IMAGO DEI
THE FOUNDATION OF FAITH • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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The reason God commanded the Jews to not fashion idols comes from Genesis 1. The Septuagint uses the Greek word ICON for image. People are to be the representation of God on earth. You are to communicate with God and communicate God to the world.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image;
he created him in the image of God;
he created them male and female.
Image, likeness, or icon can be considered as similar concerning what God communicates and confers upon us.
The Image of God is a STATUS conferred, not a position earned.
It includes all people regardless of age, social position, prowess, or economic achievement.
It means people do not differ in degree from the animal kingdom, but rather in KIND.
You are not a better animal.
You are a ELEVATED above all other created things.
That’s why Christians care for animals. We have been called to care for them. But that is why animal rights cannot be part of Christian theology or thinking. Animals do not hold the same status. They depend on us to care for them. They cannot articulate rights. God has conferred upon us the responsibility to be care takers or zoo keepers in a sense of all the animal kingdom. While we have a moral duty to not be cruel to animals, they do not possess the image of God or the communicable aspects of God’s nature that you and I possess.
There are aspects of God that no other person or creature will ever share such as His absolute power, Infinite knowledge and ever present. But there are aspects of God’s nature, spirit, conscience, and morality humans possess and no animal or AI ever will. That is why human life is regarded as SACRED.
God dignified every human from the womb to He calls them home in the Imago Dei. Perhaps you have heard it said, “Human life is sacred and to be guarded from womb to tomb.”
The decree of the Lord means we share aspects of His nature and thus accountability as God’s image bearer.
As Regents of the Most High, you have moral agency and responsibility that He reveals throughout Scripture.
You rarely hear of people getting upset with a Lion’s moral code when it kills and eats a gazelle or if the males of one pride kill the cubs of another pride. That’s just the nature of the beast. You won’t see a police boat chasing down a crocodile for eating a water buffalo.
But if a person treats animals cruelly or kills another person, something in us “knows” that a sacred charge has been violated.
Why? Because we have been made in the image of the Divine all good, holy, moral Creator. We are a unique creation from all others.
Here's an explanation of how people are considered divine in Christianity:
Image of God: Genesis 1:26-27 in the Old Testament of the Bible states that God created humanity in His own image and likeness. This belief reveals that humans reflect aspects of God's character, such as rationality, morality, and creativity.
Further, we are
Spiritual Beings: humans possess an eternal soul or spirit that is unique among God's creation. This spiritual aspect of humanity is seen as a reflection of God's spiritual nature.
Moral Responsibility: the sacred status of humans carries moral implications. Christians are taught to live in accordance with God's moral standards and to reflect His love, compassion, and righteousness in their lives. This emphasizes the moral responsibility and ethical behavior expected of believers.
When you start to poke around as to why people don’t want to be religious, they don’t want to submit their lives to cross bearing discipleship, they don’t want to love the Lord, His Church, all you have to do is scratch the surface of their excuses to find some moral command they take issue with. But, when they do that, they steal from God. Once you accept God is real, you know demands are made of you morally. And so people attempt to bypass that problem by claiming they don’t believe, or God is immoral. But if there is no absolute moral law giver, then there is no absolute morality. So what are they complaining about?
How would their Moral outrage be meaningful or better than the Bible’s?
they have to steal from God to claim their problem. But until they stop stealing from God and repent, they will never know forgiveness.
It's important to note that while Christianity acknowledges the divine aspect of humanity, it also recognizes human imperfections and the concept of original sin, which teaches that all humans are born with a sinful nature. Redemption through Christ is seen as the means to restore the divine connection that was disrupted by sin.
Because of that we need forgiveness, Grace, and restoration from God. And we are to reflect that in our relationships, especially with those in the household of faith.
Because of our imperfect moral compass, God has offered Humans, a way back to Him by faith alone (not works) in Jesus Christ alone, which from what the Bible teachers is uniquely offered to humans not angels.
4 This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names.
5 For God never said to any angel what he said to Jesus:
“You are my Son.
Today I have become your Father.”
God also said,
“I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son.”
6 And when he brought his supreme Son into the world, God said,
“Let all of God’s angels worship him.”
