Detailing the Image of God
Reflections on the 2025 Pusey House Conference
We read in Genesis, that great foundational narrative of our world, that:
26 …God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion…over all the earth,… 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1)
1In the day that God created man, in the image (selem) and likeness (demuth) of God made he them; 2 male and female created he them; and blessed them… (Genesis, 5)
Yet, of or in what, did this image and likeness comprise, and insofar as it was later impaired after the Fall in consequence of sin, how is that image and likeness to be restored?
No less than twenty-one scholars were invited to address the extensive and deep theological terrain thus brought into view, (see the list below) at the Annual Pusey House Conference, which I was able to attend this last week in Oxford, held under the title: Restoring the Image: Creation, Salvation and the Human Person.
At base, Genesis seems to entail that each of us, as a human being expressly created by God in his image, is endowed with a unique personal nature and capacity, and that we are further called to live within and into God’s likeness. To say this, however, is but the prelude to a cascade of entailed theological concepts which have over millennia posed many challenges to our understanding, beginning with the consequences of sin and failure to be as we ought.
Genesis reminds us deeply that, as free creatures, we are able to live or not to live in a way compatible with the image of God in us. That is to say, we can choose to reject God’s gift of life and God’s call to pattern our lives on the divine perfection. We can thereby fail to lead and have the good life which God desires and wills for us. Insofar as we have done this, a great challenge is then placed before us in consequence – as it has been ever since the Garden of Eden for Fallen humanity as a whole – namely how to restore the image of God which we have fractured within us.
If indeed our true vocation entails that, ultimately, we “must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5, 48) then it is nothing short of essential to understand first what is needful about who or what God is in order for us to fulfill that vocation. Second, we must seek to understand the relations that do or should hold between God and his creatures in order that; and thirdly, we can apprehend truly who or what we are ourselves. Only after this can we hope to see that which we are called to emulate and embrace, both within our own lives and in relation to others, first in terms of salvation and then in the practical and ethical obligations of loving our neighbor as ourselves.
All this falls within the context of the cosmic drama of creation and redemption in Christ, which is the heart of Christianity, it brings out too the vast significance of how and what we can understand, of what we predicate of the transcendent God who, as such, is alone adequate to be the source of all creation outside himself.
All these dimensions, together with their profound metaphysical commitments, must shape how we as Christians distinctively understand our own nature and identity. Genesis makes clear that this identity is caught up in relation to – and stands in some profound way within the image of God’s own nature and identity, as indeed it stands in relation to God’s life with others too – something which brings us in the light of the New Testament to the mystery that is the Divine Trinity.
In other words, looked at theologically – as the human condition requires if it is to be understood – each of us is created in God’s image (eikon, imago) in a unique sense, which pertains to what is unique about us as humans who are, as such, called to exist in God’s likeness (homoiosis, similitude) whereby, eschatologically, we are each called to Communion with God as our telos. But what does understanding this, as a task of theological anthropology mean and entail?
Among the many and intense historical, philosophical, and theological debates that have arisen as successive generations have grappled with how the concept of the imago Dei should best be understood, the legacy of Augustine has been especially profound. Yet his own thought seems to have evolved over time and resulted in at least three successive interpretations.
In his early writings (c. 386-400 AD) the imago Dei is understood as an extrinsic telos or goal, oriented towards the Son of God, an approach that would seem to echo the Neoplatonic idea of ascent towards the image of God. In what might be called Augustine’s middle writings (c. 401-412), the image of God is viewed as an intrinsic capacity for loving God that can however be lost and regained. While in his later writings (c. 413-430), the imago Dei is understood as an inherent capacity for loving God that persists in human nature.
As Matthew Puffer [1] and others have pointed out, these evolving interpretations on the part of Augustine greatly complicated subsequent debates. They need to be kept especially in mind as later and contemporary discussions have increasingly sought to substitute almost as an equivalent (under an implicit secular pressure, to be sure) the concept of human dignity for that of being made in the image of God. The profound ways in which later interpretations have massively varied is made somewhat clear when looked at through the specific dimension of their variously extrinsic or intrinsic understanding of the image of God. A point which three different cases can briefly illustrate.
