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The Imago Dei Revealed Through Genesis

Part 2, Philosophically

The doctrine of the imago Dei is grounded on one verse in Genesis chapter 1. From Genesis 1:27, Brent Strawn observes, “The image of God (Latin imago Dei) is a familiar, even fraught, biblical notion because it has served as something of an empty cipher that countless interpreters have sought to fill.”(2) Strawn continues to highlight how much of a lacuna there is in trying to define and explain the  Genesis 1:27 reference to imago Dei: “Despite a great deal of spilled ink, what, exactly, the imago Dei is remains no small mystery because the notion goes largely undeveloped and underdeveloped in the Bible.”(3) Despite Strawn’s highlight of the lack of biblical development of this motif, he is not suggesting that it cannot be developed from the scant biblical data we do have. This is where biblically informed philosophy can be helpful.

The Role of Philosophy

The role of philosophy in interacting with biblical mysteries requires careful reflective thinking about the text in question to initially consider whether we ‘hearing’ the text accurately. Careful reflective thinking should thus comply with the first principles of hermeneutics. This kind of thinking should facilitate sound reasoning leading to logical conclusions. This kind of philosophical enquiry is different to the kind dangerous philosophy that Paul warned the Colossians about:

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
Colossians 2:8

Biblically informed philosophy leads the philosopher to ask appropriate questions of a mysterious text. In this Genesis 1:27 instance there are some scholars who have reasoned that such an obviously important text is actually  designed to evoke questions from readers. Notice the questions that Strawn refers to immediately from the preceding text of Genesis chapter one:

And so, again, what the imago is, precisely, remains a live and lively question, as does another: how do (or perhaps better: will) humans manifest that image? The latter question depends on the former one in a primal way the issue is not simply what the image of God means, but how is God imaged in the first place? What is God like, how is God understood? Only by answering these types of questions can one determine if (and how) human beings properly “image” God.(4)

What do we learn about God from Genesis 1:1-26? After all, if humankind is to image this God, what is it about this God that humans are to image? In what ways are humans to image this God? Strawn cites the theologian, Leon Kass who comments, “To see how man [sic] might be godlike, we look at the text to see what God is like.”(5)

While scholars may not be able to identify what it is that makes humankind constitutionally distinct from other creatures, they at least consider that humankind as imago Dei requires doing something that is ‘god-like’. Strawn continues:

Imago is what imago does. Human beings will be (in/as) the image of God or show themselves to be (in/as) the image of God if they actually image God. Image, according to this view, is a verb as much as it is a noun, an action more than a state of being, and is unfinished, not yet complete, with Genesis telling the story of if and how human beings do (and/or do not) turn out to image the Deity.(6)

Philosophical Views of the Imago Dei

Our preliminary answer to the questions arising from about the nature of the God being imaged by humankind which we might derive from the preceding verses in Genesis 1 would include a vision of God as:

• Responsible – He was responsible for the planning, implementation and oversight of Creation.
• Rational – His planning, would have required enormous logical consideration and intelligence.
• Relational – He demonstrated a connection with creation describing each stage as good. But His creation of humankind demonstrates a deep desire to connect with humans and for them to connect with Him.

Each of these three observations come from a philosophical consideration of the Genesis 1 text. When add Genesis 1:27 into the consideration Strawn points out something that may not have been immediately obvious to the student. The imago Dei in Genesis 1:27 is not singular.

So God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
Genesis. 1:27

It is the first male and female that are revealed as the imagines Dei. Strawn’s point is profound because much of the scholarship regarding the imago Dei is based on a singular consideration of Adam. Even in the more detailed description of the creation of humankind given in the Genesis 2 retelling, after the man is created there is no textual reference to him as an individual being yet designated as the imago Dei. Strawn furthers this point by highlighting that even though the remainder of Genesis only makes another three references to the image or likeness of God, in each reference it is a plural reference. The profundity of this point cannot be overstated, and it adds data that is almost entirely overlooked by most scholars, and as will be shown shortly is used to claim that women are not bearers of the divine image. “The image of God, that is, is not not even in Genesis all by itself a singular entity but, rather, a plural one. There is not just one imago Dei but many images of God.”(7)

Philosopher, Christopher Watkin summarises these foundational and early views of the image of God in these three general categories: (8)

(i) Substantial – with unique capacities including bipedalism, superior intelligence, use of language, and self-consciousness;

(ii) Functional – as representatives of God to steward creation; and,

(iii) Relational – with an inherent capacity for relationship with God, with other human beings, and with creation, including flora and fauna.