So along with the image bearing of God, we alone out of all creation have the opportunity to be:
Co-Heirs with Christ: In the New Testament, particularly in Romans 8:16-17, Christians are described as co-heirs with Christ. This implies that believers share in the inheritance and glory of Christ, further highlighting the divine aspect of our identity.
16 The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, 17 and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
What does it mean to be in God’s image. Well all it means may be beyond our ability to fully flesh out. Yet numerous aspects can be talked about.
3. The view of Genesis is unique , rarely adopted, and often forgotten throughout history.
Just look through history, the concept that EVERY person bears God’s image will not be fleshed out. You might find some cultures that elevate a few people, castes or their tribe to that status, but to include EVERY person as an image bearer or having sacred value equally, that’s rare and unheard of apart from the Jewish and Christian faiths.
Deuteronomy 4:5–9 (CSB)
5 Look, I have taught you statutes and ordinances as the Lord my God has commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to possess. 6 Carefully follow them, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples. When they hear about all these statutes, they will say, ‘This great nation is indeed a wise and understanding people.’ 7 For what great nation is there that has a god near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him? 8 And what great nation has righteous statutes and ordinances like this entire law I set before you today?
9 “Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you don’t forget the things your eyes have seen and so that they don’t slip from your mind as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren.
The basis for our culture’s legal understanding comes from Genesis. Let me give just one example. It’s a right we may take for granted. Where does the legal proceding of Habeas corpus derive it’s power and meaning? Many young people today believe that if religion was gone, the world would naturally produce a life of ease and equality and happiness. They don’t know that for much of history, people in power could arrest and detain a lesser person just because. But Habeas Corpus comes out of a Christian worldview that took a millennia to catch in cultures outside of Israel. It refers to a fundamental principle in many legal systems, particularly in common law countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. It translates to "you shall have the body" in English. Habeas corpus is a legal recourse that allows individuals who are detained or imprisoned to challenge the legality of their detention.
The writ of habeas corpus is a legal order that requires a person who is holding someone in custody to bring the detained individual before a court or judge. The purpose of this writ is to ensure that the detention is lawful and that the detained person's rights are not being violated. If the court finds that the detention is unlawful or lacks proper legal justification, it can order the release of the detained person.
The idea first appeared in the Magna Carta in 1215 and became certified in 1679 in the Habeas Corpus Act. Before that good luck if someone in power had it out for you.
Without the fundamental presupposition that every person is made in the image of God and should be treated morally and justly, this does not exist.
It’s not from whence do these rights come but from WHOM.
Unfortunately the Christian church has bought into the mindset of an absolute separation from any Christian thought or morality and politics. When the idea expressed in the First Amendment is that politics are not to influence or inform the religious sentiments of believers. The idea is that believers can speak and petition others concerning faith but that the power of the government should not impose itself or influence believers convictions.
See as an image or icon of God, you
a. Christian, you are called to be an influencer of culture, not influenced by culture.
18 Without revelation people run wild,
but one who follows divine instruction will be happy.
Politics needs to influence of Christ and Christians to bring happiness. Congress can print all the money it wants, it won’t create happiness. In fact, we see misery growing in America especially. Destroying the moral and religious foundations of our culture will not make sinners happy ultimately. We see that the more sin gets the OK from our institutions and politicians, we see more people demanding more sin because they are not happy.
They think marring the image of God will make them happy. but it only leads to misery and death.
Remember the Septuagint calls you an Icon. The world idolizes celebrities, politicians, musicians, and social media influencers who draw attention to themselves. You are not to draw attention to yourself, you are called to influence people to look to Jesus.
b. That only comes by reflecting God’s Word in life.
1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
The picture here is that if you do not adopt an attitude of gratitude towards God, offer you body and life as a sacrifice (that means it will hurt) you will be pressed like a clay mold and become an idol an image of something other than Christ. It can even look religious but not be so.
You are to be created in God’s image. If you do not actively seek it, you will be like play dough pressed into the Devil’s service. You will adopt worldly values that devalue Christ, the Word, and His character. If you dwell in Christ, His Word, and seek to fulfill
Next Step:
Think about and discuss these with family and friends this week.
Consider your views on human life and dignity, how do your thoughts conform to God’s in relation to
Life in the womb?
The care for those at the end of biological life?
