Imaging God: A Theological Answer to the Anthropological Question?

Although official Roman Catholic teaching affirms the concept of evolution as a convincing theory in order to explain the biological origin of different life forms, there is still a strong insistence on an “ontological gap” between human beings and all other creatures. This paper investigates how best to interpret that gap while still affirming human evolution. Drawing on medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas, I seek to uncover the influence of Aristotelian ideas on the rational soul. I will argue for the crucial importance of divine grace in consideration of divine image‐bearing bearing so that while other animals share in the likeness of God, only humans, like angels, bear God's image. Such an approach does not provide any justification for the denigration of other creatures. Rather, the possibility of a further transformation of human nature, deification, and thus into the likeness of God depends on Christ as the one who bears the image of God perfectly, and the Spirit, who enables such a transformation in human subjects.

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 83%

God's Image and Likeness in Humans and Other Animals: Performative Soul‐making and Graced Nature

Deane‐Drummond¹

2012

“…As Alistair McFadyen has suggested, the doctrine of the image of God might be understood performatively and indicatively (McFadyen 2016, 120; cf. McFadyen 2012): not as communicating something static about humans, but something active and dynamic. Our nature as humans, including our sexed and gendered nature, is not over‐and‐done‐with, and cannot be invoked independent of the context in which the invocation is happening and the human life is being lived out.…”

Section: Christianity and Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transformative Creatures: Theology, Gender Diversity, and Human Identity

Cornwall¹

2022

Gender transition may be figured as part of a broader creaturely process of being partners in our own becoming. Gender transition is explored through the lenses of transformation (including comparisons with theosis and with religious conversion) and neurodiversity. Humans are transformative creatures; trans and gender-variant people, like others, have the power to curate their own identities and are on a journey toward perfection. Our nature as humans, including our sexed and gendered nature, is not overand-done-with. In this sense, our active building and shaping of our identities and body-stories is not a rejection of a divine blueprint for human existence, nor an exercise of illegitimate human hubris, but rather a licit creaturely form of generativity.

“…Relational accounts, to give one example, have sometimes appealed to the doctrine of the Trinity, the image of God being reflected in human interaction. Here, the triune perichoresis of divine persons is mirrored by relations of freedom and love in society (see Grenz and McFadyen ). Such a shift in perspective has several undoubted advantages.…”

Section: Alternative Interpretations Of the Imago Deimentioning

confidence: 99%

HUMANS CREATED ACCORDING TO THE IMAGO DEI: AN ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL

Fergusson¹

2013

Classical approaches to the idea of the imago Dei in the theology of creation have tended to postulate a distinctive element of the human being not found in other creatures, with the possible exception of angels. This is often combined with attempts to use the imago concept as an organizing principle within Christian theology. Such approaches are now problematic not merely on account of their exegetical findings, but for methodological reasons. In light of recent exegesis, the imago Dei in Genesis 1:26–27 should be seen as a signifier of human life under God, rather than a single determining characteristic or essential attribute. Following the wisdom literature, the imago Dei can be understood, in a more diffused manner, as represented by human persons over long periods of evolutionary history in their characteristic quotidian forms of life, thus signifying the providential ordering of human life everywhere. The recent work of David Kelsey on theological anthropology is engaged in this context.