Over time these three categories were further distinguished as:

(i) The Religious View –also listed in the Functional, and also referred to as the Vocational, or Priestly view. Humankind is fundamentally religious – homo religiosus.(9) John T. Swann is a prominent proponent of this view.(10)

(ii) The Rational View –also listed in the Substantialist (11) or Noetic view. Humankind as the imago Dei is distinguished from other animals because humans have the mental capacities to will, think, reason, reflect, and/or to recall. Proponents of this view include: Irenaeus (c. 130 – c. 202), Athanasius (c. 296 – 373), and Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274).

(iii) The Reflective View – when we say humankind is created in God’s image we mean that humans reflect God’s moral attributes and virtuous character. This view is grounded in the idea of imago Dei as imitatio Christi (the imitation of Christ). Proponents of this view include Phillip Edgcumbe Hughes (1915–1990). (12)

(iv) The Responsible View – this is also known as the Representational view. Humankind is to image God by fulfilling certain socio-economic responsibilities to be productive, to be creative (artistically), and to exercise creation care through stewardship. Proponents of this view include Sandra L. Richter (13) and Richard Bauckham.(14)

(v) The Resemblance View – this is also known as the Mimetic view.(15) Humankind resembles God by means of analogy and the exercise of free choice. Proponent, Chad McIntosh acknowledges that “To image something, or to be in something’s likeness, is to represent, resemble, copy, or picture it in some way.” But he sees a distinction between the terms represent and resemble. “Representation is trickier, as some cases of representation involve resemblance and some do not. A painting of a landscape represents the landscape but, in so doing, also resembles the landscape. A flag represents a country but does not resemble it.”(16) While the Reflective view is about reflecting God’s moral character, the Resemblance view is broader and focuses on resembling certain of God’s capacities such as volition. Proponents of this view include Augustine (354-430), Martin Luther (1483–1546), and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945).

(vi)  The (Vice) Regency View – this is often conflated with the Responsible/Representational view. Bauckham explains why these terms are conflated when he argues that those who promote the vice regency view do so because the imago Dei is the distinguishing feature of humans from other animals since “God in creation intended human beings to be the dominant species on earth and intended them to exercise their dominion as his vicegerents” yet Bauckham points out that humankind is still “responsible to him [God].”(17) He then further links the need to see the vice-regency view through the lens of the responsibility view and cautions that “Humanity’s rule over nature is not intended to be tyranny, in which the ruler exploits his subjects for his own benefit, but good government, exercised responsibly for the good of the subjects.”(18) Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–395) and J. Richard Middleton(19) are proponent of the vice regency view.

(vii) The Relational Viewpoint – this view is also referred to as the Moral(20) view.(21) It regards the imago Dei evident in the capacity for humankind’s capacity for a vertical relationship with God, and a horizontal relationship with each other. Proponents of this view include Karl Barth (1886 – 1968) who additionally insisted that the imago Dei was constituted by male and female together in “covenantal faithfulness” with God.(22) Martin Buber (1878 – 1965), and Colin Gunton (1941 – 2003) (23) are also proponents of this view.

Theologian, John Kilner, acknowledges that biblical references to the imago Dei in Genesis are scant, but he also contends that they are “significant.”

Some people do not give humanity’s creation in God’s image careful consideration because they see relatively few direct references to it in the Bible. While their observation is true, the conclusion they draw from it does not necessarily follow. The particular places where references to God’s image appear are unusually significant in the Bible.

In the next chapter we will see why he considers them significant and how Strawn also makes a similar contention.

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(2) Arnold B. T., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Genesis. Brent A. Strawn, Chapter 10, “From Imago to Imagines: The Image(s) of God in Genesis,” 211-235. Cambridge University Press; 2022, 211.

(3) ibid.

(4) Arnold B. T., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Genesis. Brent A. Strawn, Chapter 10, “From Imago to Imagines: The Image(s) of God in Genesis,” 211-235. Cambridge University Press; 2022, 220. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108529303.010

(5) Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom, 37. Similarly, von Rad, Genesis, 59: “If one wants to determine the content of this statement more closely, one must ask how ancient Israel thought in details of this Elohim,” though he immediately goes beyond Genesis by mentioning the divine predicates “wise” (2 Sam 14:17, 20) and good (1 Sam 29:9).