The treatment of those with terminal illness?
The way you treat your spouse, family?
Think about the claim in the Declaration of Independence that “we hold these truths to be self-evident.”
From where do these rights and ideas originate? Greeks enslaved people.
If they are self-evident, why did it take until the colonies declared independence to be articulated?
Why do you think it took 200 years for American culture to value all people and gender?
Where have “rights” gone beyond or outside God’s moral dignity and responsibility in our culture?
You have a duty to the Lord.
You have a duty to your parents.
You have a duty to your spouse.
You have a duty to your children.
You have a duty to your neighbor.
You have a duty to your environment.
Despite the current spirit of our culture, the concept of the dignity and divinity unique and taken for granted by our secular culture.
While our Declaration of Independence states we hold these truths to be “SELF-EVIDENT”, cultures throughout history do not reveal that sentiment.
It is a matter of revelation.
It appears to be the core presumption for our culture.
Where will the abandonment of the Bible and Christian values lead our country and culture?
18 Without revelation people run wild,
but one who follows divine instruction will be happy.
17 A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for a difficult time.
The Hebrew word is אָדָם (’adam), which can sometimes refer to man, as opposed to woman. The term refers here to humankind, comprised of male and female. The singular is clearly collective (see the plural verb, “[that] they may rule” in v. 26b) and the referent is defined specifically as “male and female” in v. 27. Usage elsewhere in Gen 1–11 supports this as well. In 5:2 we read: “Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and called their name ‘humankind’ (אָדָם).” The noun also refers to humankind in 6:1, 5–7 and in 9:5–6.
Everyone acts like they are privileged or at least should be privileged in our country. So they live on the dividends of the Christian world view but seek to destroy the principles.
Why? They don’t like a particular responsibility that comes with the title or position.
Biblical Basis: Theologians often point to passages in the Bible, such as Genesis 1:26-27, where it is stated that God created humanity in His own image and likeness. This forms the foundational scriptural basis for the idea that humans bear the image of God.
Intellectual and Moral Capacities: Theologians argue that the image of God refers to unique attributes that humans possess, such as rationality, self-awareness, moral reasoning, and the capacity for meaningful relationships. These qualities distinguish humans from the rest of creation.
Dominion and Responsibility: Some theologians suggest that being made in the image of God means humans have a special role as stewards of creation. They argue that this image gives humans the responsibility to care for and rule over the earth, reflecting God's dominion.
Relational Nature: Another perspective emphasizes the relational aspect of the image of God. The idea is that humans are created for a relationship with God and with one another. The capacity for love, community, and fellowship reflects the divine image.
Redemptive Potential: Some theologians argue that the image of God in humans, though marred by sin, has the potential for restoration and transformation through faith and spiritual growth. This view emphasizes the possibility of becoming more like God in character.
Philosophical Arguments: Beyond religious texts, theologians have engaged in philosophical discussions to support the image of God concept. They explore the idea that human dignity, moral values, and the pursuit of truth and meaning in life are all rooted in the image of God.
Generally speaking, gods lived a life of ease and slumber. While humans were destined to lives of toil, often for a marginal existence, the gods of heaven did no work. Humankind was created to ease their burdens and provide them with daily care and food. Humans, but not animals, thus served the gods.
Most ancient cultures distilled the practice of communicating with divinities into three principal parts: Ritual, Sacrifice, and Divination.
What is the relationship between humans and gods?
The relationship between gods and mortals in mythology has long been a complicated topic. The gods can be generous and supportive, and also devastating and destructive to any group of humans. Mortals must respect the powers above them that cannot be controlled.
Human dealings with the gods were viewed very much in terms of contractual agreements. The Latin vow, do ut des (I give to you so that you might give me in return), expressed this succinctly. Humans venerated the gods by offering them gifts on a daily basis. Since the purpose of mortal existence was to serve the gods, social hierarchies regarded the construction and maintenance of religious shrines (alters, temples, sanctuaries) as a primary duty. Likewise, it was customary for citizens confronting life-threatening enterprises such as hazardous journeys, military engagements, illness, old age, or childbirth, to beseech the aid of the gods through votive offerings. Successful fulfillment of a prayer would then result in another round of votives, typically in the form of altars, statues, shrines, captured weaponry, or tithes of profits. The development of built environments at sanctuaries such as Delphi and Olympia in Greece, where the erection of thousands of small monuments testified to the god’s repeated response to prayers, offered visual proof of the power of the god and his or her willingness to come to the aid his worshipers.
