(I won't typically be writing on Christian doctrine as I feel there are others who are far more qualified and have extensively gone over it.)
I felt the need to write this because two young men made this claim. And it leads into the more important question - what does it mean to be made in God's image?
The incredibly insightful conversation went like this,
"The Bible says that God created man in man's image." - Two young skeptics
"No it doesn't. It says God created man in His image."- Christian
"No, it says God made man in man's image. Go read it." - Two young skeptics
......Silence.
I admit if I had been present for this conversation, I may have said nothing. They were being very confrontational and the natural response is get defensive. So learning to control the attitude of your response to such confrontation is really crucial to getting any meaningful discussion. If you haven't mastered that, it may be best to remain silent. Anyways, this is an incredibly easy statement to refute. You may not always be so lucky. Most challenges are harder than this.
I had never heard this claim before so I found it interesting as to why someone would think that.
After going back to Genesis and re-reading it, I still don't know how they managed to interpret it that way. After we establish what the text actually says, then the question that usually follows is, "What does it mean to be made in God's image?(imago Dei)"
Let's take a look at it.
Genesis 1:26-27 (NKJV)
"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
This seems pretty straight forward as to what image man was created in. The text restates it several times to make it perfectly clear. Perhaps if they only read the very beginning of verse 27,"So God created man in His own image...", they could mistaken the pronoun "His" to be referring to man rather than God. However, the context of the passage makes it clear what it means. I could say, at this point, we're done and we don't need to go any further. Well, we really don't, but the Bible mentions man being made in God's image several more times. So why not?
Let's point out that "imago Dei" is Latin and means Image of God. It's a theological term that you will hear quite frequently if you are studying the doctrine of man.
The word "image" in Hebrew is "tselem."
And the word "likeness" in Hebrew is "demut."
Genesis 5:1(NKJV)
"This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness (demut) of God."
Genesis 9:6 (NKJV) (Concerning Capital Punishment)
“Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image (tselem) of God, He made man."
As we can see image and likeness are used interchangeably.
For example, in James 3:9 (NKJV) (Concerning controlling the tongue,)
"With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude (eikon) of God"
Many versions say "likeness" of God, which is a synonym of similitude. The word is actually "eikon" in Greek and it means image. This shows the translators seeing likeness and image as interchangeable.
So we don't really need to go further with this. We can see the Bible very clearly states that God made man in God's image. I don't want to get too deep into this doctrine. If you want to go further with this, I've provided resources below.
Now what does this mean? I was surprised when some of my christian friends actually thought this meant that God physically looks like humans.
Richard Dawkins actually posed this question to John Lennox in a debate titled, "Has Science Buried God?" (It's a great debate by the way and I've linked it below.)
Richard Dawkins asks,
"What on earth does that mean? In His image? He looks like us?"
Lennox responds,
"No, no. That we have personality, that..it's an anthropomorphism."
Lennox goes on to explain that we are persons and we are personal.
Dr. William Lane Craig also addresses this question in a bit more detail in response to a question posed to him on his website.
"My Old Testament colleagues tell me that the notion of man as God’s image, in the Ancient Near Eastern context, likely refers to man as God’s representative regent on Earth. Now in order to fulfill such a function, man would have to possess certain properties inherent to personhood, like self-consciousness, rationality, freedom, and the ability to stand in personal relationships. These are the sort of properties which theologians have traditionally identified as constitutive of God’s image in man. These are not properties belonging to man’s hominid body but to his soul." (Q&A #316)
I hope this was helpful. ;D
References and Resources
Doctrine of Man Part 1 (Addresses image of God towards the end)- Dr. William Lane Craig
Doctrine of Man Part 2 (Goes further into explaining the image of God) - Dr. William Lane Craig
Q&A #316 Evolutionary Creationism and the Image of God in Mankind - Dr. William Lane Craig
Has Science Buried God? Dawkins Vs. Lennox - Richard Dawkins asking the question about what it means to be made in the image of God can be seen at 54:18.
