Theologians throughout the Christian tradition have debated and disputed the question of what is the nature of the imago Dei? How do we define it? In what ways are human beings like God? Is it something human beings possess, do or are? And furthermore, what is the effect of sin upon the image of God? The history demonstrates the doctrine of the image of God is complex. Gunton suggests three reasons why this is the case (1998:193-195). Firstly, the persistent influence of Greek philosophy is, perhaps, no more apparent than in theological attempts at interpreting this doctrine. There is consistent evidence of Greek dualistic thought controlling the content of the imago Dei – the separation of matter and spirit, body and soul, finite and infinite. Secondly, although the doctrine of the image of God clearly appears in scripture, its occurrence is rare and references to the image are ambiguous, there is no precise meaning of its nature given. Therefore, use of the concept, theologically speaking, ‘must serve as a conceptual means of saying something about human beings according to the whole teaching of scripture’ (1998:195). Thirdly, from a systematic position the doctrine of the image of God ‘cannot be considered without due reference to redemption, both in the present and eschatologically’ (1998:195). That is, the doctrine cannot stand alone, but is closely related to, and informed by, other doctrines. With these issues in mind, our discussion begins with the outline of the two basic positions identified in the tradition: the structural view and the relational view.
The structural view, as propounded by Irenaeus and Augustine, amongst others, and then later in the mediaeval period by Aquinas was (and is) the mainstream reading of the imago Dei. It argues that the ‘divine image is something we “possess”, and it includes the properties which constitute us as human beings’ (Grenz, 1994:219). With this view, the image is unaffected by humanity’s fall into sin; rather, the image is something inherent, something characteristic of human beings. Rationality or reason is the characteristic usually emphasized by those advocating this view. Reason, in Greek philosophy was a property of the divine – of spirit not matter, of soul not body, of infinite not finite – and furthermore, it was a way in which the human was differentiated from the non-human creation. Gunton sums up the view, referring first to Irenaeus: ‘In his famous distinction between image and likeness there began a process of making reason both a chief ontological characteristic and a criterion of difference between human and non-human. By the time of Aquinas the tendency had hardened into a dogma’ (1991:48). The distinction between image and likeness enabled the theologians advocating this view to say that at the Fall the likeness of God is lost (although the image is retained), and so redemption is still necessary to restore this divine likeness.
The relational view arose out of the Reformation’s rejection of the distinction between image and likeness as ‘exegetically unwarranted and theologically injurious’ (Grenz, 1994:221). Instead, the relational view, according to Luther, understands the image of God as man’s original righteousness, ‘essentially a special relationship with the Creator’ (Grenz, 1994:222). Therefore, the Fall renders the image all but lost or destroyed. However, Luther and Calvin do speak of a ‘relic’ of the image that remains: ‘Still, we see in this diversity some remaining traces of the image of God, which distinguish the entire human race from other creatures’ (Calvin, Institutes 2.2.17). This relic is necessary if human beings are to recognise their uniqueness in creation. The relational argument runs thus: (1) human beings are created in relation to God (i.e. God’s image); (2) the Fall breaks this relation (i.e. destroys the image); (3) redemption restores human beings’ relationship to God (i.e. restores the original image).
The structural and relation views are the two most commonly found in the history of the doctrine of the imago Dei. What are we to make of them? Are they helpful approaches to understanding the imago Dei? In short, the answer is no, as the theologians of the twentieth century have demonstrated. Karl Barth, taught us that ‘the entire theological enterprise is to be an exercise in Nachdenken’ (Torrance, 1996, 74), that is, as a response to divine revelation. Both views we have outlined so far demonstrate an a priori approach to the question of the imago Dei. For Barth, this is the wrong method for doing theology and therefore instead of looking to what distinguishes human from non-human creation - the approach of the structural view - he argues we should begin with the question who is God and what is he like?
Gunton also argues that the tendency of the above views to take ‘an individualistic direction’ is harmful and is typical of ‘the modern crisis of culture – its fragmentation and decline into subjectivism and relativism’ (1993:2). The above views maintain ‘one dimension of relationality, the vertical, but not the other, the horizontal. To be was to be in internal relation to God, but not, essentially, to the neighbour or the world’ (1993:65).
