Divine Remembering

Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 6.4 (2003) 35-50 [Access article in PDF] St. Irenaeus and the Imago Dei The Importance of Being Human Thomas G. Weinandy THE WONDER AND AMAZEMENT that should accompany the astonishing biblical proclamation that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God is often absent today. Among contemporary Christians it may have too much the ring of fixed, and therefore thoughtless, familiarity. For many others it may be thought false in the light of the contemporary scientific understanding of what human beings are and how they historically evolved. Still others may think it utterly irrelevant to our practical secular lives. Irenaeus, an early father of the Christian church (c. 130-200A.D.), thought it neither false nor irrelevant, and, unlike many Christians today, he gloried in its realism. He was even convinced that it was at the heart of God's act of creation and so of his subsequent actions within salvation history. This essay, then, wishes to examine Irenaeus's understanding of what it means for us as human beings to be made in the imago Dei, in the image and likeness of God, and in so doing demonstrate its relevance for our contemporary daily lives. [End Page 15] A Uniquely Christian Idea To grasp the significance that God created human beings in his own image and likeness, a significance that was not lost on Irenaeus, it must first be noted that such a proposal did not originate from within some common universal human religious sentiment. Within classical paganism, it was the gods who were modeled after the image and likeness of men and women and, in so being depicted, they possessed all of the foibles, weaknesses, and vices that human beings possess. Such an anthropological conception of the gods did not enhance the dignity of human beings. Rather, it merely cheapened the dignity of the gods, and, in the end, exposed them to ridicule and mockery. The idea that human beings are icons of God did not originate from the bookish musings of some philosopher either. When ancient philosophers did consider the issue of man's nature, they inevitably concluded that what is divine in human beings, and so what makes them like god, is their soul or mind (logos or nous), that spiritual spark or seed that lies within humankind. While God may not be demeaned in such a view of man's nature, yet, as Irenaeus knew full well, man now is. There is something intimately tied to man, and, in a real sense makes him truly human, that is now evil in and of itself—the body. In the end it is only that which is not human that reflects the imago Dei, the spiritual divine spark or seed. This non-Christian teaching, as found in his contemporary Gnostics, prompted Irenaeus to undertake a thorough defense and examination of the truth that human beings were created in the image and likeness of God. While there were various schools of Gnosticism, one of the common threads within all its various formulations was that there is a conflict between the evil world of matter and the divine world of spirit. This conflict is primarily played out within human beings, for human beings (at least the spiritual elite) are composed of a spark of divine being and a material body. Salvific knowledge (gnosis) consisted in knowing how to extricate [End Page 16] one's true self—the divine spark—from the evil material body so as to obtain the freedom to make one's way back to the realm of the spiritual and the divine. Irenaeus found such anthropology contrary to the Christian faith and thus contrary to the dignity that human beings possess. In contrast to the Gnostics, Irenaeus delighted in the unparalleled and literally incredible thought that human beings, in the totality of who we are, body and soul, are images of God, and were created so by God himself. Moreover, he took pride in the...

Finding Ourselves after Darwin: Conversations on the Image of God, Original Sin, and the Problem of Evil

This study explores the depth of biblical and patristic concepts of the face and image of God, emphasizing their profound connection to human renewal and becoming like God through divine revelation. The analysis focuses on the interpretation of the terms "tselem" and "panim," which represent, respectively, the divine image in humans and the personal approach to God—an evolution involving inner transformation and participation in the life of the Trinity. It stresses that understanding this mystery requires going beyond external symbols and material forms to the heart of the Logos and the great mystery of love and communion revealed by Scripture. Drawing on the theological insights of the Church Fathers and contemporary theologians, it affirms that true likeness to God involves active, conscious participation in divine life through the grace of the Holy Spirit, as part of the process of spiritual "renewal." In this view, humans become an "imago Dei" in a real, not merely formal, sense and partake in the eternal light of the Most Holy Trinity, effectively becoming "temple of God." The study also explores the process of spiritual "transfiguration" described by patristic writings, which enables the soul and body to become eternal in Christ and continuous union with God. Through this theological perspective, it emphasizes that the image and face of God are not only symbols but living, participatory realities that reveal the ultimate destiny of human creation—returning to the divine origin in love and truth—until the fullness of the likeness of God is realized.

