A few months ago, I provided an overview of Polkinghorne’s views on natural theology. However, perhaps the best place to get acquainted with his position is to read the title chapter from his book, Belief in God in an Age of Science. First delivered as the Terry Lectures at Yale University in October 1996, this eloquent little book contains five chapters and a short epilogue. Readers are invited to explore the rest of the book on their own. I especially recommend the highly original second chapter (“Finding Truth: Science and Religion Compared”), in which he compares the ways in which physicists struggled to understand the dual nature of light (as a wave or a particle) in the early twentieth century with the ways in which early Christian thinkers struggled to understand the dual nature of Jesus (as divine and human). Unfortunately we won’t be presenting additional chapters here, but neither the print nor the electronic version of the book is very expensive!

In the fourth sentence below, Polkinghorne defines “belief in God” in terms of the proposition “that there is a Mind and a Purpose behind the history of the universe.”  This excerpt presents some evidence for a divine mind behind the visible world revealed to us by science, while the next (coming in about two weeks) discusses some evidence for divine purpose.

My editorial policy for these excerpts is explained at the bottom of this post.

Belief in God in an Age of Science (part 1)

What does it mean to believe in God today? Different religious communities propose different answers to that fundamental question. I speak from within the Christian tradition, though much of what I say in this chapter would, I believe, find endorsement from my Jewish and Islamic friends. For me, the fundamental content of belief in God is that there is a Mind and a Purpose behind the history of the universe and that the One whose veiled presence is intimated in this way is worthy of worship and the ground of hope. In this chapter, I sketch some of the considerations that persuade me that this is the case.

The world is not full of items stamped “made by God”—the Creator is more subtle than that—but there are two locations where general hints of the divine presence might be expected to be seen most clearly. One is the vast cosmos itself, with its fifteen-billion-year history of evolving development following the big bang. The other is the “thinking reed” of humanity, so insignificant in physical scale but, as Pascal said, superior to all the stars because it alone knows them and itself. The universe and the means by which that universe has become marvelously self-aware—these are the centers of our enquiry.

Paul Dirac (source)

Those who work in fundamental physics encounter a world whose large-scale structure (as described by cosmology) and small-scale process (as described by quantum theory) are alike characterized by a wonderful order that is expressible in concise and elegant mathematical terms. The distinguished theoretical physicist Paul Dirac, who was not a conventionally religious man, was once asked what was his fundamental belief. He strode to a blackboard and wrote that the laws of nature should be expressed in beautiful equations. [Remember that Polkinghorne was a student in Dirac’s lectures on quantum physics; see here.] It was a fitting affirmation by one whose fundamental discoveries had all come from his dedicated pursuit of mathematical beauty. This use of abstract mathematics as a technique of physical discovery points to a very deep fact about the nature of the universe that we inhabit, and to the remarkable conformity of our human minds to its patterning. We live in a world whose physical fabric is endowed with transparent rational beauty.

Attempts have been made to explain away this fact. No one would deny, of course, that evolutionary necessity will have molded our ability for thinking in ways that will ensure its adequacy for understanding the world around us, at least to the extent that is demanded by pressures for survival. Yet our surplus intellectual capacity, enabling us to comprehend the microworld of quarks and gluons and the macroworld of big bang cosmology, is on such a scale that it beggars belief that this is simply a fortunate by-product of the struggle for life. Remember that Sherlock Holmes told a shocked Dr. Watson that he didn't care whether the Earth went round the Sun or vice versa, for it had no relevance to the pursuits of his daily life!

Even less plausible, in my view, is the claim sometimes advanced that human beings happen to like mathematical reasoning and so they manipulate their account of physical process into pleasing mathematical shapes. [Polkinghorne cites Andrew Pickering, Constructing Quarks, p. 413] Nature is not so plastic as to be subject to our whim in this way. In 1907, Einstein had what he called “the happiest thought of my life,” when he recognized the principle of equivalence, which implied that all entities would move in the same way in a gravitational field. This universality of effect meant that gravity could be expressed as a property of space-time itself; physics could be turned into geometry. Einstein then embarked on a search for a beautiful equation that would determine the relevant geometrical structure. It took him eight years to find it, culminating in the discovery of the theory of general relativity in November 1915. It was a truly beautiful theory but now came the moment of truth. On 18th November, Einstein calculated the prediction made by his theory for the motion of the planet Mercury. He found that it precisely explained a discrepancy in relation to Newton’s theory that had baffled astronomers for more than sixty years. Einstein’s biographer, Abram Pais, says “This discovery was, I believe, by far the strongest emotional experience in Einstein’s scientific life, perhaps in all his life. Nature had spoken to him.” Whilst the great man himself said, “For a few days, I was beside myself with joyous excitement.” [Abraham Pais, Subtle is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein, p. 253]. It was a great triumph but, if the answer had not come out right, the aesthetic power of the equations of general relativity would have been quite unable in itself to save them from abandonment. It was indeed nature that had spoken.

There is no a priori reason why beautiful equations should prove to be the clue to understanding nature; why fundamental physics should be possible; why our minds should have such ready access to the deep structure of the universe. It is a contingent fact that this is true of us and of our world, but it does not seem sufficient simply to regard it as a happy accident. Surely it is a significant insight into the nature of reality. I believe that Dirac and Einstein, in making their great discoveries, were participating in an encounter with the divine.

Old French Bible moralisée (c. 1208-15), Codex Vindobonensis 2554,
fol. lv, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (source)

It has become common coinage with contemporary writers about science to invoke, in addressing the general public, the idea of a reading of the Mind of God. [Polkinghorne cites Paul Davies, The Mind of God and Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time.] It is a small, but significant, sign of the human longing for God that apparently this language helps to sell books. There is much more to the Mind of God than physics will ever disclose, but this usage is not misleading, for I believe that the rational beauty of the cosmos indeed reflects the Mind that holds it in being. The “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” in uncovering the structure of the physical world (to use Eugene Wigner’s pregnant phrase) is a hint of the presence of the Creator, given to us creatures who are made in the divine image. I do not present this conclusion as a logical demonstration—we are in a realm of metaphysical discourse where such certainty is not available either to believer or to unbeliever—but I do present it as a coherent and intellectually satisfying understanding.

Looking Ahead

We continue with the excerpt on purpose in about two weeks.

References and Credits

Excerpts from John Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science (1998), copyright Yale University Press, are reproduced by permission of Yale University Press. We gratefully acknowledge their cooperation in bringing this material to our readers.

Editorial Policy

Most of the editing for these excerpts involves breaking longer paragraphs into multiple parts, altering the spelling and punctuation from British to American, removing the odd sentence or two—which I indicate by putting [SNIP] at the appropriate point(s)—and sometimes inserting annotations where warranted [also enclosed in square brackets] to provide background information. Polkinghorne uses footnotes a bit sparingly, and I usually find another way to include that information if it’s important for our readers.

The tenth anniversary of the human genome has been marked by some striking new genetic insights into human evolution and diversity. Do these new discoveries have any significance for the dialogue between science and religion in general, or for our sense of human uniqueness in particular?

The publication of the Neanderthal genome sequence in May 2010 set the pace. Not surprisingly -- given that our last common ancestor with the chimpanzee was around 5 to 6 million years ago, compared to a mere half a million years for our last common ancestor with the Neanderthal -- it turns out that we are genetically far closer to the Neanderthals than to the apes. In all, only seventy-eight changes in the genetic letters ('nucleotides') that would change the amino acid sequence of particular proteins were found in the Neanderthal DNA that were the same as the chimpanzee sequence but different in the human. Amongst other differences, 111 duplications of small DNA segments were found in the Neanderthal but not human sequence. Genetically we are closely related twigs on the great evolutionary bush of life.

But we knew that already. More surprising for many was the provocative finding that non-African humans are genetically closer to Neanderthals than African humans. In fact, the European and Asian genomes that were sequenced appear to contain one to four percent DNA of Neanderthal origin, and the gene flow that occurred appears to have been almost entirely from Neanderthal to human, rather than vice versa. How come? The most likely scenario is that there were a few instances of sexual reproduction between Neanderthals and human individuals belonging to the population that is thought to have emigrated out of Africa to populate the world sometime after seventy thousand years ago, explaining why the Neanderthal DNA sequences are not found in African genomes. The contribution of the Neanderthal genome has remained in European and Asian populations ever since.

To put this in perspective, most of our genes are very similar anyway to those found in Neanderthals and chimpanzees, and to other mammals like mice. We all share a "how-to-build-a-mammal" instruction manual, and the relatively minor genetic differences between us (minor relative to those we share in common) are the icing on the cake, as it were, that make us a human rather than a mouse, a chimp or a Neanderthal.

The year 2010 saw yet another twig appear on the hominin branch of the evolutionary bush, this time one even closer to the Neanderthals than our own. This story begins with the discovery by a Russian team of a sliver of finger bone from a remote Siberian cave in the Altai Mountains, known as the Denisova Cave. The team stored it away, thinking it was from one of the Neanderthals that frequented the cave between thirty thousand and forty-eight thousand years ago. But when DNA extracted from the bone was eventually sequenced, the results -- published just before Christmas -- revealed a population distinct from both humans and Neanderthals.

The finger appears to belong to a novel hominin population that shared a last common ancestor with Neanderthals more recently than humans, and overall is genetically closer to Neanderthals than to humans. It is too early to say whether the so-called 'Denisovans' represent a separate species and fossil data will be required to clarify that question. But what the results do suggest is that Melanesians -- the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea and islands northeast of Australia -- have inherited as much as one-twentieth of their DNA from the 'Denisovans', indicating that some limited inter-breeding took place between these ancient populations. Most fascinating of all is the idea that multiple hominin lineages were coexisting in Europe and Asia, along with modern humans, as recently as twenty-thousand to forty-thousand years ago.

Do these findings have any particular theological significance? It is difficult to know why this should be the case. In the Judeo-Christian tradition humankind uniquely is made "in the image of God". The suite of capabilities that emerged during human evolution is necessary but not sufficient to do justice to this much discussed theological insight. Our particular genetic instruction manual generates large frontal lobes, advanced cognitive abilities, rationality, language, consciousness and the ability to choose between right and wrong. It is this suite that gives us the ability to pray, worship and engage in communal religious practices.

But the idea of being made "in the image of God" is not encompassed simply within a static list of such human qualities. Theologians have drawn attention to the dynamic, relational aspects of the concept. It is humanity-in-relation-to-God, together with God-given responsibilities to humans in relationship with each other, that are thought to be more central to the idea. When did such spiritual capabilities and responsibilities first come into being? It is really difficult to know, but the answer certainly seems more rooted in God's intentions and purposes for humankind than in genetic change per se. Students can spend a long time being trained in the finer points of drama, but the play only gets off the ground when the actors are finally given their lines.

