So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
Introduction
In our Circling posts (like this one) the Praxis Circle team offers educational content about the key elements of worldview analysis. There are countless definitions of worldview. Worldview analysis involves applied philosophy and theology. In addition, worldviews must be practical and useful, or they die out.
We have a PC library full of “worldview” definitions, and everybody has one (a worldview itself and a personal definition, assuming one thinks about it). In many ways, having at least one worldview is what makes us human and distinguishes us from other living beings (say, plants and animals).
One definition for worldview would be one’s “metaphysical pillars plus the metanarrative used to live according to those pillars.” Many people operate in and out of several worldviews (or even simultaneously); some without realizing it, others to their advantage when it suits.
Humanity’s most popular worldviews can have overlapping elements on a “Venn diagram,” but they also tend to be mutually exclusive in important ways at either the pillar or narrative levels (usually both). Otherwise, they’d have morphed or disappeared long ago into the graveyard of “no longer operational” worldviews. Seen any Aztecs sacrificing their neighbors lately?
On the other hand, underlying worldview knowledge fundamentals are continuously recycled in new ways with each generation. Again, there are very few fundamentally new worldviews over the last hundreds or even thousands of years. We have Aztec women today advocating that late-stage or even after birth abortion is a fundamental female right.
In this post, we’ll touch on the Abrahamic (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) metaphysical pillar, imago Dei. This is the Latin formulation with imago not capitalized to note “human person” and Dei capitalized to note God. Thus, the image of God. “Person” the new word early Christianity invented as the Roman Empire faded to express the imago Dei idea.
Of course, imago Dei isn’t a new subject for Praxis Circle. We have over thirty posts (out of 345) mentioning the phrase. In fact, we conducted a seminar on the subject in 2023 led by Julia Lloyd. That effort was a test for Zoom courses we plan to roll out in 2026 using the three Ebooks we’ve published on Worldview, Truth, and Reason, linked here.
Before moving to greater particulars on today’s subject, a few more introductory comments are needed. Our featured picture above of a Mom and her baby has been used before, specifically, in a post just prior to Election Day 2024 on Christian nationalism. It’s very similar to another PC favorite featured picture of a Dad and his baby, actually used in two other posts.
The first is on Our Personal God (third of a three-part series on God) and the other is on God is Grace (third of a three-part series on Grace). Of course, God and the possibility of Grace must be considered in any worldview.
If not already, it will soon become apparent why imago Dei is the second most important pillar of the Christian and Jewish worldviews. These worldviews are so similar in the West today, when combined with the philosophy and culture incorporated over millennia from Classical Greece and Rome, that we at Praxis Circle refer to them as one worldview, the CJC worldview (Classical Judeo-Christian). In addition, the importance of Mom, Dad, and their baby in these two pictures will also become obvious.
But we should highlight now the apparent oddness of selecting the picture of a Mom and her baby for this post on imago Dei when it prominently displays an American flag. Many would see this as quite unJewish, unChristian, unIslamic, jingoistic, and even sacrilegious.
In response, an important point we want to make: this is truly debatable for reasons we will explain here.
In other words, by the end of this post, our hope is that you’ll understand why this observation (a flag in an imago Dei illustration) would place us today at the very heart of the global and national controversy over the imago Dei worldview pillar and our political divides in America. As you’ll soon see, this potential paradox was baked into the concept’s core “In the beginning” (the pun intended . . . we will argue . . . “by God”).
What is imago Dei?
In the video at the top, one of our star PC Contributors, Dr. Robert George, explains imago Dei as the central concept of his worldview and morality. We went to Dr. George as a global Christian leader with a particular interest in natural law, a field experiencing renewal. Your time would be well-spent viewing his 1:49 video. You can also search any number of AI programs and find good to excellent summaries exploring imago Dei. Systematic Theology (2020, 1586 pages) by Wayne Gruden defines imago Dei this way: “man is like God and represents God.”
As most know, Imago Dei is a Biblical concept introduced and broadened in the two quotes from Genesis 1 and 2 at the top here. In describing God’s creation of man, Genesis 1 frames imago Dei by specific reference, and Genesis 2 offers critical elaboration.
Of course, Genesis 1 and 2 offer two complementary creation stories, the first designating man’s and woman’s spiritual connection to God (“image” or “form”), where man and woman are treated equally, and the second man’s God-chosen material connection to the world already created (“from the dust of the ground”). In sum, we get the most important CJC worldview pillar, God, wrapped up into the second man or imago Dei, all in one muddy Creation miracle.
