THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN - Tyndale House

54 TYNDALE BULLETIN
respects be unlike its original. 2 Yet this limiting aspect of bibli-
cal anthropology is hardly to be recognized as an important
element in the 'image' doctrine, which itself points unequivo-
cally to the dignity and godlikeness of man. It is the context
of the 'image' doctrine that conveys the complementary view
of human nature: that man is 'made' in the image of God, that
is, that he is God's creature, subject to the overlordship of his
Maker. Genesis 1, with its overriding emphasis on the uncon-
ditional freedom of God's sovereignty, leaves no doubt that man
is a creature of God at the same time as he is 'in the image of
God'.
Yet even if the essential meaning of the image is clear, namely
that man's splendour is his likeness to God, we still need to
know in what respect man is like God. Obviously the fact that
he is 'made' in the image of God, that is, that he is a creature,
imposes limitations upon the range and degree of his similari-
ties to God. What these limitations are and what the precise
meaning of the 'image' is will be the subject of our enquiry
in this paper. Only by considering what meaning such a
phrase could have had to the author of Genesis 1, and not at all
by working from general philosophical, religious, or even
biblical indications of the likeness of man and God, can we
discover in what exact sense we may use the term if we wish
to expound the content of the biblical revelation.
I. THE HISTORY OF INTERPRETATION OF THE IMAGE
OF GOD
It has proved all too easy in the history of interpretation for this
exceedingly open-ended term 'the image of God' to be pressed
into the service of contemporary philosophical and religious
thought. Karl Barth has shown in his survey of the history of
the doctrine how each interpreter has given content to the
concept solely from the anthropology and theology of his own
age. 3 For Ambrose, the soul was the image; for Athanasius,
rationality, in the light of the Logos doctrine; for Augustine,
under the influence of trinitarian dogma, the image is to be
seen as the triune faculties of the soul, memoria, intellectus,
2
So T. Nöldeke, ZAW 17 (1898) 186; N. W. Porteous, Interpreter's Dictionary
of the Bible (hereafter IDB) II, Abingdon Press, New York/Nashville (1964) 684a.
3
K. Barth, Church Dogmatics (hereafter CD) III/I, Clark, Edinburgh (1958)
192ff.