It seems quite likely that more twigs will continue to appear on the hominin branch of the bush of life as genomics continues to extend its reach. Such discoveries as such do not appear to raise any new theological questions. But other 2010 discoveries did highlight two genomic insights that do have relevance for religious views of human identity. The first insight comes from further Genome Wide Association studies that continue to subvert any lingering commitments to genetic determinism, for example the idea that there are genes "for" a particular human trait. The second insight comes from the finding that we are all more genetically different from each other than we realized even a few years ago. Genetics is underlining the uniqueness of each human individual. By the end of 2011 it is estimated that more than 30,000 human genomes will have been sequenced. Watch this space. Theological reflections on these findings will be the topic for Part 2.

In Part 1 of this essay I pointed out that metaphysical naturalism is not necessary nor inextricably tied to the practice of science, and that essentialism is only one of the historically-Christian ways to think about being human. As a case in point, we can identify the Patristic Fathers and Medieval Christian thinkers who discussed a relational alternative for understanding the nature or being of persons.¹ Roughly, the idea is that the three persons of the Trinity are what they are and who they are in virtue of their relationship with each other, not based on some intrinsic properties that ground their uniqueness as persons in the Godhead. That is to say that Father, Son and Spirit co-constitute each other, or are bound up together with enabling each other to be distinctly the persons that they are. Far from a static form of being and relationship, there is a dynamic interrelatedness in the Trinity. Father, Son and Spirit mutually constitute each other while enabling each other to be particularly who they are and engage creation and salvation in particular ways suited to who they are as persons. Father, Son and Spirit are being in community.

By analogy of relationship, humans are what we distinctly are in our being and personality in virtue of our relationship to God, creation and each other. Our involvements with others necessarily shape who we are as particular persons. The personal realm, then, is characterized by a dynamic relationality, as persons have ongoing mutually constituting influence on each other. This is part of the “dynamic order” of creation “that is summoned into being and directed towards its perfection by the free creativity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That orientation of being is, of course, distorted and delayed by sin and evil, and returns to its directedness only through the incarnation and the redeeming agency of the Spirit. But evil distorts the dynamic of being, does not take it away.”² Like the relationality of the persons of the Trinity, we are being in community.

We can also pursue the doctrine of creation as an alternative to essentialism, to see if it sheds any light on possibilities for what it means to be human in a non-reductionist sense.³ As other writers have been exploring in the Forum over the past few weeks, the biblical claim that humans are created in the image of God is important to the Christian of view of humankind. This may sound like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, for there are both Christians and non-Christians who claim that if humans arose through evolutionary processes, then we cannot be made in God’s image. Nevertheless, it is worth exploring as a way of showing that there are strong alternatives to a strictly essentialist understanding of being human.

The Image of God

Over the centuries, the dominant view of humans as the imago Dei has been grounded in the idea that there is something distinctive about the creation of humans that both sets us apart from the rest of the animals and that marks us as unique kinds of creatures. Though we are clearly both distinctive and unique, does affirming the imago Dei require this kind of essentialism? On the one hand, Genesis 1:27 has often been interpreted as grounding humanity’s being in the divine image of God on Earth. On the other hand, recent discussions in human evolution have focused on several independent lines of evidence supporting the hypothesis of common ancestry among primates and humans: fossil evidence over the last 6 million years; homologies or anatomical similarities between humans and the primates; biogeographical distribution of supposed human ancestors; similarities in developmental biology between humans and primates; and several lines of genetic evidence favoring common ancestry. In addition, our current best understanding of the genetic diversity of humans is inconsistent with models that assume all humans descended from a single original pair of individuals. Instead, the current best data and models indicate the human ancestral population was never smaller than several thousand individuals.⁴

On the surface, then, what contemporary evolutionary science currently says on human origins appears to challenge cherished beliefs and understandings of many Christians. However, to understand what implications, if any, an evolutionary development of humans might have on the image of God, we first need to get clear on what it means to be the imago Dei, and that has to be settled theologically, not scientifically.

Historically, some of the most popular proposals for the imago Dei were rooted in human rationality, human freedom or human creativity because it was thought that humans alone among the animals possessed one or more of these qualities. There are two problems with this traditional line of thought. First, investigations since the early 18th century have progressively led to the conclusion that such qualities of humans mark a difference in degree rather than a difference in kind (e.g., brains of mammals and humans are anatomically homologous, dolphins, primates, and some species of birds exhibit degrees of rationality and creativity). The degree of difference may be significant, but a difference in kind is necessary for the traditional line of essentialist thought.

Second, if we look to the Incarnation for clues to the imago Dei we find that Jesus’s humanity is never depicted as exercising extraordinary powers of rationality, freedom, creativity, and so forth. Primarily, Jesus lived as an embodied person in relationship with the Father, other humans and creation as enabled by the work of the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus’ human life in Scripture indicates that the divine image is a special relationship, or form of relationality: to be in relationship with the Father as a created, embodied person; to be sustained or upheld in this relationship with the Father through the perfecting Spirit; and to be in relationship with other persons and all of creation.⁵ Moreover, this special relationship is also a vocation to mirror or reflect the glory, life and worship of God.⁶

If to be the image of God is to be sustained in a special relationship with the Father, each other and creation through the Spirit, then the imago Dei is not grounded in intrinsic qualities that particularly mark humans as distinct from the rest of the animals, as essentialism would have it. Christians can understand Genesis 1: 24-31 and 2: 4-5, as many of the Patristic Fathers did, as an account of our unity and connection with the rest of creation as well as of our special relationship with God and role in God’s kingdom. So if Father, Son and Spirit created human beings through evolutionary processes, we would have continuity and connection with all of creation while still being the imago Dei. Evolution does not threaten human specialness before God unless it is viewed as a replacement for divine creative activity (which, of course, is what Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne and Answers in Genesis all do repeatedly).

If evolution is broadly right as an account of the creation of all living things (an empirical matter), and if some form of essentialism is found to be consistent with such an account (a philosophical and biological matter), Christians would then have two options for how to understand what it means to be human. We can look for some stable, unique intrinsic features in virtue of which we are human; or we can look to the special Spirit-sustained relationship we have with God, creation and each other. Both are biblically consistent, though I judge understanding the imago Dei as special relationship to make better sense of the whole of the Bible, as well as our experience in the world.

Notes

1. See Gunton, The one, the three and the many and Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, T&T Clark (2003).
2. Gunton, The one, the three, and the many, p. 166.
3. Gunton, The Triune Creation; Robert C. Bishop, “Recovering the Doctrine of Creation: A Theological View of Science,” 31 January 2011.
4. For example, see Dennis R. Venema,“Genesis and the Genome: Genomics Evidence for Human-Ape Common Ancestry and Ancestral Hominid Population Sizes,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, vol. 62, No. 3 (2010): 166-178.
5. See Gunton, The three, the one, and the many.
6. As such, the imago Dei has an inextricable missionary focus towards extending the kingdom. See N. T. Wright, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels, HarperOne (2012).

In a Nutshell

The meaning of the “image of God” has been debated for centuries in the church. A common view is that the image of God refers to the human abilities that separate us from the animals. However, scientists have found that abilities like communication and rationality are also present in animals on a basic level. Plus, theologians do not see the image of God as human abilities. Some theologians see the image of God as our capacity for a relationship with God. Other theologians see it as our commission to represent God’s kingdom on earth. Both of these theological positions are consistent with scientific evidence. Whether God created humanity through a miracle or through evolution, God gave us our spiritual capacities and calls us to bear his image.

In Detail

The “image of God” is a key concept in Christian theology, foundational to Christian thinking about human identity, human significance, bioethics, and other topics. Many Christians see evolution as incompatible with the image of God. How could God’s image bearers have evolved from simpler life forms? Doesn’t image-bearing require miraculous creation of humans rather than shared ancestry with chimpanzees? And when in the evolutionary process did humans attain this image? These questions are tied to many other issues concerning human origins, including the soul, the Fall, and the historicity of Adam and Eve (see sidebars), but in this article we will focus specifically on the image of God.

See “How does the Fall fit with evolutionary history?” and “Were Adam and Eve historical figures?”

The phrase “image of God” does not appear many times in the Bible, but the importance of the concept is emphasized by its repetition in the creation account:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. -- Genesis 1:26-27

From this text, it is clear that part of bearing God’s image is ruling over the animals. Genesis 9:5-6 reveals another aspect of image bearing: all human lifeblood is sacred because all humans are made in the image of God. The emphasis on Judeo-Christian thought on the sanctity of human life is derived in part from this passage. In the New Testament, the idea is expanded further as Christ is revealed as the true image of the invisible God (2 Corinthians 4:4, Colossians 1:15).

For centuries, theologians have discussed these and other passages, debating the meaning of the image of God (“imago Dei” in Latin). Being made in God’s likeness is not a matter of our physical appearance, because humans don’t all look the same. But to what does the image of God actually refer? Many ideas have been suggested over the centuries, producing a huge body of theological writing. While hard to summarize, we give a brief overview below of three common themes for the image of God. After developing this theological context, we’ll consider how these ideas intersect with evolution.

Image of God as our abilities

A common view is that the image of God refers to human abilities. When people talk of the things “that make us human,” they refer to abilities like reason and rationality, mathematics and language, laughter and emotions, caring and empathy, and cultural products like music and art. Often the motive is to distinguish humans from animals by showing that humans have unique abilities that make us special and superior to animals. Saint Augustine (354-430 A.D.) wrote something like this when he said “Man's excellence consists in the fact that God made him to His own image by giving him an intellectual soul, which raises him above the beasts of the field.”¹ Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 AD) also emphasized intellect and rationality in his discussion of image bearing.² But Augustine and Aquinas were not speaking of intellect as an aptitude for math or music; Aquinas instead writes of an “aptitude for understanding and loving God.” In fact, the modern emphasis on reason comes more from secular Enlightenment ideas than from Christian theology. During the Enlightenment, the image of God was connected to ideas like the natural dignity and majesty of humankind that separates us from the brute beasts of the animal world.

Scientific evidence is piling up that humans have more in common with animals than was once thought. Genetic evidence shows that humans and chimpanzees share much of their DNA. Studies of animal behavior (particularly of chimps and other apes) show that animals not only laugh and cry and care for each other, but can learn sign language and even have basic reasoning ability. In fact, Christian neuroscientist Malcolm Jeeves writes that “any attempt to set down a clear demarcation between the reasoning abilities of nonhuman primates and humans is found to have become blurred.”³ Obviously, humans have a much larger capacity to reason than animals, but reasoning is not a uniquely human ability. As neuroscientists and animal behaviorists learn more about animals, they see how traits appear in a rudimentary form at a level similar to human children.⁴ Whether or not one accepts evolution, evidence from living humans and animals does not show a distinct difference in kinds of abilities (only degree).

See “Made in the Image of God: The Theological Implications of Genomics” a 2-part blog by Denis Alexander.

Another challenge for this picture of the image of God is the place of people with mental disabilities. If a person is impaired in reasoning or language, are they bearing less of God’s image? Are they not showing his true likeness? The Christian answer to these questions is No! The Bible repeatedly teaches that God values all people, particularly those who are rejected by society or unable to care for themselves.⁵ In fact, Genesis 9:5-6 points to image bearing as the reason that all human life is valuable. This is a major motivator for Christians who seek to protect the unborn, the poor, and the aged. Surely bearing God’s image must mean something other than using our abilities.