Scripture doesn’t give a precise description of imago Dei because simple elaboration couldn’t do justice to such a “mind blowing” subject. “A full understanding of man’s likeness to God would require a full understanding of who God is . . . and of who man is [both in being and actions]. The more we know about God and man, the more similarities we will recognize and the more fully we will understand what Scripture means when it says that man is in the image of God.” (Systematic Theology, p. 568). Obviously, one needs the entire Bible (and human experience) to gain a full view of God and man’s ontology (Dei and imago Dei). From an academic standpoint, that’s largely what the Bible is all about.
At the bottom here, we offer a small sample of related Biblical quotes. Suffice it to say, human beings are more like God than anything else in creation, that God created the world for human beings and expects them to flourish, that God loves each human being and hopes for the same from them and for each other, and that he encourages us to obey his commandments and strive to be as much like Him as possible. The Bible suggests in God’s covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:6) that spilling man’s blood is spilling God’s blood.
Indeed, in every theistic worldview, forming a good, workable concept of man in relation to God might be the primary challenge of theology and philosophy. Human beings form their beliefs about God from their collective personal experiences, and different societies and cultures almost always reflect different concepts of God. It’s an ancient and increasingly modern truism today that every human being worships something, even and especially atheists.
Physical appearances aside, one would have to say the God of the Bible does frequently act like a person. Not surprising, of course. God was the one Who made us to resemble Him.
As early in the Christian Church’s history, today theologians and clergy characterize God as inscrutable, yet All-good (like His original creation), -wise, -just, -powerful (sufficient to create and sustain time, space, the world, and humanity), -knowing, -present, and -loving. Of course, the Christian God is a relational God incorporating the concept of the Trinity—God (or Father), Spirit, and Son (in order of Scriptural appearance).
One last quote from Systematic Theology is helpful:
[There are] “three major views of the image of God . . . (1) the substantive view, which identifies some particular quality of man (such as reason or spirituality) . . . (2) relational views, which hold that the image of God has to do with our interpersonal relationships . . . and (3) the functional view, which holds that the image of God has to do with the function we carry out, usually our exercise of dominion over creation.” (pp. 567 – 568)
Perhaps the main aspects distinguishing us as imago Dei from other living beings are our relationships with God and each other (#2 above), our rule or stewardship over creation (#3 above), and our consciousness, high ability to reason and love, sophisticated language capabilities, and creative or inventive potential (#1 above).
Clearly, there’s a dual nature to imago Dei often and for thousands of years described as “body and soul.” Such a division or difference in living human beings matches the apparent dual nature of existence outside each person, in reality expressed as the “natural and supernatural.” Most seem to agree on the subjective and objective as true but unverifiable. It’s equally hard to say or prove what the supernatural is. If there are differences, they could be either binary or continuous. Whatever, sometimes the supernatural does break into the natural. At the end of the day, however, most of humanity tends to believe that “this here” existence is not wholly supernatural.
Concerning God’s physicality: While God is often heard, the Bible doesn’t present God visually in this world as a “thing in itself.” This might explain modern philosophy’s tendency to separate the phenomenal from the numinous. Instead, the Bible describes many theophanies: God appearing to men and women in various “disguised” or natural ways. An early, famous case would be Moses and the burning bush, but, again, there are many. Your favorite AI app will generate a healthy list.
PC Contributor Eric Metaxas believes God came to him in this world in a dream, and Contributor Eben Alexander believes he approached God as “thing in itself” in the next world in an ADE (After Death Experience). To Eben, the supernatural world and God’s presence were more real in heaven (ultimate reality) than here in our natural world. So, God can come to us here, or we can go to Him there. Human experience produces substantial evidence of this all over the world throughout recorded time.
The Bible outlines four stages of time: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. (As Julia points out in our seminar linked above, a secular narrative of the same in simplified Marxist speak might be evolution, injustice, revolution, and utopia. These differences suggest the difference between the worldview metanarratives we call the Creator God Narrative (or Story) and the Man God Narrative, the subject of our next Circling post.)
The Christian story places imago Dei squarely in the third stage of redemption. We are after Christ (A.D.) in a new creation, waiting for restoration when God determines (and only God determines) when ultimate reality will return.
Contrary to common mischaracterization in art or parable, the Bible does not show God to look like an old man, a parent, or even a human figure per se, that is, outside the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Yet parents are clearly intended as creators of children with God through marriage and as God’s representatives of authority to families. Genesis 1:27 makes our male/female identities absolutely core to our being. No amount of science or technology can engineer this away (thank Goodness).