Less religious areas see New Age
As Dogmatic religion declines, the more people claim spirituality. What that means is everything goes. They don’t stand for anything and thus fall for everything.
You get rid of the structure and narrative God gave us for meaning. You have no meaning framework. No organization with no responsibility or duties.
It’s a total consumer experience. I don’t want to do that...
6 Carefully follow them, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples. When they hear about all these statutes, they will say, ‘This great nation is indeed a wise and understanding people.’ 7 For what great nation is there that has a god near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him? 8 And what great nation has righteous statutes and ordinances like this entire law I set before you today?
5 Look, I have taught you statutes and ordinances as the Lord my God has commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to possess. 6 Carefully follow them, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples. When they hear about all these statutes, they will say, ‘This great nation is indeed a wise and understanding people.’ 7 For what great nation is there that has a god near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him? 8 And what great nation has righteous statutes and ordinances like this entire law I set before you today?
9 “Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you don’t forget the things your eyes have seen and so that they don’t slip from your mind as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren.
Too many choices, paralyze you through indecision.
Through Moral Obligation God gives you meaning, purpose, and vision
God:
You have a duty to me.
You have a duty to your parents.
You have a duty to your spouse.
You have a duty to your children.
You have a duty to your neighbor.
You have a duty to your environment.
No one charges
Marxist, religion is the opiate of the masses. But he said that in the framework of the Judeo Christian framework.
II. THE IMAGE OF GOD IN SCRIPTURE
II. THE IMAGE OF GOD IN SCRIPTURE
A. Introduction: A Comprehensive Summary of the Biblical Doctrine
A. Introduction: A Comprehensive Summary of the Biblical Doctrine
Although the image and likeness of God are mentioned in only a few texts, their definitive importance for human nature—ours and Christ’s—is clearly taught in Scripture. The references are strategically located in the biblical narrative and rich with doctrinal implications.
Some definitions of the image that have been offered by commentators and theologians are more limited than the biblical view. Some relate the image to God but not to creation; or locate it in the soul but not the body; or identify it with a specific human capacity, such as reason, will, love, language, creativity, or community; or insist that it is relational and functional but not ontological; or equate it with spiritual virtues, such as love, righteousness, and holiness, but not with the human capacities for those virtues. In contrast to these definitions, the biblical doctrine is broad–including all these aspects of human nature and more.
My account is based on the key texts located in the narrative of the biblical worldview–the creation, fall, redemption, and fulfillment of God’s earthly Kingdom.
B. Creation: the Image Relates us to God, Other Humans, and Nature
B. Creation: the Image Relates us to God, Other Humans, and Nature
Humanity as the image of God is a central teaching of Genesis 1 and thus foundational to the rest of Scripture. The divine image includes all of human life and has several dimensions: It relates us to God, to other humans, and to the non-human world. Nothing human is beyond its scope. Thus it constitutes the generic meaning of life. We consider each dimension in turn.
Most basically, humanity is defined in relation to God as his image and likeness. Genesis 1 responds to the cosmic theocracies of the ancient near-eastern religions. It proclaims that the God of Israel is the Divine King whose spirit and word created and ordered the universe, all creatures, and the whole human race. God made humans not as slaves but as royal vassals in a covenantal relationship to flourish and serve him by ruling his earthly kingdom.
Thus Genesis 1 defines humanity as the image and likeness of God. Being related to God constitutes and grounds the nature, place, purposes, and responsibilities of human life. It denotes our status, vocation, activity, and goal. Imaging God means that humans are like God both in having ability and responsibility for stewardship of the world and for reflecting the excellences of his rule—wisdom, justice, righteousness, and holiness—in the exercise of that stewardship. Thus we are inescapably responsible to God for our lives whether we love, hate, ignore, flee, or search for him. The image of God is the seed of religion and of the need for meaning that sprouts in all humans.