PLEASE READ THE REST OF THE ANSWER HERE.

Notes

1. Saint Augustine The literal meaning of Genesis, Book 6, Chapter 12 (Google books, p. 193)
2. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 93 (html)
3. Malcolm Jeeves, “Neuroscience, Evolutionary Psychology, and the Image of God” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (2005) 57.3, p. 178 (PDF)
4. Similarly, many human traits have been replicated in artificial intelligence, particularly logic and math but also conversational language and computer-generated art.
5. For more see, Kathy McReynolds “More Than Skin Deep” BioLogos Forum June 2010

As we’ve seen in recent essays (and comments) touching on Biblical scholarship, philosophy, theology, and anthropology, the imago Dei is a complicated idea, linked to the question of whether what makes humans unique among the creatures on earth is physical, cultural, spiritual, or some combination of all three. As Christians who seek to frame what the natural sciences tell us about our physical humanity with what the Bible suggests are our defining human qualities, we tend to focus on what Genesis means when it says Adam was “made in the likeness of God”; but it is helpful to remember that the first mention of God’s image in human form looked forward to the full revelation that would come in Christ. Thus, we ought also seek to understand Jesus as the model towards which Adam always pointed, and by which we should understand both Adam and ourselves.

Going one step further, we should also look forward from Jesus to the life of the Church. For if Jesus was the true image of God, then at Pentecost, the new community of believers took on the role of imaging the continuing presence of God in and for the world. The Church was constituted as the very Body of Christ, charged with making him known in their lives as well as their words. Thus in the structure and life of the Church we also see something important about the imago Dei.

Perhaps one way to hold in tension the various interpretations of the image—that is, to affirm the incomplete truths available through the relational, functional, substantial, and elective models—is to look at a literal image of the way the social aspect of imaging God via the Church interacts with the intensely individual and personal aspect of imaging God in individuals. Picking up on Kathy McReyolds’ sketch of personal transformation through encounters with those with disabilities (More than Skin Deep), I’d like to turn our attention towards the work of Chicago artist Tim Lowly, whose monumental portrait of his disabled daughter (Temma on Earth, 1999), is pictured above. Lowly’s work compels us to recognize the image of God even in one who lacks markers of those other roles, capacities, and relationships, and highlights two linked characteristics common to Jesus and Church: brokenness that does not merely equate with imperfection, and a social picture of our essential identity in Christ. By allowing Lowly to place Temma’s identity and humanity at the center of our attention, we can reframe our sense of what it means to bear the image of God and reflect the crucified Christ as his Body.

Profoundly Other

Born in North Carolina but spending his youth in South Korea (where his parents were Presbyterian missionaries), Tim Lowly attended Calvin College and began work as an artist in Michigan. But his life and work took an unexpected turn in 1985, when Tim and his wife Sherrie’s daughter was born and suffered a medical emergency during her first two days home from the hospital. In 2002, journalist Fred Camper’s incredibly sensitive article treated the Lowlys’ physical, emotional and spiritual journey with Temma at length, and I encourage readers to turn to that essay for the full narrative background to Tim’s approach to his daughter and his art. But the central facts are that for all of her now 27 years, Temma’s host of physical and mental disabilities have made her completely dependent on others, and have meant that the relationship she has with her parents (and they with her) is a radical departure from ‘normal.’ Temma’s “profound otherness” challenges most of our expectations about the human capacity to image God. Speaking to Camper, Lowly describes Temma:

It's unlikely that she thinks in a way that we would call thinking," he says, "because our ways of thinking are based so much on learning, experience, sight, socialization, and history, and I doubt any of those things have any bearing on Temma. I don't even think comparing her to animals makes sense. There's a certain wholeness to the way animals think that I don't think Temma is capable of. I'm pretty sure she does have an inner life, but I don't think she has the mental mechanisms that would make it correspond in an understandable way to the way we think.

And yet Lowly has produced hundreds of paintings and other works that feature Temma, some of them monumental in scale, none of them shying away from questions of the purpose, value, and meaning of her life for their family, and for ever-widening circles of community. Certainly there is a political component to Lowly’s work that addresses inequity in culture and church. Generally, he says, the church has been compassionate, but “nearly always from perspective of the able-bodied and the ‘whole’ vs. the disabled, never mind that none of us measure up to complete wholeness.” Yet his work also reflects the way Temma, in her “otherness,” creates community. Artist-in-residence and gallery director at Northpark University since the mid-1990s, Lowly has often made Temma a physical presence in the studio and classroom. Carry Me, 2002 (drawing on panel, 108" x 48," at left) depicts students from an advanced class holding Temma, but they were also involved completing the project. Another large work, Culture of Adoration, 2008, shows Temma as the model in a drawing class, with Lowly drawing the parallel between that scene and the adoration of the Magi at Jesus’ birth. That comparison pictures the way a community forms around loving attention and worship, but subverts artistic and cultural expectations that only what is beautiful should be valued. Lowly notes that while Temma is often alone, in some ways she’s never alone: “She’s cared for by her parents, but that relationship extends out to a much broader church outside her family.” Both paintings, then, are images of Christ’s corporate body as much as they are of Temma or the painting students who carry and draw her.

What bearing, then, does Lowly’s particular way of seeing and depicting his daughter have on us, on our sense of the imago Dei? Part of his ongoing artistic project is to understand and interrogate the way the traditions of perspective in Western art and culture presuppose and privilege the individual, solitary and unified point of view as the most important, the most true. In the wake of modernist emphases on self-expression in art, Lowly also sees value in pursuing ways of working that bring out the meditative (and even prayerful) craft aspect of painting, and that at least partially de-emphasize his and other artists’ subjective positions. He increasingly works from photographs (and collages of many individual pictures), and has more and more sought to bring collaboration into the making of his work. When Lowly takes Temma as his subject, these features of his practice emphasize the way that, in the Church, our individual identity is experienced as a tension between brokenness and wholeness in the Body.

Broken Together

There is a sense in which we look at Temma and we want to affirm that she is made in the image of God by denying that the image of God has anything to do with her physical, material body. Indeed, one way to approach the problem made visible through Lowly’s painting is to imagine the soul as imparted to (or trapped in) the physical frame. This certainly fits with saying that the image-bearing role of humanity in general is an act of the grace of God, not something dependent on our abilities. But in the election model, we are reminded that God didn’t call Abraham just to a “spiritual” identity, but also to physically constitute a people sent into the very concrete physical world.

Likewise, if we recognize Jesus as our model for the image of God, we will not deny the physicality of the human experience, nor the incarnation, nor even Christ's suffering on our account. Indeed, we must affirm the goodness of creation and our physicality, even—especially—in its brokenness because Jesus, himself, was broken. Even after the resurrection, his wounds were not abolished or erased, but remained tangible marks by which the Lord revealed himself every bit as much as he did in his creative and healing power. And in the Revelation image of the victorious Christ, we have another picture of that essential and persistent sacrificial brokenness in the Lamb who appeared “as if slain.”

What of the Church? Similarly, the Church remains a fragmented whole when it is at its best—broken open to be dispersed into the world. And though it is also all-too-often broken by own individual and corporate sin, even that finds its meaning and redemption in the image of bread broken in the Lord’s Supper—the way that sharing brokenness together unites the individuals in a congregation with each other and with Christ. As a reminder of Jesus’ own individual body, communion addresses both of those senses; it is the means of both healing and sending.

Christ’s commission to the Church, then, presents a profoundly social model of being the continuing revelation of God for the world. We bear the image of God together, and the image of God is only fully realized when we are members of a community, in relation to other human beings (even if that relationship is one of complete dependence), as opposed to seeking independence. This does not and ought not compromise the absolute worth of each individual, but should remind us that part of our worth is tied up in our integration with the whole body of Christ.

One last example of Lowly’s work gives iconic form to this inter-relation between image-bearing, self, identity, and the community of the Church. Made to commemorate Temma’s 25th birthday in 2010, At 25(right, and below), is a collaborative piece constructed of 25 individual, two-sided panel blocks that fit together something like a puzzle. On one side is a black and white portrait of Temma, while on the reverse, the individual blocks have been painted and gilded in different patterns and techniques. Lowly constructed the piece, but sent each block out to be completed by 30 different artists, either working alone or in pairs. In requesting them to do their sections of the composite portrait in an “artistically neutral” style, he was asking them to subjugate their artistic personae and self-expression to the depiction of Temma. Not every artist was able to do that to the same extent, so the final object is an image of the imperfection of our self-giving—or our inability to see others without looking through our own particular lenses of self—even while being a testament to the compassion and care of Lowly’s dispersed community.

Most importantly for this discussion, At 25 suggests that our image-bearing of God does not rest on our individual “fitness,” much less how well we “fit in.” Rather, it is carried by the whole human community, most fully in the broken Body of Christ. In this respect, brokenness is not something to be corrected; it is something that makes the particular community of the Church possible. Individuals may not be able to fulfill or even recognize the functional aspects of the imago Dei, they may not even be capable of the relational aspects—or of returning expressions of love or kindness or thanks, or even awareness. But the whole body, the beloved community, the nation God set apart for himself and the world, is called to be the image of God for each of us—precisely when we can’t.

Tim Lowly is Assistant Professor of Art at Northpark University. An inter-disciplinary artist, he works with painting, drawing, installation, digital media, photography and music: both individually and collaboratively. His work has a lyrical realism and quiet spirituality that have contributed over the last thirty years to the development of a international reputation. While Tim’s art and music address a variety of subjects, the central pillar of his work has been his daughter Temma who is, in his words, “profoundly other”. The clinical diagnoses of “multiple impairment” or “spastic quadriplegia” do little to address the compelling presence of this young woman and the way her being and essence have shaped her father’s work.

Lowly was born in Hendersonville, North Carolina in 1958. The son of medical missionaries, he spent most of his youth in South Korea. He attended Calvin College and received a BFA degree in 1981. His wife Sherrie Lowly is a United Methodist Pastor. They reside in Chicago, Illinois. Since 1994 Tim has been affiliated with North Park University in Chicago as professor, gallery director, and artist-in-residence. Tim is represented by Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Los Angeles.

For additional information (including exhibitions and collections) see Tim’s personal website.

All images © Tim Lowly.

For the past twelve years, I have had the privilege to teach in the Bible Department at a prestigious Christian university. Most of my students have been raised in Christian homes and have attended conservative, Bible-believing churches all of their lives. These students believe that they have a pretty solid understanding of what the image of God entails; at least they think they do until they encounter the world of disability. Disability creates a dissonance in their worldview that they are not expecting. All of a sudden, what they thought they understood about the image of God comes crashing down like a house of cards. The image of God and disability just do not seem to go together.

The following quotes from some of my student’s papers are representative of many and their experience with the disabled “strange other.” What is communicated loud and clear is the challenges disabilities raise for their conception of the image of God:¹

I believe that those with disabilities are equal to us … but I discovered a hidden evil in my heart. Deep in my heart, hidden from the world, I believed that children born with disabilities that would normally not survive its first few days should be allowed to die.

