SUMMARY
Created in the image of GodAccording to the book of Genesis, humans were created in the likeness, or the image, of God. The phrase is generally taken to refer to the uprightness and dignity of human nature. Because of disobedience the image of God has been corrupted or, some say,..., human beings are given responsibilities for the earth and given the power with which to accomplish them.
ANALYSIS
Human beings are created both in the image of God and to be the image of God in the life of the world.
Regarding the “in,” human beings are created in God’s image not as isolated individuals or as a generalized humanity, but as social, relational beings. They are thereby correspondent to the sociality of God witnessed to in the “let us” of Genesis 1:26; they are the product of an inner-divine communication. The “in” entails the entire person (including the body); as such, human beings are given such gifts that they have a communicating relationship with one another and with God.
Regarding the “to be,” the God in whose image human beings are created is depicted in Genesis 1-2 primarily as one who creates and as one who shares power with the creatures in the task of creating (1:11, 20, 24, 26; 2:19-20). So human beings are to be thought of primarily in terms of creativity and imagination and not, say, domination and violence. This understanding informs the tasks to which human beings are called in 1:28: be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, have dominion, and subdue the earth. God hereby gives power to the human beings to continue the human race and to bring order out of continuing disorder (“subdue”).
CreationCreation, in biblical terms, is the universe as we know or perceive it. Genesis says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the book of Revelation (which speaks of end times) the author declares that God created all things and... in Genesis 1-2 is not presented as a “finished product,” all wrapped up with a big red bow and handed over to the creatures to keep exactly as it was originally created. God creates a dynamic world in which the future is open to a number of possibilities and in which creaturely activity is crucial to proper creational developments. For the creation to remain just exactly as God created it in the beginning would have been a failure of the divine design.