The dignity of man for the great Renaissance figure, Pico della Mirandola, for example, was very much not something intrinsic, but instead a particularly high and even god-like status to which humans can aspire.
In this perspective as presented in his famous “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” what is unique about human beings becomes, not that we have this dignity as such, but rather that through the liberal arts we are capable of striving toward and eventually attaining its likeness.
Arguably, this is analogous to the image of God in Augustine’s early and most Platonic writings where the imago Dei is not what we are by nature, or something we inherently possess, but is rather an aspiration and image into which we as initially indeterminate beings may yet strive to conform ourselves.
In sharp contrast, Martin Luther, in his Lectures on Genesis of 1535, echoes Augustine’s later (middle) view of the image of God as intrinsic but not inherent, as something lost through sin and the Fall but which can potentially be restored even though as he puts it, “We cannot have an adequate knowledge of what that image of God was which was lost through sin in Paradise” (Lectures on Genesis, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, vol. 1 of Luther’s Works Saint Louis, 1958, §42, p.60-61). This rejects the last period view that Augustine found in his De trinitate, where Augustine argues that the image of God is in fact never lost.
When it comes to how such views relate to the concept of human dignity, a profound impact is surely a risk.
Is the imago Dei and human dignity something that we merely come into but do not of ourselves, as such, possess? Is this not the implication of the upwardly realised eschatology of Mirandola. And if so, what does that entail for those who fail to become enlightened – what kind of sub-class status do they occupy?
On the other hand, is there not a grave risk in the Lutheran perspective too, that the notion of human dignity lacks stable roots? Might not in consequence, the later concept of rights be equally fragile and thus left contingent and potentially forfeit in the face of error and sin (and even be held as rightly lost in consequence of a negative judicial judgement for example)?
When we turn to Aquinas, we find an account of the image of God which seems closest to Augustine’s last approach, as set out in his De trinitate.
Aquinas thus argues that the image of God, in us, is the rational soul’s natural capacity for judgment, choice, and action in accordance with that choice – an approach which clearly seems to render the overall view as ultimately cognitive.[2]
There is however much nuance to be explored here (which cannot be done in this note). But for now, it can be said nonetheless that, while it is natural to conclude that for St Thomas the imago Dei as an inherent property or quality of the intellect, there is arguably still room to see the divine image as open in each person to the wider project that is the journey of their soul through life.
Aquinas’ analysis moreover includes other features that preclude a straightforward equation of the divine image with a readily definable property of human being – as when he suggests that the imago Dei is as much a matter of divine grace as of human potential.
The image of God has ultimately also to be understood thus it seems in relation to the act of God in Christ calling human beings to participation in the life of the Trinity.
From this perspective, therefore, it is embedded in this life as an as yet incomplete framework. Such a seemingly radical understanding of St Thomas is arguably further supported by his view that the divine image should be understood as a state that is realized in the concrete act of knowing and loving God, rather than as a purely passive capacity of human nature. All this highlights the temporal character of human knowing in a way that helps to situate the imago Dei within the wider context of salvation, in which we are called to accept God’s claiming us in Christ.
Taken as a whole, this rich domain clearly has great potential for practical as well as theological and spiritual importance.
Even this brief discussion has made this clear. The way in which we understand the imago Dei will have a very direct impact upon our understanding of how we can ground not only that concept, but also its putative cognate of human dignity.
What we mean by and what weight we can give to human dignity must connect to our understanding of human nature and its relation to the highly contested terrain of human freedom. Is human nature a threat to human freedom such that we should try to change our view of human nature, or is human freedom something we can come to understand best in the light of the Christian view of creation and our true telos within the redemption of Christ?