I think I could have intellectually acknowledged that all men and women are created in the image of God … In this class I was challenged to see the realities of disability and ask if I really did believe that God created these individuals in his image and salvation was for them too.

Though I have always known that these individuals are created in His own image, I often found myself secretly thinking that they were miserable and often a burden on others.

Sometimes I feel pity for disabled individuals because they are not “normal”. I feel that their disability is hindering them from experiencing the best life possible. I think disabled people experience a lesser quality of life because they cannot physically and/or mentally do as many things as a “normal” person could.

Now, these young people are not more spiritually or morally bankrupt than others in contemporary society. In fact, to the contrary, these Christian students are considerably more spiritually and morally sensitive in general because of their commitment as Christ- followers. Still, these views have been nurtured and influenced by two factors, one that is cultural and one that is religious: 1) the pervasiveness of a reductionist view of human being fostered by scientism; 2) a wooden, literal interpretation of Genesis 2:7 which says that “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.”

Taken together, these two factors present a skewed view of human being, one that focuses on the physical and material rather than on the spiritual and essential. This is one of the reasons why my students twinge and recoil a bit at the thought that persons with disabilities can be made in God’s image. “They just don’t look like it,” they say, zeroing in on what is physically seen. This view has had enormous consequences for people with disabilities. In fact, Adolf Hitler, as part of developing his approach to the weaker members of society in his book Mein Kampf, identifies the stronger (better looking and functioning) members of society as “images of the Lord” in contrast to the weaker members who are mere “deformities” of that image, and who ought to be cleansed from society. Many have argued that Hitler’s ideas concerning those with disabilities were inspired solely by Darwinian evolution. However, these quotes from Mein Kampf reveal a horrific misuse of Scripture, not evolutionary ideas.

Furthermore, with regard to evolution, a face value exegesis of Genesis 1 & 2 does not dictate that the physical stuff God used to create human beings was special or unique or that the image itself resides in it. It shows, rather, that all matter was formless and void until God, who acted and willed out of his good pleasure and sovereign choice, brought order and harmony to it. This applies as well to the creation of human beings who are uniquely created in God’s image. If this image is not merely physical stuff, what is it? What does the literary and historical context of Genesis 1 & 2 reveal?

There are three views on the image of God: 1) Substantial; 2) Relational; and 3) Functional. The functional view sees the imago Dei as a function or role that humans fulfill--such as being priests or having dominion. The relational view has to do with humans imaging God in their ability to have spiritual relationships—primarily with God, but also expressed in terms of our male and femaleness and other nuances. The substantial view essentially says that God’s image is imprinted on the person’s soul as an image is impressed on a coin, and has much to do with human capacities like our free will and ability to reason. It has been predominant in Christian theology in the West since about 600 AD.

But though we do have specific capacities that bear on our responses to God, as the substantial view says, the human being is an embodied soul who has both relational and functional capacities, as well. The relational implications include the biblical truth that among all God’s creatures, only human beings can know Him and be consciously aware of Him. Most importantly, he knows us and can be in relationship with us even when we do not acknowledge him out of rebellion, or cannot respond to him because of disability. If we consider the Substantial view’s emphasis on conscious awareness, ability to exercise freedom, and decision-making capacities alone, however, some human beings may not qualify as persons, whereas some non-human animals might.

Against this, a more holistic view affirms that all human beings bear God’s image, regardless of capacities. The image of God cannot be lost or compromised in anyway. Even the poorest functioning human being profoundly reflects God’s image.

In an unexpected and peculiar way, my students discovered this truth about the image of God when they began to interact with people with disabilities in my classroom. This truth about the image utterly transformed and they began to see people with disabilities quite differently. The following quotes come from the same students quoted at the beginning:

What I came to realize is that since the disabled are people, they deserve life. As humans made in the image of God, we are to try to preserve our fellow disabled brothers and sisters who are also made in the image of God.

When I went to the day group home, it was an amazing experience. I really enjoyed interacting with everyone there. I was able to paint with them, and one of them sang to me and taught me to dance; it was so much fun. It was great to see how each and every one of them was so unique and made in the image of God.

In this class I was challenged to see the realities of disability and ask if I really did believe that God created these individuals in his image and salvation was for them, too. As a result of what I have learned from this class my answer to these two questions is a resounding yes! God loves individuals with disabilities and knows the depths of their hearts and minds on a level I could never comprehend. Who am I to doubt who God knows, who He loves, and to whom He offers the gift of His Son.

At the beginning of the semester, disability was a foreign world for me. That world was new and uncomfortable. I had no idea how to interact with anyone with a profound disability and had little desire to learn how. Throughout this course, the walls of misconceptions, fears, and insecurities that I have built up to distance myself from disability have slowly been chipped away. As I learned more about disability, my fears and discomfort were replaced with compassion and joy. Exposure to individuals and families with disabilities was the most effective way to break down those walls. Having the opportunity to observe and interact with individuals with disabilities was invaluable. Participating in disability ministry is not burdensome, as I had initially worried, but freeing. I left the night feeling uplifted, loved, and so aware of God’s mysterious presence within broken humanity.

During Jesus’ ministry on earth, often the best way to find him was to seek out those society considered strange, unclean, or undesirable; Jesus often sought them out, himself, in order to show that God’s love for us does not depend on our merits or abilities, much less our outward appearance. Similarly, my students today meet the Lord anew—and discover that same message of God’s unmerited grace and love—when they seek out relationships with those our society finds strange and broken, with those who they could easily avoid seeing at all. Rather than judging with the eyes alone, my students learn to recognize their cultural and theological blind-spots, and see both the disabled and themselves in the light of Christ’s love. Relationships are transforming; and relationships with people with disabilities can transform not only our image of them, but of the God who made in His image, and dwells with us in places deeper than the skin.

Notes

1. All student quotes used by permission. Names are left out to protect student privacy.

Left: "Abrahamic Covenant" by Christoph Weigel, 1695.
Courtesy Pitts Theological Seminary, Emory University.

The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. - Ishmael ¹

For the destiny of humans and the destiny of animals is the same: As one dies, so dies the other; Both have the same breath of life. And humans have no preeminence over the animals…All go to the same place; All come from dust, And to dust all shall return. - Ecclesiastes 3:19-20

What is humankind’s place among the animals? Should we even count human beings among the animals at all? Perhaps we—as men and women—are something else entirely? Such questions are not new. Indeed, they are as old as writing itself and similar ponderings about human identity occupy the most ancient of texts. While many of these primeval writings have crumbled in the winds of time and have come to us only in fragments, the Genesis account of human and animal origins remains a living document that occupies a vital place in the life of Christian practice and thought. In the first chapter of the Genesis narrative we read that humans—male and female—were created in the image (tselem) and likeness (demuth) of God. But what does this mean? There is certainly no shortage of proposed answers, and over two thousand years of theological tradition bears witness to this fact. Here, however, we are not primarily interested in tradition—as valuable and insightful as it may be—but we are concerned with what the Bible itself has to say.

Taking the authority of Scripture seriously demands that we engage with Scripture in light of both its original languages and its original cultural context. If we are to avoid—as much as it is possible—projecting our own personal, modern and post-modern cultural presuppositions onto Scripture, then we must be willing to do some of the hermeneutical (or interpretive) hard work. In other words, if we want to allow Scripture to speak for itself, we must be hyper-aware of the cultural lenses we are wearing when we read it. Interpreting the Bible through five hundred years of Protestant tradition, fifteen hundred years of Roman Catholic tradition, or one hundred years of Seventh-Day Adventist tradition won’t do.² Rather we must venture to take off the thick hermeneutical lenses of tradition and boldly attempt to go into the world of the sacred text itself so that we can allow the ancient inspired words to shape the lenses or our reading.

With this approach to Scripture in mind, I believe it is useful to address the matter of the image and likeness of God (or imago Dei) by first asking what the imago Dei is not. Throughout the centuries, theologians, philosophers, and others have posed a number of answers to the question of what the imago Dei is. The vast majority of these answers have focused on one or a few characteristics that humans alone have and that non-human animals lack. For example, Evangelical Christian author Kay Warren explains: “Animals and people are two different classes of created beings and they will never be equal in their worth. As precious as animals are to our daily existence, they operate from instinct, not volition. Only people have a spiritual dimension. We are the ones created in the image of the Creator, the only ones with a soul.”³ In a similar manner, political commentator Ann Coulter, citing “the story of Genesis”, maintains: “It’s not merely opposable thumbs and a bipedal gait that make us distinct from the other beasts. It is consciousness of our mortality, a moral sense, language, mathematics, art, beauty, music, love, longings for immortality, a sense of symmetry, the soul’s ascent, the ability to accessorize, and our fascination with Branson, Missouri…We are in God’s image, and we’re the only ones in God’s image, which is why we eat escargot rather than worship them.”⁴ While these are two popular contemporary voices, similar views are espoused by numerous academics as well. In this way the imago Dei has, for many, become synonymous with one central characteristic or several key traits that make humans unique among and/or superior to animals.⁵

As intriguing as such perceived indicators of human uniqueness are, and regardless of the scientific status of claims for such distinguishing human traits, the idea that there are particular physical features and/or behavioral characteristics that make men—and not beasts—in the image and likeness of God is not one that is found anywhere in the pages of Holy Scripture. With regard to humans as “the image and likeness of God,” a literal and consistent reading of the Genesis narratives discloses that the imago Dei designation does not refer to unique characteristics or capacities which humans posses in a way that excludes other non-human animals.

Hebrew scholar Phyllis Bird informs us that the scriptural context of the phrase “image and likeness of God” makes it plain that “its theological significance is in the place it gives to humans within the created order, not in any physical or moral attribute of the species, in either its present or ‘original’ state.”⁶ In the Bible the imago Dei is not about exceptional human capacities or characteristics that automatically qualify humans as being included in the imago Dei category. There is no reason, explains Bible scholar James Barr, to believe that the author of Genesis chapter one “had in his mind any definite idea about the content or location of the image of God.”⁷ The terms “‘image’ and ‘likeness’…make no statements about the nature of human beings.”⁸ When we read of “the creation of human beings in God’s image (Gen 1:26)…the biblical narrative remains silent…about any qualities of human nature that might account for their special standing.”⁹

If we are to properly understand the meaning of the texts, then, says Old Testament scholar Claus Westermann, we must confidently resist “the tendency to see the image and likeness of God as a something, a quality.”¹⁰ Consequently, a literal reading of the early Genesis accounts demands that no specific anthropological content or characteristics may be directly equated with the imago Dei. If one is to take the findings of biblical exegesis seriously, then—apart from theological tradition—the image of God cannot be defined on the basis of particular physical traits or behavioral characteristics. This means that—according to a straightforward reading of Genesis and the rest of Scripture—humans are not said to be biologically or behaviorally unique in a way that is related to their being named the “image of God.”