Being God’s image also relates us to other humans. In Genesis 1 adam is not the proper name of an individual but the generic term for humankind. The image is communal. The human race was created male and female and blessed to procreate so that the image of God might increase and fill the earth. Although God is not gendered or reproductive, the human genders together reflect and multiply his image. The whole human community–not just the aggregate of individuals–bears the image of God. Because all humanity images God, sexism, tribalism, and racism are precluded. In addition, all the forms of human community implicit in creation—marriage, family, friendship, many kinds of organizations, societies, tribes, and nations—are facets of the image and intended to reflect the divine virtues of love, justice, and holiness. By implication, the scope of the image in Scripture includes all of human society.
The third dimension of the image is our relation to the world or nature. The Great King made us royal stewards, gave us a home, and blessed us with responsibility to rule the earth on his behalf (not to exploit it). This covenantal mandate implicitly authorizes the development of means of subsistence, as well as culture and civilization in all their diverse aspects, in service and obedience to the Creator. Food preparation, clothing, dwellings, learning, technology, music, the arts, and many other aspects of culture are ways of obeying the divine mandate that relates us to the earth and non-human creatures.
Embodiment is a corollary. Although Genesis 1 does not speak about human composition—soul, spirit, and dust of the earth–as does Genesis 2, it clearly presents humans as earthly creatures like the animals, not as spiritual beings artificially imposed upon the earth. To be sure, we cannot image God without the mental-spiritual abilities that animals lack–intellect, will, creativity, language, morality, religion, and so forth. But neither can we do so without being bodily creatures of the earth.
In sum, Genesis 1 defines humans as the image of God, which includes meaningful and responsible relationships with God, the human community, and nature.
C. The Fall into Sin: Refusal, Loss, and the Residual Image of God
C. The Fall into Sin: Refusal, Loss, and the Residual Image of God
Genesis 3 narrates our first parents’ original sin. They disobeyed God and sought to become like him, determining good and evil for themselves. In the religious context of Genesis 1 and 2, this is an act of rebellion and insurrection against the Great King. The just consequences are alienation from God, banishment from Paradise, and loss of ability to image God rightly in any part of life. In sum, sin resulted in spiritual and physical death.
The question immediately arises whether fallen humans still bear the divine image. Following Scripture, most church traditions and theologians affirm that fallen humans image God in a limited way. They distinguish between the image as created and the image diminished by sin. Let’s call them the integral image and the residual image. The integral image is our natural capacities for imaging God and their virtuous exercise—likeness to God that Paul calls “true righteousness and holiness” (Eph.4:24). The residual image is the impaired capacities with their potential for regeneration.
The residual image of God is the universal human essence. All normally-developed humans have the needs, capacities, and responsibilities for relationship with God, other humans, and nature even though we lack the desire, will, and ability to exercise them as intended by God. We still trust and seek to serve something in place of God that promises us a good life in a peaceable kingdom. We remain social beings and exercise dominion over creation. But on our own, we cannot discover the meaning of life, much less achieve true love, justice, and holiness.
D. Salvation: Jesus Christ, the Perfect Image of God, Restores the Image in Us
D. Salvation: Jesus Christ, the Perfect Image of God, Restores the Image in Us
One profoundly biblical way of understanding salvation is that God restores his fallen image-bearers by means of the perfect image of God, Jesus Christ. For our salvation the Wisdom and Word of God became flesh and assumed our human nature, which images God. Paul explicitly teaches that Jesus Christ “is the very image of the invisible God” through whom God reconciled all things in heaven and on earth to himself through his blood, shed on the cross (Col. 1:15-20; also 2 Cor.4:4). Thus the true and perfect image of God is the means of salvation for humans and the whole creation.
What’s more, salvation involves renewal of our likeness to God. Paul explicitly links salvation with restoration of the image in Ephesians 4:24 where he urges us “to put on the new nature, created in the likeness of God—true righteousness and holiness.” Joined to Christ by the Holy Spirit, we—the image of God in us–are “new creations” (2 Cor. 5:17). We are regenerated, reformed, and re-enabled to function as designed so that true virtue, joy, and fulfillment can be realized. During this life we struggle against the lingering effects of our sinful nature. The renewed image fully blossoms only in the life to come. Meanwhile, the Spirit empowers us to become more like God in love, wisdom, righteousness, justice, and holiness in relation to him and all our earthly endeavors.
