Quotes About Imago Dei

I doubt if you can see the image of God (Imago Dei) in your fellow humans if you cannot first see it in rudimentary form in stones, in plants and flowers, in strange little animals, in bread and wine, and most especially cannot honor this objective divine image in yourself.

Carrying such a tension of the opposites is like a Crucifixion. We must be as one suspended between the opposites, a painful state to bear. But in such a state of suspension the grace of God is able to operate within us. The problem of our duality can never be resolved on the level of the ego; it permits no rational solution. But where there is consciousness of a problem, the Self, the Imago Dei within us can operate and bring about an irrational synthesis of the personality.

Opponents of this view often point out that it is not rooted in an exegesis of Genesis 1:26–28, the central biblical text that discusses the imago Dei. Indeed, it is frequently argued that the view that the imago Dei refers to the soul is more influenced by Greek philosophy than by Scripture. More specifically, it is argued that the traditional emphasis on reason as one of the hallmarks of the imago Dei is a distinctly Hellenistic, not Hebraic, notion.

These observations strongly support the understanding that "us" refers to God in his Triune nature, and therefore, that the imago Dei refers to our relationality. Like God, we are created to live life as an "us," not just as an "I." But

Disciples of Jesus do not mimic Jesus; we manifest him. We are personators of Christ, not impersonators. Christ's presence in our lives is more "thereness" than "likeness," more "withness" than "whatness." Jesus made our creation in the imago Dei more "spit" than "image" (as in "spit 'n' image").

Trying to understand man without recognizing him as imago Dei is like trying to understand a bas-relief without recognizing it as a carving.