In addition to the broad consensus among biblical scholars that the image of God in humans, when understood within its original Hebrew linguistic and Ancient Near Eastern context, has nothing whatsoever to do with an appeal to the human possession of particular characteristics which non-human animals lack, research in biblical exegesis has similarly revealed that there is no essential or substantial super-natural divide between humans and other animals. Scripture, when read in the original languages, clearly describes both “man and beast” as possessing “the breath of life” and refers to both equally as “souls.” In this way Scripture makes no ontological or metaphysical distinctions between humans and non-human animals. Instead, the scriptural “emphasis lies on the commonality that exists between the humans and the rest of the animal creation.”¹¹

While the use of the Hebrew word nephesh, often translated as “soul”, to describe humans has been taken by some as an indication that humans are substantially set apart from the animals, the nephesh is not an exclusive possession of humans. Indeed, the Hebrew text describes both humans (Gen 2:7) and animals (Gen 1:21, 24) equally as nephesh hayyah or “living souls.”¹² Thus, Bible Scholar Gordon Wenham explains that in Genesis 2:7, which describes the human being as a nephesh, “it is not man’s possession of the ‘breath of life’ or his status as a ‘living creature’ that differentiates him from the animals—animals are described in exactly the same terms.”¹³ In Genesis, “human beings…are only one subset of God’s ‘living beings,’ into whom God has breathed the breath of life” and established as “living souls.”¹⁴

According to the biblical understanding, then, “what is distinctive about human beings is not that they have a ‘soul’ which animals do not possess, nor that they have a ‘spirit’ which other creatures do not possess.”¹⁵ It is clear, then, that “the possession of nepheš is not a unique characteristic of the human person.” Indeed, “unless one is ready to grant that animals have ‘souls’ in the same way that humans are alleged to have, then we might better conclude that the Genesis account is referring to the divine gift of life: ‘the human being became a living person.’”¹⁶ Consequently, “claims for a ‘special creation’ of humanity in comparison with animals and the material world conflict with the strong assertion in Genesis 2 that, physically (organically), Adam does not differ from the ‘beasts of the field.’”¹⁷ The theological language of anthropology in Genesis 1 and 2 “underscores Adam’s linkage with the animal creation, not his difference from it.”¹⁸

Whatever else the imago Dei might be, then, a clear and consistent reading of Scripture does not permit us to equate it with either a non-material soul which animals lack or some unique physical characteristic or behavior which animals lack. These conclusions regarding what the image and likeness of God in humans IS NOT lead us directly to our discussion of what the imago Dei IS.

In Part 2 of this series, Dr. Moritz examines how the phrase "image and likeness of God" is used within Scripture itself.

Notes

1. Daniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (New York: Bantam, 1992), 146.
2. I mention SDA because the prophecies of Ellen White and her interpretations of Genesis have played a significant role in shaping contemporary Evangelical understandings of the text. See Ronald L. Numbers, The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), 74. For an online lecture on this topic see http://vimeo.com/38687776
3. Kay Warren, “Puppies Aren’t People: When compassion for animals goes too far,” (Accessed May 22, 2012) http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2009/04/kay_warren_puppies_arent_peopl.html. In this essay Kay Warren cites the theological views of her husband Rick Warren.
4. Ann Coulter, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (New York: Crown Forum, 2006), 266.
5. For example a recent group of Genesis interpreters concludes, “Evidence points to the fact that man is a unique creation, made in the image of God.” David N. Menton, “Did humans really evolve from ape-like creatures?” in War of the Worldviews: Powerful Answers for an Evolutionized Culture, ed. Ken Ham, Bodie Hodge, Carl Kerby, et al. (Green Forest, Arkansas: New Leaf Press, 2006), 43-59.
6. Phyllis A. Bird, “Theological Anthropology in the Hebrew Bible,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Hebrew Bible, ed. Leo G. Perdue (Malden, MA: Blackwell 2001), 262.
7. James Barr, “The Image of God in the Book of Genesis: A Study of Terminology, ” Bulletin of the John. Rylands Library 51 (1968-69), 13.
8. Horst Dietrich Preuss, Old Testament Theology, vol 2, trans. Leo G. Perdue (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996), 115
9. Kathryn Tanner, “The Difference Theological Anthropology Makes,” Theology Today 50:4 (Jan 1994), 573.
10. Claus Westermann, Creation, trans. John H. Scullion, S.J. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), 57-58.
11. Iain Provan, “The Land Is Mine and You Are Only Tenants (Leviticus 25:23): Earth-keeping and People-keeping in the Old Testament,” CRUX 42:2 (Summer 2006): 5.
12. Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary, 1st ed. trans. John J. Scullion (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 136.
13. Gordon Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 1-15 (Waco: Word, 1987), 61.
14. Provan, “The Land Is Mine and You Are Only Tenants,” 5.
15. Ray Anderson, “Theological Anthropology” in The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, ed. Gareth Jones (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 85 (emphasis added).
16. Joel B. Green, “Restoring The Human Person: New Testament Voices For A Holistic and Social Anthropology,” in Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, Theo C. Meyering, and Michael Arbib (Vatican City State and Berkeley, CA: Vatican Observatory and CTNS, 1999), 5.
17. Lawson G. Stone, “The Soul: Possession, Part, or Person? The Genesis of Human Nature in Genesis 2:7” in What About the Soul?: Neuroscience and Christian Anthropology, ed. Joel B. Green (Nashville: Abingdon, 2004), 50.
18. Ibid., 57.

I want to express my gratitude to those associated with BioLogos for the chance to dialogue with them. I have found their material to be challenging and thought provoking, and look forward to continuing the conversation. In the area of science, to call me a novice would be a kindness, and so to question their evaluation of the scientific evidence for the evolutionary process would be inappropriate for me. However, I do want to raise some questions about their evaluation of theological issues, especially concerning the image of God in humanity. I refer especially to their response to the question, “At what point in the evolutionary process did humans attain the ‘Image of God?’”¹

The BioLogos response begins by correctly noting that the precise meaning of the image of God has been the subject of debate throughout Christian history, but they believe the majority view sees the image of God as “characteristics of the mind and soul,” such as “the ability to love selflessly; engage in meaningful relationships; exercise rationality; maintain dominion over the Earth; and embrace moral responsibility.” They see these characteristics as being acquired through the evolutionary process, though they also state, “We do not know if humanity received the image of God by the immediate onset of a relationship with God or by a slower evolutionary process.” Further, since they identify the image with characteristics of the soul, they add in a discussion of the soul, “We also cannot know whether God directly intervened in the evolutionary process at this point [referencing Gen. 2:7], or whether the unfolding evolutionary process produced the human soul.” It is at this point I wish to question whether or not it is possible for the image of God to be produced through the evolutionary process apart from the special intervention of God. BioLogos seems to lean toward the image being produced through evolution, but is ultimately non-committal on the possibility of divine intervention. I want to argue that there is good reason to argue for the necessity of divine intervention in giving to humans the image of God.

I have no strong objection to the list of characteristics given in the BioLogos response, though I would see most of them as underlying the capacity for relationship with God, which I see as central to the image. Nor do I have any necessary objection to the idea that God used the evolutionary process in developing the brain and other physical abilities of human beings necessary for exercising some of the characteristics involved in the image. Nor do I think that Gen. 2:7 requires the direct intervention of God in implanting the soul (though it certainly allows it). The problem, rather, is in not recognizing that the image of God in Scripture seems rather clearly linked with something immaterial in the human constitution (whether it is called soul or spirit) that could not have come into being by evolutionary processes. My argument for affirming the necessity of direct intervention of God in the creation of humanity in the image of God rests on three assertions. Let me try to state and defend them.

First is the assertion that central to the image of God is the capacity for relationship with God. I do not think this would be rejected by those in the BioLogos community. Within the BioLogos response the phrase “relationship with God” is found numerous times in association with the image of God. They may not like the part about such a capacity being central to the image of God, but the fact that the image of God is what distinguishes humans from other animals in Genesis 1, coupled with the fact that it is humans, and not other animals, who engage in personal relationship with God throughout Scripture, makes a fairly strong case for linking “image of God” to “capacity for relationship with God.”

The second assertion is that this capacity for relationship with God is something that continues after the death of the body, and is associated with something in human beings that continues to exist after the death of the body. Here I recognize that there has been a growing chorus of voices advocating monistic views of the human constitution,² but they all seem to fail to account for the strong biblical evidence for human existence in the intermediate state.³ That which survives death is called the soul in some places (Gen. 35:18; Rev. 6:9-10) and the spirit in others (Eccles. 12:7; Heb. 12:23), but it is identified with the person himself in II Cor. 5:8 and Phil. 1:23. Jesus says to the thief on the cross, “Today, you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Both of their bodies would soon be in graves, but the words “you” and “me” seem to affirm an existence apart from their bodies.

The third assertion is that whatever it is in human nature that survives the death of the body (soul or spirit) must be non-material, and could not be produced by the evolutionary process.⁴ Alvin Plantinga, in an argument against materialism, asks, “How could an immaterial soul have come to be by way of evolutionary processes?”⁵ He quotes Richard Dawkins,

Catholic morality demands the presence of a great gulf between Homo Sapiens and the rest of the animal kingdom. Such a gulf is fundamentally anti-evolutionary [and hence wholly heretical?]. The sudden injection of an immortal soul in the timeline is an anti-evolutionary intrusion into the domain of science.⁶

I would change Dawkins’ wording from “Catholic morality” to “The image of God in humans” but the conclusion is the same. I cannot imagine how an immaterial reality, which survives the death of the body, could be produced by natural processes, such as evolution, even God-guided evolution. I do not think this is a God-of-the-gaps argument that could eventually fall to advances in science, but a logical argument, based on the intrinsic difficulty of seeing how the natural and mortal could produce something immaterial and capable of surviving the death of the body. Even if someone were to question my association of the image of God with the spirit or soul (assertion 1), I would argue that the mere existence of an immaterial spirit/soul that survives death (assertion 2) yields the same necessity of divine involvement in the creation of the immaterial aspect of human nature (assertion 3), which is my chief contention.

Notes

1. Subsequent references are taken from the response given at http://biologos.org/questions/image-of-god, accessed 10/14/2011.
2. Joel Green has been perhaps the most prominent voice advocating monism (see Joel Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008] and Joel Green, ed., What About the Soul? Neuroscience and Christian Anthropology [Nashville: Abingdon, 2004]), though a similar view has been affirmed by a number of his Fuller Seminary colleagues who advocate a “non-reductive physicalism” (see Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony, eds., Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998). For a more complete presentation of views, see Joel Green, In Search of the Soul: Four Views of the Mind-Body Problem (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).
3. John W. Cooper, Body, Soul & Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989) gives a strong defense for dualism primarily from the evidence in Scripture for the intermediate state.
4. I recognize the objection here of William Hasker and the idea of emergentism, or emergent dualism, in which a distinct soul or self emerges from the complex configurations of the biological organism, similar to magnetic fields generated by physical objects but distinct from them. See Hasker, The Emergent Self (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), for the fullest presentation of his view. The difficulty of his view lies in attributing to material stuff the power to generate a non-material reality. This difficulty is raised by Alvin Plantinga (see n. 5 below) and others and emergent dualism is as of today still a minority view in philosophical circles.
5. Alvin Plantinga, “A New Argument Against Materialism” (plenary address for the Evangelical Philosophical Society, Atlanta, GA, 18 November 2010).
6. Ibid. No source for Dawkins is given.