Among all the beautiful words Dr. George offers above, perhaps the most important are “I think that’s true.” Imago Dei is as real to him as any scientific fact or law, or as real as the dirt from which God formed man or the breath from which God brought man into life. Such a reality would include Divine revelation or morality presented throughout the Bible via commandments, covenants, events, prophecies, and promises of hope, love, and redemption (now accomplished via Christ).
In other words, to Dr. George, reason and morality are as real as matter and energy. He sees truth as one house with no disconnect between the first floor (matter/science) and second floor (spirit/morality) that other worldviews invent, only to exploit. God or the Word made reason and logic to match reality so God’s representatives would have trustworthy information. Finally, Dr. George suggests that we can go theologically, philosophically, and morally down many pathways with this critical imago Dei concept, so let’s elaborate just a bit more before we close.
Locating imago Dei in Your Worldview
In a prior Circling post, we diagrammed ten worldview pillars that all worldviews must consider in any global public square. As mentioned, this is true even if a given worldview doesn’t recognize one or several of these ten pillars. For example, in the world of today’s still countless religions, atheists must consider whether or not God exists. All honest human beings must consider the evidence together.
The ten-pillar diagram below offers the scheme with a Christian orientation. If the Bible’s important to your way of thinking, you can place imago Dei with “You” in the middle of the diagram, as shown, or in the “Human Being” pillar (meaning “anthropology” in an academic sense). Of course, God and the imago Dei concept say something about every other pillar shown.
By the end of Genesis 2, we have the full account of creation with Adam naming God’s work, Adam and Eve fully operating with God in the Garden, including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and these two humans bonding together. By the end of Genesis 3, however, hell breaks loose, literally. Genesis 3 rolls immediately into Satan, the fall of man and woman, humanity’s punishments, and Adam and Eve’s banishment from the Garden of Eden with no hope of return (without God’s help). Clearly, in Genesis 3, sin and death fully enter the world.
A major theme of Genesis 1 to 3 is that God made man and woman in his own image, yes, including being free to obey or disobey him. Freedom was an important state defining humanity in Eden, and it remains so today in the “Free World,” at least. It’s critical for human beings to continue to give each other the positive freedom God gives us, respecting His commandments. This is the central element of “The Shane Principle” (Shane meaning “God is gracious”) that Praxis Circle and many PC Contributors have outlined in the past.
However, by severely punishing Adam and Eve for disobeying Him, God made it crystal clear that we are not Him and never will be. Therefore, Human Nature (see the pillar above) is God-like, but also prone to sin and evil. Not all good like God. Again, humanity is barred from becoming God. Always imago, never Dei. Our “original sin” was wanting to be God Himself, and it remains our worst fault now. All of the Bible’s most important commandments are based on humankind’s understanding of this distinction and getting it right. The differences between God and Man were broadly understood in much of the ancient Western world outside the Jewish and Christian Mediterranean regions.
As already suggested, the imago Dei concept and the Biblical narrative take Jews, Christians, and Muslims almost immediately into the Morality pillar shown above. We’ve addressed models of morality in many Praxis Circle posts and interviews, and there are three primary models of ethics: virtue, duty, and utility.
One pursues virtue and avoids vice because it’s the right or good thing to do for its own sake with its own rewards; one does one’s duty because one owes certain behavior to another for any number of reasons; and one seeks to maximize utility by pursuing results where benefits are greatest in relation to associated costs. Sometimes, these separate models operate together almost indistinguishably to force distinctive conclusions and results. For example, in a business context, the just and wise (virtuous) option might be “to do one’s duty” to shareholders and other colleagues to maximize product quality, rather than minimize costs, because it should be a greater benefit to the business (the common good).
In any case, the Bible describes its own forms of virtue and vice through commandments and narrative situations. When humanity considers its humble-but-quite-accurate, “not-God” position in relation to the Bible’s all-virtuous and powerful Creator God, morality typically shifts to a position of duty-based ethics. Faithful believers have a duty to follow their Creator’s wishes with love and sacrifice, and such logic creates duties and rights among fellow human beings.