Gunton’s approach to the imago Dei takes seriously the trinitarian nature of God – ‘a communion of persons inseparably related’ (1991:58) – as that which determines the nature and the meaning of the image of God. Human beings’ likeness to God consists in that they are ‘in certain ways analogous to the persons of the Trinity, in particular in being in mutually constitutive relations to other persons’ (1998:208). This is the key for Gunton: God is ‘a communion of persons’, we are made in God’s image, and so we are persons - ‘to be in the image of God is to be a person’ (1991:58). What does it mean to be a person? According to Gunton, ‘to be a person is to be distinct from other persons and yet inextricably bound up with them: to be ‘other’ only in ‘relation’’ (2002:43). Gunton agrees with Luther and Calvin that the image of God is to be understood relationally, but he argues, it is more than our vertical relation to God, the image must also reflect our beings in horizontal relation to other persons and also the non-human creation. ‘To be in the image of God is to subsist in relations . . . with other human beings’ and ‘to be in a set of relations with the non-personal creation’ (1993:3). Gunton stresses the horizontal relations because to do otherwise would permit individualistic interpretations of the image, which the Reformers are prone to.
How does Gunton deal with the effect of Sin and the image? The answer Gunton provides is to place the imago Dei in the larger doctrine of creation. Echoing the theology of Irenaeus, Gunton understand ‘creation as a project’ in which human beings, created in the image of God, have a unique role, that of enabling the rest of creation to praise it’s Creator (1991:60). The Fall, according to Gunton, sets humanity on the wrong track, in the wrong direction and as such in contradiction of the divine image. ‘God re-inaugurates the project of creation by means of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus’ (1998:202). Jesus Christ is the image of God (Col. 1:15) and thus, ‘First, Jesus represents God to the creation in the way the first human beings were called, but failed, to do; and second that he enables other human beings to achieve the directedness to God of which their fallenness has deprived them’ (1992:100).
By means of the Spirit, humanity is recreated in the image of Christ, who is the image of God. Of course this is not an instantaneous happening, but eschatologically-focused, ‘in that true personhood will be realised only in the final Kingdom of God’ (Zizioulas, cited in Gunton, 1998:209).
Gunton identifies the basis for describing the imago Dei: the trinitarian being of God. The imago Dei means ‘being in relation’ according to Gunton and rightly so, because it articulates our relation to God (cf. the Reformers), to other persons (cf. Barth), and to the non-personal creation (cf. Pannenberg).
So, what does it mean to say human beings are made in the image of God? In short, it is to say a great deal theologically. The doctrine of the imago Dei is grounded in the nature of the trinitarian God and speaks of our relation to Him, of our relation to our neighbour, and of relation to the non-personal creation. It is a doctrine that is eschatologically-shaped; as creation is a project, so the imago Dei is a project, it has a telos, a directedness (to borrow Gunton’s language), which finds it perfection, by means of the Spirit, in (the image of) Christ.
Texts Used:
Barth, Karl (1956-1975) Church Dogmatics, Trans. Eds. G. W. Bromiley & T. F. Torrance. Edinburgh: T & T Clark.
Calvin, John (1960) Institutes of the Christian Religion, in Library of Christian Classics, Volumes XX-XI, Trans. Ford Lewis Battles. Ed. John T. McNeil, Philadelphia: Westminister.
Grenz, Stanley J. (1994) Theology for the Community of God, Carlisle: Paternoster.
Gunton, Colin E. (1991) ‘Trinity, Ontology and Anthropology: Towards a Renewal of the Doctrine of the Imago Dei’. In Persons, Divine and Human, pp. 47-61. Eds. Christoph Schwöbel and Colin Gunton, Edinburgh: T & T Clark.
_____(1992) Christ and Creation, Carlisle: Paternoster.
_____(1993) The One, the Three and the Many, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
_____(1998) The Triune Creator, Edinburgh: Edinburgh Academic Press.
_____(2002) The Christian Faith, Oxford: Blackwell.
Torrance, Alan J. (1996) Persons in Communion, Edinburgh: T & T Clark.
Andy - you'd probably be interested to read Darrell Cosden's take on Gunton's Anthropology in "A Theology of Work: Work and the New Creation" Paternoster Theological Monographs, p112 - 126.
Posted by: Brodie | May 31, 2005 at 09:41 AM