Does Judaism Condone Violence? Holiness and Ethics in the Jewish Tradition

Imago et similitudo Dei: the meaning of humans being God’s image and likeness investigated from a Christianphilosophical perspective This investigation is an effort to determine the meaning of the Biblical revelation that human beings were created in the image and likeness of God and to do so from a Christian-philosophical perspective. The following steps are taken: The introduction is a reminder that one’s view of reality (ontology) and of being human (anthropology) is decisive in terms of how one will understand the meaning of “imago Dei”. It is illustrated, firstly in the older essentialistic (or ontological) viewpoints, which explained the image of God in man analogically, in other words as similarity and difference between the divine and human natures. Next, it is indicated that the more recent relational viewpoints on the image of God also cannot really indicate its full richness. The next section provides an exposition of how a few reformational philosophers understood this mysterious Biblical expression about the human being. It is indicated how their viewpoint about human beings can solve many misconceptions connected with the “imago et similitudo Dei” and also open new, wider perspectives. The concluding part will summarise the results of the investigation.

Adresatami tekstów biblijnych mówiących o grzechu Adama i jego skutkach dla całej ludzkości są ludzie żyjący już pod jego wpływem. Od początku objawienie wyznacza perspektywę odkupienia dla człowieka dotkniętego grzechem pierworodnym. Właśnie ta perspektywa jest kluczem interpretacyjnym objawionej rzeczywistości. Perspektywa odkupienia prowadzi do Chrystusa. Przez grzech Adama ludzka natura została pozbawiona łaski uświęcającej oraz pewnych darów wiążących się ze stanem pierwotnym. Człowiek wciąż jest obrazem Boga i jest do Niego podobny, ale grzech pierworodny ogranicza wyrazistość tej fundamentalnej właściwości ludzkości stworzone przez Boga, a człowieka stawia na drodze oczekiwania na przyjście jego Odkupiciela. Chrześcijańska koncepcja śmierci nie ogranicza się jedynie do jej nieuchronności i powszechności oraz ścisłego związku z grzechem i nieposłuszeństwem. Chrystus rzucił nowe światło na jej tajemnicę. W świetle tym śmierć jawi się jako narzędzie zbawienia, a oddanie życia jako wykonanie Bożej woli w imię posłuszeństwa. Natura człowieka jest wyznacznikiem „porządku stworzenia” i tworzy ścisły związek z rzeczywistością Bożego obrazu. Z jego „trynitarnym rozumieniem” wiąże się kategoria daru, poprzez który mężczyzna i kobieta w communio personarum stają się jednością. Grzech pierworodny nie zniszczył tego układu. Historia mężczyzny i kobiety jest zapisem zbawczego dopełniania się „oblubieńczego” znaczenia ludzkiego ciała. Podstawą tego zapisu jest obraz Boży w człowieku, a jego głębia dotyka tajników ludzkiego serca.

In this book, Chris Kugler situates Paul’s imago Dei theology within the complex and contested context of second-temple Judaism and early Christianity in the Greco-Roman world. He argues that Paul adapted the Jewish wisdom and Middle Platonic traditions regarding divine intermediaries so as to present the preexistent Jesus as the cosmogonical image of God (according to which Adam himself was made) and toward which the whole of humanity was destined. In this way, Paul includes Jesus within the most exclusive theological category of second-temple Jewish monotheism: cosmogonical activity. Paul’s imago Dei christology, therefore, is a clear instance of “christological monotheism.” Moreover, Kugler demonstrates that this interpretation of Paul’s imago Dei theology allows for a fresh reading of some of the most contested texts in Paul’s letters: 2 Corinthians 3–4; Romans 7–8; and Colossians 1.15–20; 3.10. He demonstrates that at the rhetorical level, Paul presents himself and his sympathizers as true philosophers who attain to the (Middle Platonic) telos of true philosophy: the image of God; while he presents his opponents as advocates of an empty and deceitful philosophy.

What does it mean to speak of humans as the image of God when apophatic theology speaks of an infinite God who transcends naming, comprehension, and worldly appearance? Bringing Church Father Gregory of Nyssa into dialogue with French phenomenology in Michel Henry, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Louis Chretien, Thomas Breedlove answers this question and explores the importance of embodiment to the doctrine ofimago Dei. Divided into three parts, this book presents the divine image not as merely one aspect of the human creature but rather as that which constitutes human creatureliness itself. So constituted, human nature is shaped by likeness and difference to God. Breedlove investigates this relationship between human and divine through three successive approaches. The first, in conversation with Merleau-Ponty, analyses the existential and phenomenological aspects of fleshly finitude as the paradigmatic site of the creature’s difference from God. The second takes up Henry’s philosophy of life alongside Gregory’s metaphysics of participation to offer an account of creaturely life in its likeness or identity to divine life. The third, though conversation with Chrétien, examines the christological aspects of Gregory’s anthropology in order to find the dynamic synthesis in which likeness and difference and presence and absence reveal a creaturely nature wounded by divine love. In blending 4th-century theology with 20th-century phenomenology, Breedlove not only showcases the alternative perspectives they can offer each other, but further presents a novel theological anthropology and a new theological account of the flesh. He argues that the dynamism and groundlessness of creaturely flesh, where mind and body intersect, reveals what it means to be created as images of God. This revelation is founded in Christ, whose life reveals finitude not as an impediment to be overcome but as the very possibility of likeness to the divine.