E. The Everlasting Image: Only God?
E. The Everlasting Image: Only God?
If the image is truly the essence of humanity, then we cannot lack it in eternity. But how will we forever image God? Theologians have proposed different ideas. The majority position of the Christian tradition has been the beatific vision of God. According to this doctrine, the whole community of the blessed–resurrected and situated on the new earth—will be focused entirely and exclusively on God alone, eternally full of wonder, praise, and joy. After all, what more could any creature desire than the infinite God, the overflowing source of all good? This is the view of Augustine, Bonaventure, Aquinas, and many traditional Protestant theologians.
Another vision of the Kingdom is analogous to a blessed life in this world. It affirms our central focus on God but also includes active relationships with the new earth, the human community, and even with purified remnants of this world. Although marriage and procreation will be no more, an active, embodied life with God’s people in the new earth will progress endlessly and flawlessly from glory to glory. All of God’s original gifts to humans will be redeemed, restored, enriched, and fulfilled but never exhausted. This is the vision of Jonathan Edwards and C. S. Lewis in The Last Battle.
The doctrine of progressive glorification seems more correct because it reflects the fullness of the image of God and because Scripture speaks of more than ceaseless worship in the Kingdom of God. It envisions fellowship at the Supper of the Lamb, reigning with Christ, ruling cities, and marveling at the treasures of the nations in the New Jerusalem.
C. Theses about an Anthropology that Articulates the Image of God
1. The Image is Ontological
If Scripture implicitly defines humans as the image of God, then the image is essential and ontological, not merely accidental, functional, or relational. Although the Bible does not teach a particular philosophy, I find it most helpful to consider the divine image as the human essence in an Aristotelian-Thomistic sense.[3] The image is substantial, relational, functional, and teleological. It defines who we are; structures our physical-intellectual-spiritual existence accordingly; relates us unavoidably to God, other humans, and the world; empowers us with all the capacities to do what we were created to do; and orders those activities toward the goals that God gave us to achieve. The image of God implies all of these ontological functions.
The image is generic or essential—pertaining to humanity in general. Individual persons, like snowflakes, instantiate and actualize the essence in countless particular ways, both residually and redemptively.
Like a Thomist form or soul, the image was operative in our first parents, but it also contained great potential to be actualized in history by activities that properly image God. The potential of the image can only be realized properly by living in love and obedience to God. Perhaps it is practically infinite—progressing ever upward and onward but never reaching completion, even in God’s everlasting kingdom.
Strictly speaking, it is the residual image of God that is essential–present in all human beings. The integral image that God created in our first parents has been lost. If the created image in its integrity were essential, then fallen humans would not exemplify it. A sick and deformed oak tree is still an oak tree. If all humans image God, it is the residual image that they have. This is a metaphysical point, not an existential-religious claim. It does not imply that goodness and wholeness are incidental to human integrity, flourishing, and fulfillment.
2. The Image is Comprehensive and Multi-dimensional: Integral Holism
I have argued that the image of God comprehends all dimensions of human existence–spirituality, morality, society, culture, and physical life. Integral, multi-dimensional holism is the sort of conceptual scheme that best captures this view ontologically.
This integral religious holism provides a framework for a rich account of the parts, aspects, and dynamics of human nature that we know from experience and the special sciences. Gender and sexuality, personality and character, language and communication, social, economic, and political processes, learning and technology, culture, the arts, and morality—all of these gifts are mutually enabled, mutually conditioned, mutually affective, and mutually oriented toward a focal point beyond human life. Christian philosophical anthropology seeks to understand the rich complexity of our lives in relation to God.
A holistic anthropology of this sort has several characteristics. First, each part, aspect, dimension, and functional capacity of human existence has its own irreducible nature, place, and functions within the whole. Feelings, obligations, and brain events are ontologically distinct. Second, each part and aspect is directly or indirectly connected to the others so that they are interdependent and mutually influential. Some parts provide what is necessary for others to function and are in turn affected by their functioning. For example, prayer and brain activity are complexly interrelated, as are financial markets, confidence, and fear. Third, the nature of the whole is religious, which means that all the parts are ordered so that relating to God is a natural capacity, need, and activity that directly or indirectly orients and motivates how the parts are supported and operate. Our brains are designed for basic beliefs and values that shape life, and our brains in turn are affected by how we live out our basic beliefs and values.
