Theological Anthropology and Sin

Modern developments in evolutionary and cognitive science have increasingly challenged the view that humans are distinctive creatures. In theological anthropology, this view is germane to the doctrine of the image of God. To address these challenges, imago Dei theology has shifted from substantial toward functional and relational interpretations: the image of God is manifested in our divine mandate to rule the world, or in the unique personal relationships we have with God and with each other. If computers ever attain human-level Artificial Intelligence, such imago Dei interpretations could be seriously contested. This article reviews the recent shifts in theological anthropology and reflects theologically on the questions raised by the potential scenario of human-level AI. It argues that a positive outcome of this interdisciplinary dialogue is possible: theological anthropology has much to gain from engaging with AI. Comparing ourselves to intelligent machines, far from endangering our uniqueness, might instead lead to a better understanding of what makes humans genuinely distinctive and in the image of God.

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

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.

This enlightening analysis of the image of a cruel God sustained by conservative Christianity reveals how this image formed, the psychological effects of this concept, and the ways in which it has guided religious individuals–in both positive and negative ways. This book is born, in large measure, as a result of a writing by contemporary theologian J. Harold Ellens. In his essay "Religious Metaphors Can Kill" from Praeger's The Destructive Power of Religion, Ellens espouses that theological doctrines are rooted in a model of God that determines all the aspects of those doctrines, and strongly influences the cultures into which it is inserted. Conservative Christianity in the Western world, says Ellens, has at its center the image of a cruel and wrathful God. The juridical atonement theory of Anselm is a result of such an image of God, and has an important role in justifying the resort to violence in human interaction. Starting from these considerations, Cruel God, Kind God: How Images of God Shape Belief, Attitude, and Outlook analyzes three general topics: how two very different kinds of Christianities have emerged from these disparate images of God; how the doctrines of "original sin," "the plan of salvation," and "penal substitution" can be explained by psychological factors, as can the wide dissemination and acceptance of these doctrines; and how the image of a cruel God affects mental health, atrophies personality, and produces guilt and shame.

In the lives of holy women that constitute Part III of the Livre de la Cité des Dames (1405), Christine de Pizan (1365-c.1431) interpreted 1 Corinthians 11.1-15 and composed a theological anthropological notion of the human person that affirms that women and men alike are made in the image of God and the glory of God. In this passage of his letter to the Christian community in Corinth, the Apostle Paul taught on theological anthropology and ethics. Christine placed herself within the Augustinian tradition of scriptural interpretation and read the Pauline verses allegorically. Christine reordered and rewrote the lives of women saints in order to make the case for women as glorifying God, meaning both being the glory of God (i.e., representing God) and praising God. In the context of medieval intertextuality, Christine's descriptions of hair, head-coverings, and fathers each add to the author's biblical interpretation and theological argumentation. Christine's argument for women as created in the image of God and the glory of God is both about the basic relationships in the order of creation (Creator and created human being and human being and human being) and the capacities of human beings for intellect, virtue, and apostolic work in the world including teaching. Her exegetical and theological argument is inseparably anthropological, ecclesiological, and political.

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...

Theological Anthropology for the World of Today: 1 Gaudium et Spes 22

Over the course of the nineteenth century, transatlantic intellectuals slowly revised theological anthropology, or the doctrine of humanity seen in light of the divine. Gradually, elite discourse deposed humanity from its lofty estate and centering it within a naturalistic account wherein likeness to animal fauna became the central evaluative lens. Durst argues that theological anthropologies across the disciplines increasingly shifted focus away from classic confessional themes such as the soul and the image of God, and toward the methods of natural theology and intuitionism. This occurred in the form of challenges to theology in biology, phrenology, transcendentalism, anti-theology, Christian socialism, intuitionism, and religious experience. The human soul and human sinfulness also found a revised articulation in terms increasingly shaped by the cultural authority of science. An ascendant subjective approach to human nature emerged whereby religious experiences, not theological claims to truth, assumed prominence as the central measures of religious life.

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.

The advent of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing represents a transformative moment in biotechnology, enabling genome editing with unprecedented precision, scale, and accessibility. This scientific breakthrough holds genuine promise for curing heritable diseases and advancing personalized medicine, yet it also introduces profound moral and theological challenges. This paper offers a Christian bioethical analysis of CRISPR through the lens of the imago Dei, drawing from the moral reasoning of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. It contrasts utilitarian and autonomy-based frameworks in contemporary bioethics with a theological anthropology that grounds human dignity in the divine image rather than in genetic perfection or functional capacity. After presenting the scientific foundations of gene editing, the paper examines key ethical tensions-therapy versus enhancement, eugenic reasoning, the destruction of embryos, and intergenerational responsibility. Finally, it proposes a theological framework informed by virtue ethics, the principle of double effect, and a Christ-centered vision of human flourishing. The goal is not to reject gene editing categorically but to cultivate moral wisdom that upholds the sanctity of life, respects human limitation, and directs scientific vocation toward healing and justice.