Today's video features biologist Kerry Fulcher and is courtesy of filmmaker Ryan Pettey, director/editor of Satellite Pictures.

In today's video, Kerry Fulcher discusses the idea of viewing creation as a constant, evolving process in which God is intricately involved, rather than a single explosion of creation a long time ago. When we get stuck on the idea of having biological ancestors, Fulcher says, we can miss the point that being made in the image of God is a relational quality, not a biological trait. It means that we can communicate and have a special relationship with God, and we can reflect his character and represent him to the rest of creation.

Though some may believe that moving the science/faith dialogue forward is best left to scientists, scholars, and theologians, we at BioLogos recognize that our pastors play an invaluable role in the conversation. Across the globe, pastors are helping their congregations work through difficult issues of science and faith with honesty, insight, and a gentle spirit. To this end we present an ongoing series recognizing sermons (and the pastors who give them) that are helping to promote the harmony of science and faith. Today's sermon comes from Rev. John Piper, author and Pastor for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Click above to hear an excerpt. Below, is a brief summary written by BioLogos editorial staff. The full sermon, which we highly recommend can be downloaded here. Finally, if you know a sermon or podcast related to science and faith that has especially spoken to you, please let us know.

Genesis 1:26-28 states that God created human beings and placed his image within them, both male and female. Although these Biblical statements are not exclusive to Christian belief, Dr. John Piper argues that they point to Christianity. In this eloquent sermon, he examines these related, but distinct truths in Scripture (creation, creation-in-the-image-of God, and creation-as-male-and-female) and demonstrates how they obtain completion and significance in the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Piper begins with a discussion about God’s purpose in the creation of humankind. The assertion that God designed people pleads the question: for what purpose or end have all human beings been formed? The Old Testament indicates that humanity was made to steward the things of the earth and to reflect the glory of God in the world. It speaks of being created to show forth the glory of God (Isaiah 43:7). It also speaks of how the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. (Habakkuk 2:14). However, the Hebrew Scriptures end with creation utterly unfinished and the hope of glory still to come. Stopping the story there, begs for the rest to be told, and it is, but only in Christ:

For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone this light in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (II Corinthians 4:6 NRSV.)

Then, Piper speaks about how God has created us in his image, and this, he says, must have something to do with why we are here. His purpose in making us must have something wonderful to do with our uniqueness. We, alone out of all his created beings, are made in the image of God. The current state of the world, however, shows what a mess we have made of this dignity. We have marred God’s image “almost beyond recognition.” This causes one to wonder: can a person truly be in the image God when evil abounds? Piper answers this by referring to the words of God to Noah in Genesis 9:6: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image." This verse fully affirms God’s likeness in humanity. Even in a world where sin abounds, humankind is still created in God’s image—badly distorted, true, but still the image of God. Piper expounds:

Do you feel that you are like God in the way you should be? So here again the belief that we were created in God's image begs for a completion—in this case a redemption, a transformation, a kind of re-creation. And that is exactly what Christianity brings. "By grace are you saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works . . . Put on the new nature created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 2:8–10; 4:24 RSV).

So knowing that we were created in the image of God, our dilemma begs for an answer. And Jesus, he says, is that answer; he begins the reclamation project called sanctification that will end in the glory that God intended for humankind in the first place.

Next, Piper focuses on how God created us male and female. And this too, given the alienation depicted as the story of Adam and Eve comes to a close, begs for completion and points to Christ. How? It does so in at least two ways. The first comes from the “mystery” of marriage. The other comes from the historical ugliness of male-female relationships when sin abounds.

First is the mystery. While Genesis 2: 24 sets forth the institution of marriage saying, “…a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh,” it does not fully explain the significance of it. For this reason, the Apostle Paul describes marriage in Ephesians 5: 31 as a great mystery. Paul then describes how marriage is symbolic of Jesus Christ’s covenantal relationship to the Church. The story of man and woman in marriage begs for completion, and it is only fulfilled in Christ’s covenant with his people, his commitment to the church. So that’s the mystery, and it is only fully realized with the coming of Jesus.

Second is the ugliness that too often characterizes male/female relationships in sin. Piper goes all the way back to the beginning where in Genesis 2:24 Adam disgustingly blames woman, not himself, for his sin. There, Piper says, is the beginning of all domestic violence—man blames woman for his own failures. One consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin is a curse upon man and woman’s relationship in Genesis 3: 16(NASB): “…In pain you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Piper makes it clear that the model of a domineering man and a devious woman is the result in marriage when sin has its way. However, Jesus came to reverse the curse and heal the twisted relationship between men and women that has created inequality and oppression. In 1 Peter 3:7, Peter describes man and woman as fellow heirs of the grace of life that is found in Jesus. Therefore, it is in Christ that equality, complementarity, harmony, mutual respect, and love exist between man and woman.

So the fact of being created in God’s image in Genesis, cries out for completion as the Old Testament ends.

1. Humankind is created to manifest the glory of God, but the work is clearly unfinished.
2. The image of God has been deeply marred by self-centered rebellion against God (sin). The work of God cries out for completion
3. The male/female relationship is damaged by the desire to dominate, but it points to completion in the mystery of Christ and the bride for which he gave his life—the Church.

In all cases, creation only moves to completion, as we are “utterly and radically and uniquely devoted to the Lord.”

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1, 2, NASB)

Full Sermon

Though some may believe that moving the science/faith dialogue forward is best left to scientists, scholars, and theologians, we at BioLogos recognize that our pastors play an invaluable role in the conversation. Across the globe, pastors are helping their congregations work through difficult issues of science and faith with honesty, insight, and a gentle spirit. To this end we present an ongoing series recognizing sermons (and the pastors who give them) that are helping to promote the harmony of science and faith. Today's sermon comes from Rev. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Click above to hear an excerpt. Below, is a brief summary written by BioLogos editorial staff. The full sermon, which we highly recommend can be purchased from Redeemer’s sermon store. Finally, if you know a sermon or podcast related to science and faith that has especially spoken to you, please let us know.

Despite the disagreements among Christians concerning the interpretation of Genesis, all Christ followers hold firm to this fundamental doctrine: humans are made in the image of God. This belief is grounded in Genesis 1:26 (NASB): “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth…’” Dr. Keller dissects this all-important idea in his message as he focuses on first the importance of the image of God in people, then the meaning of the image of God in people, and finally the repair of the image of God in people.

Dr. Keller explains several crucial implications that result from the radical idea that humans have been made in the image of God. First, the Bible affirms that all people reflect God; there is an “irreducible glory and significance” inherent in each person, regardless of who they are or what they have done. Second, this incredible worth present in each human demands respect and reverence in the way in which people treat each other. To emphasize this point, Dr. Keller quotes C.S. Lewis in his sermon saying, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal… [Therefore], our merriment [and play] must be of the kind which exists between people who have from the outset taken each other seriously.” Next, he argues that civil rights—the idea that every human being is entitled to certain liberties regardless of race, gender, or class—is grounded in the Biblical principle that all people have intrinsic value and dignity. To support this, he cites the passage from Genesis 9:5-6 (NIV) in which God, speaking to Noah and his family, states, “And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being… for in the image of God has God made mankind.” In other words, God is declaring that every person has a right to life solely because he or she has been fashioned in his image. Dr. Keller further stresses the importance of this doctrine by revealing the consequences that arise in a society that does not establish human value in its reflection of God, but rather in human capabilities. He paints a picture of the Greco-Roman world—a culture that found human worth in its capacities. In this civilization, there was mass abortion and infanticide; the sick and the elderly were left to die. However, as Christianity spread, these practices greatly decreased because of its doctrine concerning the sanctity of human life. Clearly, the idea that humankind is made in the image of God has serious moral ramifications.

Next, the sermon discusses what it means to be in the image of God. According to Dr. Keller, it suggests that human beings are meant to accurately reflect his character and in turn represent God to the whole world. He compares a person to a mirror to make his point. Just as a mirror is able to first reflect the brilliance of the sun’s light, and then concentrate that light on wood, for example, to make a fire for warmth and food, so every person is designed to shine with the glory of God’s light and in turn, cause all life to flourish. This reality has deeper implications. Because of the truth that all are image bearers, people will be the “sum-total” reflections of their relationships with others. Furthermore, since humans are spiritually-dependent beings, they cannot generate their own glory and significance. Dr. Keller explains that if a soul does not face toward God to receive its worth, then it turns away from God to the world—a career, a marriage, a cause etc.—to obtain value. When this turning away occurs, humanity breaks the image of God in them, and therefore, will trample on the image of God in others. This is the root of all evil seen in the world.

Finally, Dr. Keller explains how God has chosen to restore this broken image in all people. He sent his son Jesus, who is the perfect image of God, into the world. As it says in Colossians 1:15 (NIV), “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Because he so loved the world, Jesus allowed the image of God in himself to be crushed by the world, so that he might bear in his body the due penalty for the sin and the brokenness of a fallen people. It is as people turn their gaze back toward Jesus, the image of God, that true healing will take place. Ultimately, this restoration of God’s image within each person releases that individual to radiate the glory and love of God, bringing life rather than death to all humanity.

ADDENDUM: Please note, although we do invite your comments as we explore the theological richness of God's word in the sermon series, the comments will be restricted to Christians who are genuinely seeking to enter into a deeper and more meaningful relationship with God. Those who are not Christians but are seriously seeking to explore the Christian faith as a possibility for their own lives are also very welcome to raise questions and make comments. However, this will not be a place to belittle Christianity. We ask that our atheist friends respect our purpose here. We realize that you think Christianity is irrational and we are willing to engage the profound rationality of our faith, but this is not the place to discuss that with you.

Not remembering much about six-year-olds, I tucked the book under my arm and set out with him for the stream on my woodlot. I thought I’d get to sit and read while he turned over rocks and caught salamanders. It didn’t happen that way. Ryan set our agenda. “You lift the rocks, I’ll grab the salamanders,” he said. For two hours I lifted, and he grabbed. He missed a few, and a couple lost tails, but most he caught by the neck, held up to examine, and placed gently in the big, white bucket I carried.

“I think salamanders are cute, don’t you, Uncle Jack?" he asked. A good professor, I quibbled with his word choice and said, "They’re sleek and beautiful.” Though Ryan kept picking larger and larger rocks for me to move as the sun warmed the morning, I think I appreciated being in the woods doing nothing useful as much as he did.

Near noon, I persuaded him we had enough captives and suggested he draw them before returning them to the stream. He settled down with his sketch pad and markers on the step of my writing shack, and I leaned back against a tree with my book. Unlike Ryan, however, I didn’t settle down. My book aggravated me.

I watched Ryan. He held a salamander and gazed at it with such obvious, awestruck love I could almost imagine the salamander willingly lying down with him like the lion with the lamb. “This one is a boomerang salamander,” he said authoritatively.

“That’s interesting,” I answered.

“See the marks down its back? They’re like little boomerangs."

