THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN - Tyndale House

60 TYNDALE BULLETIN
vanced by Karl Barth, 31 following hints from W. Vischer 32 and
D. Bonhoeffer. 33 He finds in the text of Genesis 1:26, two
starting-points: first, the plural of Genesis 1:26, which he
considers can only be understood as a ‘summon to intra-
divine unanimity of intention and decision’; 34 that is, that
there is within God Himself a distinction between the I and
Thou. This is not a return to the old dogmatic trinitarian
interpretation, 35 but an attempt to take seriously the plural of
Genesis 1:26 and to use it positively in exegesis instead of
labouring under it as encumbrance that has to be disposed of
before the meaning of the image can be apprehended. Secondly,
that 1:27a 'Male and female he created them' must be recog-
nized as 'the definitive explanation given by the text itself of
the image of God. 36 The relation and distinction in mankind
between male and female, man and wife, corresponds to the
relation and distinction of the I and Thou in God himself. There
is thus between God and man an analogic relationis; God's
image in man is the reciprocal relationship of human being
with human being. 37 It thus appears that the individual man
is not the image of God, since the image comes to expression
in the 'juxtaposition and conjunction of man and man which
is that of male and female'. 38 Barth, however, when he comes to
describe the image employs a wider formulation, which refers
it to the individual man: as bearer of the image man is partner
of God Himself, capable of dealings with Him and of close
relationship with Him. He is a being whom God addresses as
Thou and makes answerable as I. 39 Thus the image describes
31
K. Barth, CD III/ 1 182-206. Barth's interpretation has been discussed at
length by J. J. Stamm in the article mentioned in n. 8 above, and in Die
Gottebenbildlichkeit des Menschen im Alten Testament, Evangelischer Verlag, Zollikon-
Zürich (1959); also by J. Konrad, Abbild und Ziel der Schöpfung. Untersuchungen zur
Exegese von Genesis 2 and 2 in Barths Kirchlicher Dogmatik III, 1, Mohr, Tübingen
(1962), especially 177-207.
32
W. Vischer, The Witness of the Old Testament to Christ I, Lutterworth, London, (1949)
48 (ET of Das Christuszeugnis des Alten Testaments (1934)).
33
D. Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, SCM, London (1959) 33-38 (ET of Schöpfung
und Fall (1933)).
34
CD III/1 182f.
35
Though the idea of a differentiated unity in God, which approximates to the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity, is nearer to the text than 'the alternative suggested
by modern exegesis in its arrogant rejection of the exegesis of the Early
Church' (ibid., 192).
36
Ibid., 195.
37
Ibid., 184f., 195f.
38
Ibid., 195.
39
Ibid., 199.