What is the Image?

In this blog I hope to define what it is to be created in the image of God. One of my good friends asked me a good question over the issue of being created in the image of God. My friend said “but I have always felt that I am me, and not some other image.” It’s an interesting question as it asks whether being created in the image of God strips us of individual personality.

To answer this I would say that you are you, but what is a “You”. I would say the real you is a soul in a body. This soul must have some “form” or image that it takes on as nothing is non-physical and formless. When I say one is created in the image of God, I’m not saying you are not You. ‘Im saying that every one is an individual but our soul like powers, the abilities of rational thoughts, free will, emotions and imagination and value and worth and understanding of goodness and love come from the personal image we are reflecting. We are not them, but they are a part of our make up. We find that we have these powers which are a copy of the original image (God’s). This does not mean we are God, but it does mean we have God like finite personality traits.

In my last post on “Finding Youself” I said that when we try to eradicate the image that we are created in, we engage in eradicated ourselves. All these personality abilities can not be reduce to impersonal matter. The physical world of matter cannot produce these qualities. No scientist has shown how non-conscious matter has become conscious, or that non-intelligence can produce rational intelligent intentional meaningful acts. How matter or brain states can be “Of” or “About’ something, of which thoughts are. Also matter is not moral or responsible in character. The simple truth is that the impersonal will not produce the personal. If we are to believe the story of evolution that we have evolved from impersonal matter then we have many gaps, which just cannot be answered. And if one follows its conclusions then we have no reason to believe that our thoughts are rational or free (as shown is my blog “Atheism and the Illusion of free will). The only source that can explain our personality is the original absolute personality the creator of the universe, God.