In His Image and Likeness

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In Genesis we are told that God made us in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26). This clearly is a clue as to Whom we are dealing with, since the philosopher’s God has no way of being understood other than as a being of which no being greater can be conceived (Anselm).

What are we to infer about the nature of God by examining ourselves as an “image and likeness” of God?
 
Charlemagne_III said:
In Genesis we are told that God made us in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26). This clearly is a clue as to Whom we are dealing with, since the philosopher’s God has no way of being understood other than as a being of which no being greater can be conceived (Anselm).

What are we to infer about the nature of God by examining ourselves as an “image and likeness” of God?
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I am sure you are not inferring that God, in some respects, is in the the image of humans.

When we examine our own human nature, we discover that our nature is an unique unification of the spiritual and material worlds. Because material matter does not have the power to create a spiritual soul, we reason that God the Creator is a super-natural Pure Spirit.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
In Genesis we are told that God made us in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26). This clearly is a clue as to Whom we are dealing with, since the philosopher’s God has no way of being understood other than as a being of which no being greater can be conceived (Anselm).

What are we to infer about the nature of God by examining ourselves as an “image and likeness” of God?
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I would ask instead, If God made us in His image and likeness, what is it that we can become?

I would not consider the verse of the Genesis as the starting point for metaphysical considerations in the first place. I would take it as the foundation for an ethical reflection, because it is not us who can illuminate God’s Being, but He who enlightens us and sheds light into what we can become. So, He is all loving, and we all are called to be alike.

JuanFlorencio
 
JuanFlorencio said:
I would ask instead, If God made us in His image and likeness, what is it that we can become?

JuanFlorencio
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We can become and have become, as God is, rulers of Creation. We are omnipotent masters of the planet, with the power of life and death. We can become creators, as God creates. We can become lovers, as God is a lover. We can become destroyers, as God is a destroyer.

The passage from Genesis means to me, more than anything else, that when we think of ourselves as made in the image of God, we think of ourselves as persons; and from this we can infer more than the deist philosopher can infer, which is that God is one person or three … in any case a personal God, and that is more than Einstein could infer.
 
In accordance with God’s supreme authority, we are not all-powerful as he is, despite being made in his image and likeness. However, we can, on a lesser scale, do everything that God himself does.

When in Heaven, we become sinless, and therefore, the full extent of our powers, which are currently being hindered and nullified by sin, will be made freed and made manifest.

🤷
 
Charlemagne_III said:
We can become and have become, as God is, rulers of Creation. We are omnipotent masters of the planet, with the power of life and death. We can become creators, as God creates. We can become lovers, as God is a lover. We can become destroyers, as God is a destroyer.

The passage from Genesis means to me, more than anything else, that when we think of ourselves as made in the image of God, we think of ourselves as persons; and from this we can infer more than the deist philosopher can infer, which is that God is one person or three … in any case a personal God, and that is more than Einstein could infer.
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By using the word “person” you are mixing cultures already. It would have to be done with extreme care. At any rate, that is much more than any non-christian could infer (for example, Aristotle); and the reason for that is that you would be having your foundations on faith, while they would be relying just upon their senses and their reason. Don’t ask too much from them. How could they infer, for instance, that Jesus Crist is the incarnated Verb?

And again, it wouldn’t be you the right reference to know God, but Jesus Christ, who is truly God, and truly human. What this “truly human” means you would find out by following Jesus passionately, which would imply an ethical (or supra-ethical) approach, not a metaphysical one.

Regards
JuanFlorencio
 
JuanFlorencio said:
By using the word “person” you are mixing cultures already. It would have to be done with extreme care. At any rate, that is much more than any non-christian could infer (for example, Aristotle); and the reason for that is that you would be having your foundations on faith, while they would be relying just upon their senses and their reason. Don’t ask too much from them. How could they infer, for instance, that Jesus Crist is the incarnated Verb?

Regards
JuanFlorencio
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They could not infer anything of course. That is what revelation means, to reveal what is concealed.

It would take an Aquinas to join Aristotle and revelation in supreme symbiosis.
 
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