What Is the “Image of God” and Should I Care?

July 10, 2012 in Uncategorized with 12 Comments

When you look at me, you see God.

Did I get your attention? That’s a rather dramatic claim, isn’t it? Most people would immediately reject such an incredible statement–especially anyone who has ever met me. I can be a jerk at times, I look kinda funny, and I make a lot of mistakes. I’m sure people think about a lot of things when they look at me, but I doubt that God is one of them (unless they’re using “God” in a less-than-appropriate manner).

Yet, at the very beginning of the biblical narrative, we find just such an audacious claim: ‘God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them’ (Gen. 1.27). Many of us have, perhaps, grown so comfortable with this verse and the claims that it makes for the nature and identity of human persons that we no longer recognize the fabulous nature of this assertion. At the beginning of a work clearly committed to belief in a God who is invisible and cannot be–indeed, should not be–depicted by images, and who transcends human understanding, God himself declares that he will image himself in finite, physical, and imperfect human beings.

Wow. That should get your attention.

But what does it mean? That’s been the real debate for centuries. And it’s one that I’d like to explore for a bit. So I’m going to start a series on the image of God–or, of you’d like to sound highly educated, the imago Dei.

I can’t say for sure how this series will play out. But here’s what I have in mind at the moment. I’ll update this list as the series goes along. So feel free to bookmark this post if you’d like to follow the series.

  1. 5 Reasons the Image of God Is Ambiguous
  2. 6 Things We Can All Agree on about the Image of God
  3. Humans Aren’t Hamsters, But the “Image” Is More Than That
  4. “Image” Is a Verb: Finding the image in human function
  5. Sex Is Natural, Sex Is Good: Finding the image in human relationships
  6. When in Doubt, Pick “All of the Above”
  7. There’s a God in There! Moving toward a conclusion on the “image of God”
  8. Personal Presence: Another Step toward the Image of God
  9. The Image Is a Story

About Marc Cortez: Theology Prof and Dean at Western Seminary, husband, father, & blogger, who loves theology, church history, ministry, pop culture, books, and life in general.

All Posts by  |  Twitter  |  Facebook

Trackbacks/Pingbacks:

  1. Humans Aren’t Hamsters, But the “Image” Is More Than That | Everyday Theology - July 24, 2012

    [...] exploring what it means to be made in the image of God. (See the whole series here.) And, like many difficult questions, your starting point makes all the difference. If you start [...]

  2. “Image” Is a Verb | Everyday Theology - July 31, 2012

    [...] we work our way through our series on the image of God, the “structural” approach tries to explain the image like the first hammer definition. [...]

  3. Sex Is Natural, Sex Is Good: The Image of God as “Relational” | Everyday Theology - August 14, 2012

    [...] as we continue our discussion of the image of God, it should come as no surprise that some have considered the possibility that sexuality lies at the [...]

  4. When In Doubt, Pick All of the Above: Another Approach to the Image | Everyday Theology - August 23, 2012

    [...] been working our way through a series on the image of God. We’ve seen that this is a debated concept, and we’ve discussed three major approaches [...]

  5. There’s a God in There! Moving toward a conclusion on the “image of God” | Everyday Theology - August 27, 2012

    [...] does it mean to be created “in the image of God”? Over the last few posts, we’ve explored that question and raised some concerns about each of the major approaches. [...]

  6. So What Does the Image Mean? | Everyday Theology - September 11, 2012

    [...] For the last few weeks, we’ve wrestled with exactly what this challenging and important passage means. And today I’d like to wrap things up. [...]

  7. A Job That Matters: Taking the Image of God to Work | Everyday Theology - September 20, 2012

    [...] significant than that? [We've been exploring what it means to be made in the image of God. In the first half of our series, we focused on what "image of God" means in the Bible. Now we're turning our attention to whether [...]

  8. More Human, Less Human: Images of God in a Broken World | Everyday Theology - September 24, 2012

    [...] of God. [We've been exploring what it means to be made in the image of God. In the first half of our series, we focused on what "image of God" means in the Bible. Now we're turning our attention to whether [...]

  9. An Image, an Idol, and an Irritated Iguana | Everyday Theology - September 25, 2012

    [...] the image of God continues, something that we’ve been exploring in our series on “What Is an Image and Why Should I Care?“ But this time, it’s happening on another site. Here’s the beginning of my [...]

  10. Image of God at the Kitchen Table | Everyday Theology - October 2, 2012

    [...] imaging God. Together. [We've been exploring what it means to be made in the image of God. In the first half of our series, we focused on what "image of God" means in the Bible. Now we're turning our attention to whether [...]

  11. Difference, Division, and the Image of God | Everyday Theology - October 15, 2012

    [...] that’s enough. [We've been exploring what it means to be made in the image of God. In the first half of our series, we focused on what "image of God" means in the Bible. Now we're turning our attention to whether [...]

  12. Bringing the Image of God to a Conclusion | Everyday Theology - November 5, 2012

    [...] What Is an Image and Should I Care? [...]

Leave a Reply:

Gravatar Image