This anthropology is not guilty of religious reductionism. In claiming that all of life is religious, I am not attempting to explain psychology, sociology, and morality reductively as forms of religion the way naturalists might explain them as brain functions or Freudians as sublimated psychological forces. Reductionistic theories attempt to explain the whole in terms of a part. My term religious refers to the whole and part in different senses. Human nature as a whole is religious in that all of life is open toward and oriented by something that is trusted to sustain and guide it. But religion—relating to one’s existential ground in trust, wonder, thought, praise, devotion, or some other intentional mode–is a specific kind of human activity, distinct from building a house, analyzing data, or digesting food. The irreducible distinctness of the parts is not compromised by the religious nature of the whole.
3. The Image of God, Integral Holism, and Body, Soul, Person, and Will
An integral Christian view of human nature should frame our philosophical theories of body, soul, mind, person, and will. This sort of coherent, comprehensive approach enhances the cogency of philosophical accounts of these topics, and it strengthens their apologetical power to encounter such challenges as scientific naturalism. The following are general suggestions based on my reading of Scripture’s teaching about other aspects of human nature besides the image of God. However, an integral Christian anthropology does not require the specific positions recommended here.
Body and Soul.[4] The image of God and the biblical references to soul, spirit, heart, mind, will, body, and flesh imply a non-reductive holistic anthropology more than substance dualism or physicalism. However, Scripture also teaches that absence from the body is presence with the Lord between death and bodily resurrection, a doctrine which entails the existence of persons without their bodies. Thus dualistic holism best describes the cumulative biblical picture of the human constitution.[5] Substance dualism can account for the intermediate state after death, but it must work to affirm the unity of the whole human being. Substance monism, especially physicalism and materialism, has difficulty accounting for disembodied existence, and also it must overcome the reductivist tendency to explain the whole in terms of its most basic part.[6] Emergentism affirms the ontological distinctness of persons from bodies and thus can allow for disembodied existence. But it is basically physicalist because it claims that immaterial persons are generated by material bodies. Of the major philosophies in the current dialogue, perhaps Thomism fits dualistic holism best. It views the soul as a substantive form which structures and empowers matter to be one being or substance, a living human person with a variety of different capacities. The soul subsists consciously after death but is an incomplete human being.
The Person or Self. Philosophers rightly criticize views of the human self or person as an autonomous individual mind who is contingently related to his/her body, to other persons, and to the world. Equally inadequate are views which identify the person with the body, with brain functions, or with self-perception. A person is a self-conscious agent who is necessarily unique and self-identical in spite of changing in many ways over time, perhaps even changing or losing one’s sense of self-identity. If there is an afterlife, the person remains unique and self-identical. It is logically and metaphysically impossible that a person become another person or that there be two instances of a person.
The view of the self implied by the image of God is substantial, relational, changeable, and everlastingly self-identical. Each human person is an embodied responsible agent who is related to God, to other humans, and to nature. Each person continually changes and develops through these interactions. But each one is also self-identical throughout this life and the life to come.[7] An anthropology based on the image of God stands up well in current discussions of human selfhood.
Agency and the Will. Scripture and common experience teach us both that human agents are determined, influenced, and limited in many ways and also that in most circumstances we are responsible beings with genuine choices among viable alternatives. Complete determinism and radical libertarianism are theories of the will that seem exaggerated and one-sided. Determinism also undercuts moral responsibility.[8] Compatibilism aims to balance determinism and freedom by holding that our choices and acts are wholly determined by factors within and outside us, and yet they are free and responsible if we not compelled by internal factors or coerced by external factors against our will. However, determinists and libertarians charge that compatibilism is incoherent, trying to have it both ways.
In Christian theology, libertarianism is typically criticized for overestimating human freedom in relation to God’s sovereignty and fallen humans’ ability to avoid sin. Determinism (and thus compatibilism) is theologically problematic because it undercuts the genuine responsibility of image-bearing and implies that the fall into sin was unavoidable. In the body-soul debate, physicalism in particular has the challenge of moving beyond compatibilism and account for genuine human choice.