Analyzing the work of St Gregory of Nyssa, in the first approximation we can say that he is a typical representative of his age. In the theology of the 4th century the power of God as the absolute ruler was emphasized more than his other attributes, so the image of God did not show him as the One who reigns through humility. In this regard, it is worthwhile to draw attention to a small, polemic treatise In illud: tunc ipse filius of St Gregory, in which his understanding of God's omnipotence receives a deeper dimension that appears to the modern man. In his work, this Father of the Church comments on one verse from the Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians: „And when everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself with be subject in his tum to the One who subjected alt things to him, so that God may be all in all" (1 Cor 15, 28; KJ). The problem which preoccupied Gregory of Nyssa, was the incorrect opinion or heresy of Arius and his followers. According to them, the Son is subjected to God, by the rule of creation, so He cannot be equal to God the Father and, in this way, He is not God. One from the crown arguments, which the Arians used were St. Paul’s words from his Letter to the Corinthians. However, the Bishop of Nyssa shows, that exactly this quotation, from the historical-salvific perspective, emphasizes the divinity of Christ. He portrays to us the Son who is subjected to God's vivifying power and the Father who receives the Son's subjection in His human nature. So, in this way, God is omnipotent on the cross, as a humble man. The image of God, which emerges from Gregory's theology, allows us to include his voice into present discussion of God's omnipotence and man's free will.

which most of the world’s religions developed. Jewish environmental ethics is a very new area of Jewish ethics and tradition. In the last 10 years, however, there has been a growing body of Jewish scholarship and theology on the environment, but the translation of much of this material into practice is still in the future. Environmentalism is a radical critique of the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Environmentalism challenges all ideologies derived from the Western humanist tradition, which asserts the centrality of human power and reason. This tradition developed with the rise of Western capitalism, the scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the growth of industrial revolution in the 19th century. This tradition is anthropocentric (human centered) and denies the Biblical doctrine of the divine creation of the natural world. Instead, the natural world is solely an object for human exploitation. This objectification of the natural world also nullifies the Biblical concept that human beings are created in the image of God. While the Biblical worldview sees God, humanity, and the natural world linked together in a sacred order, the Western humanist view denies that this order exists.

Alexandria was the epicenter of Hellenic learning in the ancient Mediterranean world, yet little is known about how Christianity arrived and developed in the city during the late first and early second century CE. In this volume, M. David Litwa employs underused data from the Nag Hammadi codices and early Christian writings to open up new vistas on the creative theologians who invented Christianities in Alexandria prior to Origen and the catechetical school of the third century. With clarity and precision, he traces the surprising theological continuities that connect Philo and later figures, including Basilides, Carpocrates, Prodicus, and Julius Cassianus, among others. Litwa demonstrates how the earliest followers of Jesus navigated Jewish theology and tradition, while simultaneously rejecting many Jewish customs and identity markers before and after the Diaspora Revolt. His book shows how Christianity in Alexandria developed distinctive traits and seeded the world with ideas that still resonate today.

The evolutionist view of humans has a negative influence on education, especially Christian education. Teaching the theory of human evolution in science learning in the classroom makes nature doubtful as God's creation. This is a challenge for Christian educators, for teaching the truth about human nature as the image and likeness of God. Christian educators must be equipped with a Christian theological anthropological understanding of human nature as the image and likeness of God. The purpose of this paper is to answer the evolutionist view of humans in education based on Christian theological anthropological studies. The research method is literature study. The results of the study concluded that humans, both educators and students, were created in the image and likeness of God who has a soul and body with various unique capacities (such as will and knowledge). Humans act as representatives of God on earth who have dominion over the rest of creation and have a special relationship with God as spiritual beings.