While ethical analysis is getting well beyond the scope of this post, we should note our Founders fully understood all of these ideas via Biblical knowledge and personal experience. Their common knowledge explains easy agreement over the words of the Declaration of Independence: “. . . all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
It used to be broadly known that “all men being created equal” squarely invokes the Bible’s imago Dei idea. The Declaration recognizes that, according to Genesis, the new nation’s Creator God offered his human beings life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in their created state. Humankind did not lose the image of God in its fallen state either. Therefore, such Rights outside the Garden became wholly unalienable after Christ in that they, with the afterlife, can only be taken away by God Himself, not tyrants.
God gives us these Rights for His own purposes and for our benefit relating to each other in status (not circumstances or character) as equals. Common sense and love dictate that we have a duty to obey our Creator, and with our full measure, ensure the same Rights or blessings for our fellow human beings. In other words, we have a duty to offer to others what God gives us. Since God acts primarily (but by no means solely) through human beings, if we don’t do our duty to secure these rights, no one else will. In Christ, we know what God expects.
(In full disclosure, the Bible also warns of what happens over time if we fail to do our duty. God is a god of justice, as well as love and mercy.)
In Modernity: imago Dei at Odds with Itself
To return to Dr. George’s video, he makes it crystal clear that imago Dei means that we should love every human being of any age, sex, race, color, persuasion, or condition—of any identity—equally. Even our adversaries or enemies.
To many, this suggests a principle of universality, where there should be no distinctions among human beings, including total equality of circumstance and outcome. A world of no divisions or barriers between communities and nations. Arguably, they say, this is the primary idea of Genesis 1:27.
In contrast, many others cite the Bible broadly to suggest that such a purely universal principle is utopian. Such total equality would be unrealizable until God’s revelation and coming again. Trying literally to make human beings purely equal or “the same” would entail an impractical and wholly unjust effort. An impossibility proven over and over again in history that always ends in misery and failure.
Such an argument would begin by pointing to man’s creation in Genesis 2:7. Man is created literally from Nature’s matter, where place, circumstance, language, and culture eventually become decisive in human affairs. No one person, community, or country is capable of saving everyone everywhere, and total unity in a fallen world is impossible.
Rather than attempt material equality, we should support and protect those closest in family, community, and nation. Such a duty-based orientation would start with one’s spouse and children and move outward to extended family, church, friends, neighbors, the community, and so on. (See PC Contributor Rusty Reno’s recent remarks here about the clash of Western civilization and universalism and here about postliberalism and duty-based Christian ethics.)
This would entail the Biblical idea of “loving kindness” for at-risk “Samaritans” surfacing in our experience, when we should give our personal time, attention, and resources to those nearest in our natural communities (unless exceptional circumstances or calling take us elsewhere). Such an orientation would make the American flag in today’s featured picture a base of security and love for all.
In summary, these strands of imago Dei thinking may explain the division between the Democratic Party’s Christian thinking, particularly universalist today, and the Republican Party’s, leaning local, regional, and national. We would argue that the DP’s dependence on self-referential contradictions (SRC’s) renders many of its views nonsensical.
As one example: insisting on female and transgender rights, while maintaining that “female” and “male” have no definition or being in fact. (We only mention this issue now because it’s central to Genesis 1:27.) Of course, the refusal to recognize Truth, to connect sense with reference, renders futile the entire “rule of law” project. If there’s one thing Jews care about other than God, it’s law—which Dr. George agrees is just as real as dirt.
Concluding Remarks
In response to this important dilemma, we would suggest that God doesn’t give us all the answers wrapped up in any one neat box or principle. Both Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:7 are important and need balancing. Faith, family, and flag can mean different things to different believers. God calls each of us as imago Dei to serve Him and each other in different ways, according to His law and perceived expectations, given our own conscience. As Christians and Americans, we should be tolerant of these differences in thought and approach.
Finally, we hope you will consider the Christian humanist approach of Saint John Paul II, who enthusiastically supported nationalism. Contributor George Weigel offers one version here in his overview of Catholic Social Doctrine. We believe these are orthodox principles across all versions of Christianity and Judaism. We can treat every American equally as Imago Dei under Biblical and national law, regardless of identity, while focusing on the common good of our faith, family, community, country, and beyond.
With the limitations our fallen world offers, we can also serve those in need, and even love our enemies. After all, as said at the bottom in Ephesians, “. . . we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
(1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1
(2) . . . and the Spirit was hovering over the waters. Genesis 1:2 (in part)
(3) So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27
(4) God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Genesis 1:28
(5) God saw all that he made, and it was very good. Genesis 1:31 (in part)
(6) Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
(7) The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14
(8) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10