An integral anthropology based on the image of God suggests conditional voluntarism. As created by God, the will is enabled, delimited, conditioned, and influenced by many factors in many ways. It is an irreducible part of the whole. Thus deliberate acts can be uncaused causes. This view implies that our first parents’ had genuine moral responsibility. The choice to sin was significantly up to them and avoidable within the order of creation even though it was foreknown, permitted, and enabled by God. Conditional voluntarism also recognizes that the residual image of God in humans retains the capacity for deliberation and choice even though humans cannot avoid sin or reconcile themselves to God. It also allows for God to regenerate a person, healing effects of the fall and restoring desire for God, without eliminating or interfering with his/her capacity for genuine deliberation and choice. Conditional voluntarism comports well with an integral anthropology and with key positions in theology and philosophy.
In sum, the body-soul problem, the nature of persons, and the freedom of the will are specific philosophical topics that can be addressed and benefited by a philosophical anthropology based on the image of God.
IV. CONCLUSION
Whether it is persuasive on all the details of the project, this essay has argued that the biblical doctrine of the image of God is as comprehensive as human life. It has outlined what a philosophical anthropology based on the image could look like, how it could handle perennial philosophical questions about human nature, and how it could respond to scientific naturalism. I hope that Christian philosophers will increase our efforts along these lines.
[1] Current science is exploring possible genetic and brain-functional bases for religious experience and behavior. Such studies might eventually conclude that there is a biological basis for religion in human nature. But science could not conclude anything about God as the source or goal of religion. That conclusion is philosophical and religious.
[2] This thesis is defended using studies of religion by geneticists and neuroscientists in Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).
[3] For Aristotle, each thing is co-constituted by a generic form—e.g. oak tree or rational animal—and the matter of which it consists. The form defines, actualizes, empowers, and guides the entity to be what it is, to have the capacities that it does, and to use those capacities to achieve the ends that are natural for that kind of thing. The form of the oak tree is in the acorn and empowers it to grow into a mature oak that lives and reproduces itself in kind. Aquinas combined this ontology with the Platonic-Augustinian view that the paradigmatic forms of all created things exist in the mind of God, who created the world accordingly. Thus God eternally knows human nature and actualized its dynamic essence in our first parents and their progeny, including the humanity of Jesus Christ, the Second Adam. The dynamic essence is the soul that animates matter as a living human image of God.
[4]The current debate of this topic among Christians is represented in In Search of the Soul: Four Views of the Mind-Body Problem, edited by Joel B. Green and Stuart L. Palmer (InterVarsity Press 2005). Green’s introduction provides an overview of many reasons for the debate and the issues involved. Steward Goetz presents substance dualism, William Hasker defends emergentism, Nancey Murphy argues for non-reductive physicalism, and Kevin Corcoran promotes material constitutionism. A significant omission from the book the Thomist position, which is presented in J. P. Moreland and Stuart Rae, Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics (IVP 2000).
[5] I argue for holistic dualism or dualistic holism in John W. Cooper, Body, Soul and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Eerdmans 1989; Eerdmans and Apollos, 2000).
[6] Of all participants in the Christian debate, physicalism is closest to scientific naturalism. In fact most naturalists are reductive or non-reductive physicalists on the mind-body problem.
[7] More precisely, theories that allow for persons to exist without their earthly bodies meet this criterion: The self-identical person endures through this life, the intermediate state, and after the resurrection. However, theories such as physicalism which identify the person with some part or function of the earthly body or make the person metaphysically dependent on the earthly body, have trouble with personal identity. If the person is generated by the body, and if there is no substantial continuity between the earthly body and the resurrection body, then there is no substantial continuity between the earthly person and the resurrection person. In that case is the resurrected person logically identical with the earthly person? Would it be logically possible for multiple replication of the earthly person to occur, allowing more than one person with legitimate claim to identity with the earthly person? Materialist anthropologies have a problem with personal identity.
[8] If an agent is truly unable to do other than what he/she did, e.g. a child wetting a bed, it is wrong to punish. It may be permissible if he/she could have avoided it. Thus having the ability to perform or refrain from an action is crucial to moral responsibility. This ability requires freedom of choice and seems incompatible with determinism.
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