Q. I know we are made in the image and likeness of God, but what does that image ‘look’ like?
A. As the words of Genesis state in a way so familiar to us, “God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Gen1:27, NABR) While being so familiar to us, it caused St. Catherine of Siena to exclaim, “What made you establish man in so great a dignity?” The question is, what is that great dignity hidden in that simple truth that man is made in God’s image and likeness?
To answer this question, I would start with the long-standing teaching of the Church, rooted in the thought of St. Augustine, but developed in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. In his major work, the Summa Theologiae (Latin for Summary of Theology), St. Thomas dedicates a number of pages to the creation of man. Within these reflections, he asks whether man is the only creature that is in the image and likeness of God. This provides him with the opportunity to state that all creatures, in some way, are what he calls a trace of God. By this he means that they represent something as an effect reflects the cause.
Thus, ashes are understood to be a trace of fire and footprints a trace of an animal. Yet just as we would say ashes do not correspond to the light and heat which characterize fire, creatures by their very existence are, at best, a pale reflection of God. On the contrary, among all material creatures, man alone can be said to be in the image of God, for man alone possess three things which are also found in God: intelligence, free will, and the power to act from that free will.
Thus, by our nature as intellectual beings capable of free, personal choices, we are the image of God. This is not to say that we are a perfect image of God. Elsewhere Aquinas says an image can be said of the son who is an image of his father, and the coin which bears an image of a king. Whereas Christ alone is image of God in the first sense, mankind is said to be the image of God in the second sense.
Like the king’s image on a coin, we bear some resemblance to God’s nature because we are rational creatures. On the other hand, like the coin, much can be said of the differences between God and humans as rational, free creatures.
Aquinas goes on saying that through the way described above, man is an image of God in His Divine Nature. Man is also an image of God as a Trinity of Persons. Here, St. Thomas relies heavily on St. Augustine. Augustine speaks of the Trinity in terms of the Word spoken, the Love willed, and the One Who speaks and wills. The Son is the Word spoken by the Father Who speaks and wills. The Holy Spirit is the Love willed by the Father. In a similar way, man by his intellect can speak words and by his will can love freely. Thus, man not only images the One God, but also the Trinity of Persons.
Lastly, St. Thomas explains how man most perfectly images God. This imaging pertains not just to man’s being to man’s actions. Aquinas explains that the greatest image in man is that which is most perfectly like God Himself, Who knows and loves Himself. Insofar as every individual human, as explained above, is in possession of those powers which are capable of understanding and loving God, every human person is an image of the God Himself. The just, living in a state of grace, are more completely images of God because they either actually or are in the habit of knowing and loving God, though imperfectly. Finally, the blessed in heaven, who actually know and love God perfectly, are the most perfect images of God.
Without denying this explanation of man as the image and likeness of God, Pope St. John Paul II, in his famous Theology of the Body adds to the Church’s understanding of this fundamental truth. Whereas the description given by Augustine and Aquinas corresponds to the first account of the creation of man as found in Genesis 1, the second account of the creation of man in Genesis 2 provides yet another way in which man images God. The saintly pope wrote: “…man became the image of God not only through his own humanity, but also through the communion of persons, which man and woman form from the very beginning. The function of the image is that of mirroring the one who is the model, of reproducing its own prototype.” Whereas the Augustinian-Thomistic tradition emphasizes the individual as the image of God, John Paul II highlights the way in which man and woman together image God. In the coming together of two distinct persons, whose union of love bears within it the possibility of new life through procreation, mankind is an image of the life-giving Trinity.
This question was answered by Father Matthew Rolling, academic dean at St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