I went back to my book. As I read, I realized the author doesn’t think much of nature writers unless they are self-conscious about their work and recognize that it is nothing more than a biological reflex. Most writers, he complains, believe their language is more significant than a cardinal’s territorial song. The best nature writers, he insists, know better.

I snapped the book shut just as Ryan exclaimed, “Look! There’s a hummingbird bug!"

“What’s a hummingbird bug?" I asked.

“It’s a bug that flaps its wings so fast you can’t see them moving.”

"Oh," I said. My reading and the conversation Ryan and I had earlier that morning about the hummingbirds in my garden came together. “Where did you learn that salamander is called a boomerang salamander?" I asked.

“I made it up,” he said. Seeing my smile, he tilted his head and knotted his forehead. “It’s okay to make up names, isn’t it?" he asked.

"Sure," I answered. “You gave it a good name.” And he had. His name described the animal and allowed us to hold it in our minds as we talked. As in his naming of the hummingbird bug, he had gathered his knowledge and his observations and imaginatively made his world knowable.

My sociobiologist critic would demur. But he is a reductionist. Believing that human beings are created in the image of God, I am incapable of imagining our language acts as no more significant than a cardinal’s call.

The sociobiologist, working from purely materialist assumptions, is incapable of imagining that by acts of language human beings connect the objective, physical world with the subjective world of their responses. In naming the salamander, Ryan followed the command given to Adam in the garden. He completed creation by articulating a relationship.

His imaginative naming lacked only one thing-an institutional sanction. We find such sanction in the language of science and the language of faith. Nature writers, joining the two languages, act to bring forth a new way of organizing our knowable world. Creating a new discourse, they create a new community.

The boomerang salamander, by the way, is a mountain dusky salamander. The hummingbird bug I never saw. God knows what it is.

This essay is included in John Leax’s collection Out Walking: Reflections on Our Place in the Natural World.

Indeed, when considering how evolutionary accounts of human origins and our relationship with the rest of creation complement the biblical witness and deepen our theology and life of worship, this point comes to the fore: that recognizing our contiguousness with the rest of the animal world is not an affront to God, but is rather His gift to us — a spiritually beneficial affront to human pride in our own “specialness,” if that term is understood as anything other than God’s free gift and challenge. Ultimately, the imago Dei is not a characteristic, but His continuing presence with us and His continuing desire for us to be about the hard, sacrificial work of bringing His kingdom to bear on the world.

There is more than an echo of these thoughts about the way divine priorities upend our sense of the natural order in Kathleen L. Housley’s poem below. As the editors of Image put it when she was that journal’s Artist of the Month in November 2007, Housley writes “[w]ith acute, scientific exactness, her poems teach[ing] us a delight in the creation, in its multiplicity and surprise. A patient teacher, Housley leads us to the pleasure of the concrete and specific. Birds, animals, reptiles, humans: the poems offer a taxonomy of creation that is at once tender and wise, and a care for the life and nuance of speech that is both urgent and long-sighted.” Here, she wonders with and for us about the nature of our own vaunted uniqueness, marked as much by our rejection of the Creator as by our ability to worship Him. May we consider her words and be humbled as we tread the long path from our lost Eden towards the New Jerusalem.

Psalm for a New Human Species

By Kathleen L. Housley

What was Homo floresiensis
that you were mindful of her,
walking upright in the shadow
of a volcano on the third island
east of Bali, a mere 18,000 years ago,
if electron spin resonance and
radiocarbon luminescence be true?
Was your name majestic
in the rainforest’s green depth
when you gave her kind dominion
over your peculiar menagerie:
pygmy elephants, komodo dragons,
giant tortoises, and strange fauna
drifting eastward on the sea’s paths
to create new Edens where wombats
gestated their young in pouches,
and honeyeaters whistled staccato?

If, as it is written, you made man
but a little lower than the angels,
putting all things beneath his feet,
what do you want me, Homo sapiens,
to do with her—my little sister,
barely a meter tall, whose soft bones
were found in a limestone cave
covered by volcanic ash? I thought
my brawling-sprawling forebears
were the last Homo species standing.
But now, like a lovechild from your
wilder youth, she appears, offering
proof of kinship based on brain size,
the morphology of her wrist bones,
compelling me to wonder: what
immutable transgression locked
her kind into paradise, and mine out.

Genesis 1:26-27 says that God made humankind in his “image” and “likeness.” Both terms mean the same thing, and so this is usually referred to as “image of God” (Latin imago dei).

Some understand image of God to mean those qualities that make us human, for example: possessing a soul, higher-order reasoning, self-consciousness, consciousness of God and the ability to have a relationship with him. This seems like a good definition, since only humans are in God’s image and these are qualities that make us human.

Understanding image of God as the soul also helps some people reconcile evolution and Christianity. Somewhere along the evolutionary line God gave two hominids immortal souls, thus becoming the first true human beings. In other words, despite the lengthy evolutionary process, humans were “created” only at this point. These two “souled” hominids are Adam and Eve. Some say this could have happened about 10,000 years ago, which would line things up nicely with the rough chronology presented in Genesis.

I understand the motivation for this explanation: to maintain somehow the biblical description of human origins in the face of evolution. But I am fairly skeptical about it. For one thing, it is complete guesswork. It is also difficult to see what is gained here. Preserving the biblical description of human origins this way means it has to be adjusted well beyond what it says.

More importantly, equating image of God with the soul or other qualities that make us human puts a burden on Genesis 1:26-27 than it cannot bear—which brings us to the next point.

God’s Representative Rulers

Image of God is important theologically, and the topic is open for discussion—but it is not a free-for-all. Genesis, other Old Testament passages, and Israel’s surrounding culture give us a good idea of what image of God means.

Many scholars draw a parallel between the image of God in Genesis and images of kings in the ancient world. Rulers could not be everywhere at once, and travel was slow. So, they would erect monuments or statues of themselves throughout their kingdoms. These “images” let everyone know that the king’s rule extended wherever his image was found.

Another kind of image in the ancient world is an idol, a physical object that represented the god in the temple. Idols were not considered gods themselves. They were statues that let you know the god was in some mysterious sense “present.”

Statues of kings and of gods help us understand what it means for humans to be made in God’s image: humans are placed in God’s kingdom as his representatives.

J. Richard Middleton (Roberts Wesleyan College) puts it well in The Liberating Image. He offers that the image of God describes “the royal office or calling of human beings as God’s representatives and agents in the world.” Image of God means that humans have been given “power to share in God’s rule or administration of the earth’s resources and creatures.”¹

When one reads Genesis 1:26-27 with this in mind, the point becomes fairly obvious: “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish…birds…cattle…wild animals…creeping things” (NRSV).

Humankind, created on the sixth day, has been given the authority to rule over the other creatures God had made on the fourth and fifth days. They have that authority because humankind is made in God’s image.

There is nothing here about a soul, the ability to reason, being conscious of God or any other psychological or spiritual trait. As John Walton points out, as important as these qualities are for making us human, they do not define what image of God means in Genesis. Rather, those qualities are tools that serve humans in their image-bearing role.²

The phrase “image of God” is not about what makes us human. It is about humanity’s unique role in being God’s kingly representatives in creation. Once we understand what image of God means in Genesis, we will be in a better position to see how this idea is worked out elsewhere in the Bible, which we will begin next week.

Notes

1. J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005), 27.

2. John Walton, Genesis (NIVAC; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 131.

In this video conversation, N.T. Wright considers what it means to be an image bearer of God. He suggests that what the book of Genesis and the apostle Paul mean by humans reflecting the image of God is less a static picture and more of a “creative, dynamic” proposition.

To emphasize the point that bearing Christ’s image is multi-dimensional, Wright suggests the metaphor of an angled mirror as example. To contextualize this in practical terms, he recounts a childhood anecdote about being ill in bed as a child and having his mother rest an angled mirror on his bedroom door so he would be able to see the comings and goings of other family members and not feel so isolated and alone. Similarly, Wright comments, we can use this metaphor to understand what the Bible means about being an image bearer—God can reflect his love, care, and stewardship toward humans, and in turn, they can reflect God back to the world.

As such, the “image of God” is not something about us—instead, it is what we do and how we do it. That is, how we reflect God into the world—aptly described by Paul in Colossians 3:9-10: “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (ESV).

Immediately after Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, the consequences for human origins, biblical interpretation and people's relationship with God were apparent. The potential disparity between this Genesis creation story and Darwin's theory leads people to assume the church at the time felt threatened and opposed evolution. But many church leaders in the late 19th century actually embraced Darwin's theory as insight to the means by which God created the world. As just one example, the conservative Christian theologian B. B. Warfield wrote,"I am free to say, for myself, that I do not think that there is any general statement in the Bible or any part of the account of creation, either as given in Gen. I & II or elsewhere alluded to, that need be opposed to evolution."

The idea that humans might be related to the great apes was not universally well received, however. The wife of the Bishop of Worcester, England, upon hearing this news, reportedly responded with some alarm. "Descended from the apes? My dear, let us hope that it is not true," she said. "But if it is, let us pray that it will not become widely known."

Now 150 years later, we still seem to be fighting this battle. A recent Gallup poll indicates that 44 percent of people in the United States believe God created humans in their present form fewer than 10,000 years ago. The Washington Post writer Kathleen Parker points out one of the serious consequences of this situation in her recent column. "The problem of not believing in evolution as one might not believe in, say, goblins or flying pigs has repercussions beyond the obvious -- that the United States will continue to fall behind other nations in science education," she writes.

The study of DNA -- the hereditary material -- has enabled the study of human origins to achieve a level of detail Darwin never could have imagined. The decoding of the entire DNA sequence of humans -- the Human Genome Project, which I had the privilege of leading -- along with the genomes of dozens of other vertebrates has been a rigorous test of whether the data actually fits a model of evolution from a common ancestor. And the evidence is overwhelming. Although some people might still argue that DNA similarities do not prove common ancestry -- after all, God might have chosen to use the same DNA motifs for animals of anatomic similarity -- the details of the analysis make that conclusion no longer tenable.

Most mammals, for example, do not need dietary sources of vitamin C because they can make their own using an enzyme encoded in their genomes. But primates, including humans, require vitamin C in their diet, or they will suffer a disease called scurvy. What happened here? Well, if you search through the human genome, you will find a degenerated copy of the gene for this vitamin C synthesizing enzyme. But it has sustained a knockout blow, losing more than half of its coding sequence. A claim that the human genome was created by God independently rather than being part of descent from a common ancestor would mean God intentionally inserted a nonfunctioning piece of DNA into our genomes to test our faith. Unless you are willing to contemplate the idea of God as a deceiver, this is not a comfortable explanation.

This past week I attended a meeting about the human genome at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. I heard many astounding presentations on comparisons of our own genome to that of other species -- all consistent in exquisite detail with an evolutionary explanation. A particularly interesting paper described the latest findings on Neanderthals, whose DNA sequence is being painstakingly pieced together from several 30,000-year-old bones of different individuals. The DNA similarity to Homo sapiens is striking; but the evidence is most consistent with a separation of humans and Neanderthals nearly 500,000 years ago.