This thesis aims to study the identification of the Matthean Jesus with Wisdom or Sophia, a personified feminine figure. The roots of this identification are traced to the traditions in Judaism as depicted in Proverbs, Job, Sirach, the Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch and 1 Enoch. The early Christians made use of this Wisdom tradition when speculating on the identity and significance of Jesus, and scholars have identified explicit Wisdom Christologies in Paul, Q and John. The thesis has its main focus in the Matthean tradition and demonstrates that Matthew develops a high Christology from his Jewish and Christian sources by portraying Jesus as Wisdom incarnate. This thesis studies Matthew’s Wisdom Christology from the perspective of its Jewish and early Christian contexts. How has Matthew been influenced by these traditions, and how has he developed them? The nature and roles of Wisdom in Judaism differ from text to text. In some she is a distinct pre-existent being, subordinate to and distinct from God, while in others she appears to be an aspect of God and not a distinct entity. In terms of her functions, Wisdom is assigned a variety of roles. She plays a part in the creation of the universe as the assistant of God, mediates between God and humans, plays a salvific role and is identified with the Torah. Wisdom can be described in various ways, including mother, lover and counsellor. In the Judaism of Matthew’s time, Wisdom is only one of many pre-existent beings. Other figures that were thought to pre-exist and await a future revelation include the Messiah and the Son of Man, and these too play an important role in the emergent Christology of the first century. The study of the early Christian texts reveals that the Christians accessed the Jewish Wisdom traditions in different ways. Paul uses the term ‘the Wisdom of God’ for Jesus (1 Cor 1:24; cf. 1:30), but he seems not to use it as a Christological title. The concept of Wisdom as a distinct figure first appears in the Q tradition. In this Sayings Source, Jesus is not identified with Wisdom herself but as her messenger or envoy. The Gospel of John testifies to a further development. John has a clear Wisdom Christology, especially in the Prologue where the pre-existent Jesus is assigned many of Wisdom’s roles. But this author never refers to Jesus as ‘Wisdom’. He prefers the masculine term ‘the Word’. Between the Q and the Johannine traditions comes Matthew, and it is in this Gospel that the early Christian Wisdom Christology is most clearly attested. In distinction to Q, Matthew makes explicit the identification of Jesus with Wisdom herself and, in distinction to John, he has no qualms about using that particular feminine term. For Matthew Jesus is pre-existent Wisdom, subordinate to God and separate from God, who becomes incarnate in the body of a human through a miraculous conception. In portraying Jesus in this way, Matthew adopts many of the attributes and roles of Wisdom in the Jewish tradition, including her role in creation, her close relationship with God, her role as prophet and teacher, her rejection by humans and her identification with the Law. Moreover, in constructing his Wisdom Christology, the evangelist reinterprets and develops some aspects of Wisdom’s traditional roles on the basis of Christian claims about Jesus. Thus in Matthew it is significant that Jesus as Wisdom is a miracle-worker, the definitive interpreter of the Law, dies on the cross to save her people from their sins and will come in the future as the eschatological judge.

This article will investigate the various ways in which God is portrayed in the Song of Moses. The Song of Moses is situated within the liturgical use of early church communities; accordingly, the Song of Moses serves as a particularly good test case for examining the language employed in early Christian communities. The article will use conceptual metaphor theory, tracing the metaphorical patterns that arise within the text to delineate possible conceptual systems. Moreover, the meanings of these cognitive models found in the Song of Moses, particularly as they relate to divine language and imagery (as well as their deployment in ecclesial practices more generally), will be deliberated upon in this essay. Keywords: Metaphors, Song of Moses, Worship, Images of God, Cognitive linguistics

Christian anthropology (from the Greek words anthrōpos [“human being”] and logos [“word” or “discourse”]) is the words or teaching concerning humanity from a biblical perspective. The term anthropology can refer generally to any study of the culture and customs of humankind, or it can refer specifically (and theologically) to the biblical teaching concerning humanity as God's creatures. In contrast to any materialistic evolutionary views, which regard chance as the origin of man, Christian anthropology bestows a preeminent foundation for man's dignity as a special creation of God. The relationship of mankind to the Creator is superior since “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27). Man is created with a likeness to God; therefore, he possesses an incomparable dignity among creation. Furthermore, only humanity possesses the ability to discern and commune with God, giving humankind purpose as the result of God's remarkable design (cf. Ps. 139:14). Humankind, therefore, is morally accountable and responsible to God. Although Christian anthropology maintains that humanity is created in the image of God ( imago Dei ), the effect of sin on humanity's moral and spiritual being is total depravity. Christian anthropology also explains the nature of humanity, that is, the relationship between the immaterial (soul and/or spirit) and material (body) aspects of humankind.