Antiphon 18.1 (2014) 69–105 The Nuptial Mystery, the Sacrament of Marriage and John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them David H. Delaney Introduction The pre-papal manuscript Man and Woman He Created Them1 of Blessed John Paul II (to be canonized by Pope Francis on April 27, 2014) is a compelling theological anthropology that opens new pathways for investigating a broad range of theological topics and for showing their unity. One obvious topic is the sacrament of marriage, which, as a sacrament in the service of communion , is simultaneously a theme around which the unity of Catholic teaching can be expounded in an evangelical manner. John Paul II’s intellectual project is variously characterized as one of Lublin Thomism, Trinitarian personalism, Schelerian phenomenology, and Communio theology, among others. All of these capture aspects of his thinking, but I would argue that his intellectual foundation is first grounded in the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas. He situates every other philosophical and theological influence within Thomas’ metaphysical framework. In much the same way that St. Thomas integrated Aristotelian metaphysics into the 13th century Christian patrimony, John Paul II likewise incorporated many new lines of thought into the received tradition, and this is what we encounter in his catecheses on the embodied human person. With Thomist metaphysics as his foundation, he integrates new methods (foremost phenom1 Commonly called the “theology of the body” after he delivered it in the form of 129 Wednesday Audience catecheses from September 1979 to November 1984: John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Michael Waldstein (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006). 70 David H. Delaney enology as a tool of inquiry) and new insights (e.g., from the various schools of personalism) in order to explicate the truths of the Catholic faith to an age that has seemingly lost its ability to receive them through the classical manner of presenting them. Reading Man and Woman from the above hermeneutical perspective opens one to the profound insights John Paul II unearths. John Paul II wants to help man to rediscover himself, his greatness. He intends to provide an anthropology for a contemporary audience and so he goes to divine revelation to better understand who and what man is. Beginning with the insight that the doctrine of the Trinity reveals a Communio Personarum, a Communion of Three Persons, he considers anew the meaning of man created in the image of God. Returning to the Genesis creation narratives and using the analogia entis, he ponders the revelation that man is created in God’s image as male and female, and what this means for the human person. This becomes his personal approach to the theology of the nuptial mystery that has recently arisen from within the Communio school. But before continuing this line of thought, I should say a few words about the nuptial mystery.2 I. The Nuptial Mystery Tradition The Scottish Dominican Fergus Kerr of the English Dominican Province reluctantly points to nuptial mysticism as the theology that has become dominant in the new millennium, especially in Catholic ecclesiology and theological anthropology.3 The nuptial mystery marks much of John Paul II’s teaching, and we also see it present in his successor. Even if it is not a central theme in his theological work, as the prefect of the Congregation for the 2 It is not possible in this context to do more than provide a broad sketch of this theme. For a more detailed treatment of the nuptial mystery see Angelo Cardinal Scola, The Nuptial Mystery (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2005). For a systematic treatment of the Scriptural foundations of the nuptial mystery, see the forthcoming book by Brant Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom: Seeing Christ and the Cross through Ancient Jewish Eyes (New York: Image Books, 2014). 3 See Fergus Kerr, O.P., Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians: From Neoscholasticism to Nuptial Mysticism (Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing , 2007) viii, 201. Kerr is clearly not happy about this, pointing out numerous concerns with this state of affairs. 71 The Nuptial Mystery, the Sacrament of Marriage and John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them...

Three basic themes played indispensable roles in Reinhold Niebuhr’s engagements with economic issues: (1) the foundational importance of a theological anthropology for his critical assessment of complex social, economic, and political issues; (2) his focus on two clashing theories of economic order: Adam’s Smith’s doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism and Karl Marx’s revolutionary vision for the collective ownership of property within a centralized state system; and (3) his endorsement of a realistic yet viable alternative to these two classic theories, one that involved pragmatic and incremental steps toward fostering economic justice through the public regulation and oversight of a free-market economy. These pragmatic measures included allocating government resources for vitally important public goods and services at federal, state, and local levels. Though Niebuhr was initially drawn to some form of democratic socialism, he embraced this incremental strategy within the context of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s implementation of his New Deal agenda. My analysis of Niebuhr’s contributions concludes with attention to new challenges confronting contemporary quests for economic justice in a post–New Deal era, one marked Soundings, Vol. 95, No. 4, 2012 Copyright © 2012 The Pennsylvania state University, University Park, Pa di sc us sio n diussion

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.

This paper argues that the most significant challenge artificial intelligence poses to theological anthropology is not ontological but epistemic. Rather than asking whether machines can think, feel, or bear the image of God, this paper redirects attention to the prior question of what happens to the human when core epistemic capacities, judgment, discernment, interpretive authority, and moral reasoning are progressively delegated to computational systems. Drawing on the concept of epistemic automation, understood as the systematic transfer of knowledge-producing functions from human agents to algorithmic processes, this paper develops a threefold analytical framework. First, it distinguishes epistemic authority from ontological status as the more productive locus for theological anthropological inquiry. Second, it introduces the distinction between fluency and understanding as an anthropological boundary condition that AI renders newly visible. Third, it analyses delegated cognition as a form of agency deformation with theological significance. The paper concludes that theological anthropology must move beyond reactive commentary on AI and instead generate a theory of the human under conditions of epistemic transformation. The argument engages constructively with philosophy of technology, social epistemology, and Christian theological traditions to offer a framework applicable across confessional boundaries.

Who am I? What does it mean that I am human? Everybody asks these searching questions, but what is the Orthodox Church's answer? Orthodox reflection on what it is to be human begins with Genesis 1:26, 'Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”.' Theological anthropology, that is the study of humanity in the presence of God, begins by asking what it is about each human person that manifests the divine image and likeness. First of all, the Fathers usually distinguish between the image and likeness. The image names those Godlike characteristics with which we began, such as rationality, free choice, perception and the capacity to develop an excellent character. These characteristics form the foundation of our human existence. By choosing to use them wisely, we can then acquire the divine likeness, namely perception of and communion with God, actualisation of all the virtues, and eternal life. Though the two concepts are inseparable, the image is static and the likeness is dynamic: we can become more and more like God over time.