One particular finding about genetic variation caught the audience's attention immediately. To explain this discovery, it's first important to know that we humans are a lot alike at the DNA level. But if you compared your DNA sequence to mine, about one of every 1,000 letters of the code would be different. Most of these differences are common in the human population and fall in parts of the genome that tolerate variation. Therefore, those differences don't seem to have much effect. But they are interesting reflections of our history. So here's the new information: about one-third of those exact same variations are also found in Neanderthals. That means a precise location of the human genome where some individuals have the letter A and others have the letter G will often show that same exact variation in DNA from Neanderthal bones. That does not imply there was interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals in Europe 30,000 years ago -- so far, there is no DNA evidence to support that. Instead, this new discovery points unequivocally to a population of common ancestors of both humans and Neanderthals with these exact genetic variations living more than 500,000 years ago.

Why do so many people find it difficult to accept these conclusions? First of all, there is the general problem that evolution is somewhat counterintuitive. Our own human experience does not easily accommodate the vast intervals of time necessary for natural selection to produce the marvelous diversity of living things we see all around us. For believers, there is the additional problem of fitting together the concept of the creator God and the imago Dei, or image of God, with the words of Scripture and a process that seems so random. But does this struggle need to exist? Suppose God chose to use the mechanism of evolution to create animals like us, knowing this process would lead to big-brained creatures with the capacity to think, ask questions about our own origins, discover the truth about the universe and discover pointers toward the One who provides meaning to life. Who are we to say that's not how we would have done it? If you believe that God is the creator, how could the truths about nature we discover through science be a threat to God? For many scientists who believe in God -- including me -- it's just the opposite. Everything we learn about the natural world only increases our awe of the God the creator.

Yet many evangelical churches continue to fear the whole fabric of faith will be torn apart if the words of Genesis 1 and 2 are not taken literally. It surprises many to learn this ultraliteral interpretation was not considered necessary by many profoundly dedicated believers long before Darwin arrived on the scene. In A.D. 400, St. Augustine wrote no fewer than four books about the interpretation of Genesis, ultimately concluding it was not possible to arrive at a confident view of how creation occurred. In words that presciently warn against the current conflict, he writes, "In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it."

I urge us all to step back from the conflict and look soberly at the truth of both of God's books: the book of God's words and the book of God's works. As people dedicated to truth, let us resolve to move beyond a theology of defensiveness to a theology that celebrates God's goodness and creative power. For answers to the most frequently asked questions about science and faith, see http://www.biologos.org.

Dr. Francis S. Collins is former director of the Human Genome Project and founder and president of The BioLogos Foundation.

The “image of God” is a key concept in Christian theology, foundational to Christian thinking about human identity, human significance, bioethics, and other topics. Many Christians see evolution as incompatible with the image of God. How could God’s image bearers have evolved from simpler life forms? Doesn’t image-bearing require miraculous creation of humans rather than shared ancestry with chimpanzees? And when in the evolutionary process did humans attain this image? These questions are tied to many other issues concerning human origins, including the soul, the Fall, and the historicity of Adam and Eve (see sidebars), but in this article we will focus specifically on the image of God.

See “How does the Fall fit with evolutionary history?” and “Were Adam and Eve historical figures?”

The phrase “image of God” does not appear many times in the Bible, but the importance of the concept is emphasized by its repetition in the creation account:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. -- Genesis 1:26-27

From this text, it is clear that part of bearing God’s image is ruling over the animals. Genesis 9:5-6 reveals another aspect of image bearing: all human lifeblood is sacred because all humans are made in the image of God. The emphasis on Judeo-Christian thought on the sanctity of human life is derived in part from this passage. In the New Testament, the idea is expanded further as Christ is revealed as the true image of the invisible God (2 Corinthians 4:4, Colossians 1:15).

For centuries, theologians have discussed these and other passages, debating the meaning of the image of God (“imago Dei” in Latin). Being made in God’s likeness is not a matter of our physical appearance, because humans don’t all look the same. But to what does the image of God actually refer? Many ideas have been suggested over the centuries, producing a huge body of theological writing. While hard to summarize, we give a brief overview below of three common themes for the image of God. After developing this theological context, we’ll consider how these ideas intersect with evolution.

Image of God as our abilities

A common view is that the image of God refers to human abilities. When people talk of the things “that make us human,” they refer to abilities like reason and rationality, mathematics and language, laughter and emotions, caring and empathy, and cultural products like music and art. Often the motive is to distinguish humans from animals by showing that humans have unique abilities that make us special and superior to animals. Saint Augustine (354-430 A.D.) wrote something like this when he said “Man's excellence consists in the fact that God made him to His own image by giving him an intellectual soul, which raises him above the beasts of the field.”¹ Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 AD) also emphasized intellect and rationality in his discussion of image bearing.² But Augustine and Aquinas were not speaking of intellect as an aptitude for math or music; Aquinas instead writes of an “aptitude for understanding and loving God.” In fact, the modern emphasis on reason comes more from secular Enlightenment ideas than from Christian theology. During the Enlightenment, the image of God was connected to ideas like the natural dignity and majesty of humankind that separates us from the brute beasts of the animal world.

Scientific evidence is piling up that humans have more in common with animals than was once thought. Genetic evidence shows that humans and chimpanzees share much of their DNA. Studies of animal behavior (particularly of chimps and other apes) show that animals not only laugh and cry and care for each other, but can learn sign language and even have basic reasoning ability. In fact, Christian neuroscientist Malcolm Jeeves writes that “any attempt to set down a clear demarcation between the reasoning abilities of nonhuman primates and humans is found to have become blurred.”³ Obviously, humans have a much larger capacity to reason than animals, but reasoning is not a uniquely human ability. As neuroscientists and animal behaviorists learn more about animals, they see how traits appear in a rudimentary form at a level similar to human children.⁴ Whether or not one accepts evolution, evidence from living humans and animals does not show a distinct difference in kinds of abilities (only degree).

See “Made in the Image of God: The Theological Implications of Genomics” a 2-part blog by Denis Alexander.

Another challenge for this picture of the image of God is the place of people with mental disabilities. If a person is impaired in reasoning or language, are they bearing less of God’s image? Are they not showing his true likeness? The Christian answer to these questions is No! The Bible repeatedly teaches that God values all people, particularly those who are rejected by society or unable to care for themselves.⁵ In fact, Genesis 9:5-6 points to image bearing as the reason that all human life is valuable. This is a major motivator for Christians who seek to protect the unborn, the poor, and the aged. Surely bearing God’s image must mean something other than using our abilities.

Image of God as our spiritual capacities and relationship with God

Another common view is that the image of God refers to our capacity for a relationship with God. Following Aquinas’ view of “aptitude for understanding and loving God,” the Catholic catechism says,

Of all visible creatures only man is able to know and love his creator. … he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity. Being in the image of God, the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead.⁶

John Calvin (1509-1564) and other reformers ⁷ wrote of the image of God as the original righteousness of humans before the Fall. When first created, we reflected God’s “wisdom, righteousness, and goodness”⁸ but, as Paul teaches, that image was tarnished by sin and is being restored in Christ:

Since the image of God had been destroyed in us by the fall, we may judge from its restoration what it originally had been. Paul says that we are transformed into the image of God by the gospel. And, according to him, spiritual regeneration is nothing else than the restoration of the same image. (Colossians 3:10, and Ephesians 4:23.) -- John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis ⁹

Neuroscientists have also attempted to investigate this model, looking for evidence of such things as selfless behavior or the ability to perceive the transcendent. But science is simply not capable of fully testing such spiritual realities; the evidence that scientists do find is open to many interpretations.¹⁰

Image of God as our commission

What did the “image of God” mean to the first audience of Genesis 1? We get insights from the rest of the Old Testament, which frequently uses “image” in the context of idol worship. In the ancient cultures of Egypt and Canaan, people made images of their gods from metal and wood and set them up in local temples to worship. Hebrew scholar Joseph Lam writes that the idol “was believed to be the true manifestation of the god in the midst of the people.”¹¹ In the Ten Commandments, God prohibits his people from making such images (Exodus 20:4-6), because God cannot be contained in, or even represented by, an idol made by human hands (see Isaiah 44:6-20). Israel’s temple contained no representation of God himself.

Turning back to Genesis 1, we now see “image of God” in a new light. The image is not a built-in ability or capacity of human beings, but a role we are called to live. God has named us as his living images. We represent God here on earth, better than any idol made by human hands. Lam writes:

In fact, it is possible to argue grammatically for the validity of the translation ‘as the image of God’ as opposed to ‘in the image of God’. … The Hebrew phraseology here denotes not so much the manner of the creation of the human being (i.e. the “mold” out of which humans are created), but rather the intended function of the human being in the world. Humans aren’t just made in God’s image, they are called to be his image in the world.¹²

Joshua Moritz develops this idea further, pointing out the parallels of our appointment to the role of image-bearer with other instances of divine election.¹³

Watch a short video where N. T. Wright describes image bearing as an angled mirror, reflecting God’s love to others and reflecting the praise of the world back to God.

Connections to evolution

How might these models of the image of God fit with evolution? First recall these key points from the BioLogos faith statement¹⁴:

• We believe that the diversity and interrelation of all life on earth are best explained by the God-ordained process of evolution and common descent. Thus, evolution is not in opposition to God, but a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes.

We believe that God created humans in biological continuity with all life on earth, but also as spiritual beings. God established a unique relationship with humanity by endowing us with his image and calling us to an elevated position within the created order. Thus, BioLogos believes that God created humanity using the process of evolution and endowed us with his image. Both views of the image of God (“spiritual capacity” and “commission”) are compatible with the scientific evidence for evolution, and both views are affirmed by individuals in the BioLogos community. In fact, the two views are not mutually exclusive.

If the image of God refers to our spiritual capacities, God could still have used the natural process of evolution to create our bodies and human abilities. God could have used a miraculous process to create our spiritual capacities, or used some combination of natural processes and divine revelation to develop these capacities. Either way, God is the creator of our whole selves, including both our physical and spiritual aspects.

If the image of God refers to our commission, then it has little impact on one’s view of how God created humans. Whether God made the first humans using natural processes or a single miracle or a mixture of the two, God named humanity as his image bearers.

BioLogos welcomes more evangelical scholarship on this question.

Living out our calling as image bearers

While the academic debate is important, it should not distract us from the essential calling to live as people created in God’s image. Let us remember to

• Value every person as a fellow image bearer. All people, both men and women, are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), not just some priestly class. All of humanity is equally valued in God’s eyes, and should be in ours (Genesis 9:5-6).
• Seek to attain the whole image of God in Christ (Ephesians 4:23). As the Holy Spirit works in us to bring about the new self, we are being molded more and more into the true image of the Creator.
• Care for the creation. As representatives of the Creator, we are charged to rule over the Earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:26-28) which includes helping creatures fulfill their God-given mandate to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:22) and tending the garden God provided (Genesis 2:15).¹⁵
• Worship the Creator. Of all the created order, humanity is the leading voice to speak our praise back to the One who made us.