[1] See, M. Puffer, “Human Dignity after Augustine’s ‘Imago Dei’: On the Sources and Uses of Two Ethical Terms” in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Spring / Summer 2017, Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 65-82; as also in regard to the transposition of the concept of human dignity: Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, London, 2002; Pope Francis, Laudato si, May 24, 2015; and Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni, The Sharia and Islamic Criminal Justice in Time of War and Peace, Cambridge University Press, 2014 and in particular within that volume, “The Protection of Life and Human Dignity”, pp 95-102. See also Jürgen Habermas, “Pre-Politicai Foundations of the Democratic Constitutional State?”, in Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger, The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion, ed. Florian Schuller, trans. Brian McNeill (San Francisco, 2006; Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs, Princeton University Press, 2008; Jeremy Waldron, “The Image of God: Rights, Reason, and Order,” in, Christianity and Human Rights: An Introduction, ed. John Witte Jr. and Frank S. Alexander Cambridge University Press, 2011; Ruth Macklin, “Dignity Is a Useless Concept: It Means No More Than Respect for Persons or Their Autonomy,” BMJ 327, 2003; and Steven Pinker, “The Stupidity of Dignity”, in New Republic, May 28, 2008; Martha Nussbaum, “Human Dignity and Political Entitlements,” in, Human Dignity and Bioethics: Essays Commissioned by the President’s Council on Bioethics, ed. Edmund Pellegrino, Notre Dame, 2009.
[2] Identifying the imago Dei with a property of the mind can be found from the time of Philo onwards (See his De opificio mundi , 69, in Philo, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1929), down to the twentieth century and such figures as Reinhold Niebuhr, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Karl Rahner, for all of whom human distinctiveness is located in a basically cognitive capacity for self-transcendence.
Speakers at the Pusey House Conference 2025:
Gary Anderson, Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Thought, University of Notre Dame;
John Behr, Regius Professor of Humanity, University of Aberdeen;
Joanna Collicutt, sometime Clinical Psychologist in the NHS and Director of the MA Programme in the Psychology of Religion at Heythrop College, University of London, and Lecturer at Rippon College, Cuddesdon;
David Curry, Anglican Priest and Tutor in Nova Scotia , former Priest Associate of the Church of the Advent, Boston, MA.
Andrew Davison, Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford.
Paul Dominiak, Senior Tutor and Fellow of Jesus College and Lecturer in the Divinity Faculty, Cambridge;
Mark Edwards, Professor of Early Christian Studies, University of Oxford and Tutor of Christ Church;
Jennifer Frey, Inaugural Dean of the Honors College and Professor of Philosophy, The University of Tulsa, and Fellow of the Institute of Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America;
Malcolm Guite, Poet, Emeritus Chaplain, Girton College, Cambridge;
Joshua Horden, Professor of Christian Ethics and Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford;
Chris Kugler, Assistant Professor of New Testament, Houston Christian University, (currently being translated to Baylor University);
Andrew Louth, Professor Emeritus of Patristic and Byzantine Studies, Durham University;
Pia Matthews, Dean of Studies and Tutor in Moral Theology at Allan Hall, Seminary of the Archdiocese of Westminster and Senior Lecturer at St Mary’s University, Twickenham;
Grant McAskill, Kirby Laing Chair of New Testament Exegesis, University of Aberdeen;
Aidan Nichols, OP, of Priory of St Michael the Archangel in Cambridge. Sometime John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford, Emeritus lecturer in dogmatics and ecumenics at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas, Rome , as also in Cambridge;
Simon Oliver, Van Mildert Professor of Divinity, Durham University;
Michele Schumacher, Docent, University of Fribourg, Switzerland;
Alexis Torrance, Archbishop Demetrios Associate Professor of Byzantine Theology, University of Notre Dame;
George Westhaver, Principal of Pusey House and Fellow of St Cross College;
Thomas Joseph White, OP, Rector Magnificus, The Pontifical University of St Thomas (the Angelicum) Rome;
Judith Wolfe, Professor of Philosophical Theology, University of St Andrews.
It was an especial pleasure during the course of the Conference to be able to meet and catch up again with The Rt Revd Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.
Lord Carey used to head my World Economic Forum West Islamic Dialogue work and, as he recalled, we shall soon have known each other for thirty years!