularly as practiced from one human person to another -- recognize value or create value?  Maybe this is just semantic given that we do not exist apart from God's love, and God's love is evidenced by the very fact of creation.  But does framing the relationship between God's love and human value in this way make natural law appeals to human dignity (even more) difficult for those who do not believe in a loving God?