(6) Arnold B. T., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Genesis. Brent A. Strawn, Chapter 10, “From Imago to Imagines: The Image(s) of God in Genesis,” 211-235. Cambridge University Press; 2022, 219. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108529303.010 Citing: Cf. Von Rad, Genesis, 59: “the text speaks less of the nature of God s image than of its purpose. There is less said about the gift itself than about the task.” So also Schüle, Theology, 27 44; McConville, Being Human, esp. 29 45; Yochanan Muffs, The Personhood of God: Biblical Theology, Human Faith and the Divine Image (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2005), 174 75: “as image, his is an unrealized potential. Only by becoming human under the guidance of the law does man [sic] actualize this potential ; and Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2003), 38 40. In Kass’s opinion, the open-ended nature of the text indicates that the first chapter of Genesis begins the moral education of the reader (40). A similar sentiment may be present in the šumma kataduggȗ text: “To the extent that zaqīqu [the human “spirit”] is not a physical characteristic, humanity s divine quality is not physically embodied or expressed but is manifest by his spirit and behavior” (Hurowitz, Divinity, 273 74). Similarly, Tigay, Image, 172 73 notes that the king Tukulti-Ninurta s status as the image of the god Enlil appears to depend on his attentiveness to his subjects and his understanding.

(7) Brent A. Strawn, Chapter 10, “From Imago to Imagines: The Image(s) of God in Genesis,” 211-235. Cambridge University Press; 2022, 215.

(8) Christopher Watkin. Thinking through Creation: Genesis 1 and 2 as Tools of Cultural Critique. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Academic Publishing, 2017. Kindle Edition), 91.

(9) Paul Ricoeur. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and Surplus of Meaning. “Metaphor to Symbol.” (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), 60.

(10) John T. Swann cites “Van Wolde, Stories of the Beginning, 26–29. While the worship context might be muted—or perhaps better said, missed by contemporary readers—the introduction of the צלם אלהים establishes the creation of humankind as an essential part of the overall temple-building exercise of Genesis 1 and therefore inherently related to a cultic and/or worship environment in at least a broad sense. Smith, Priestly Vision, 3. In: The Imago Dei. A Priestly Calling for Mankind. (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. 2017), 4, fn. 20.

(11) Brandon Rickabaugh and J. P. Moreland use this term and define it as “Staunch hylomorphists view substantial form as an abstract particular and call it a soul that departs at death and, somehow, sustains absolute personal identity. Here, the soul qua particularized substantial form is substance-like, i.e., it is an incomplete substance that requires a body to form a genuine substance.” They argue that it is this substantial view which animates the mind to enable the noetic function of a human. Brandon Rickabaugh, J. P. Moreland. The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Kindle Edition. 2024), 13, fn. 56.

(12) Philip Edgcumbe Hughes states, “In the nature of the case, there can be no such thing as a pictorial copy of the invisible; consequently, the term “image” does not mean here simply a visible likeness other than the reality itself.” The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1989), 28. But still Hughes does not downplay the physical form of humankind but says that image of God reflects certain essences of God, “namely, personality, spirituality, rationality, morality, authority, and creativity.” Hughes, 51.

(13) Sandra L. Richter. Stewards of Eden – What Scripture Says About the Environment and Why It Matters. (Lisle, IL: IVP Academic. 2020.)

(14) Richard Bauckham states, “Genesis does not tell us (and scholars cannot agree) to what actual characteristics of human nature creation in the image of God refers. What is clear is that it enables human beings to be God’s representatives on earth (like the images of kings, representing kings, in the ancient world), a function which they exercise in their dominion over nature (1:26, 28).” “First Steps to a Theology of Nature.” The Evangelical Quarterly, 58:3, July-September, 1986. 232-33.

(15) John Hayn Gurmin, notes in his 2010 dissertation, “The use, however, of the term image of God is thus far equated as being a resemblance of God found in relation to a concrete instantiation and also with regard to ‘semblance’ (the Latin origins of which similis means to be like, and that has a close relation to re-semblance, which would relate likeness to some object, in this case, God). Here we get the impression that the writers of Genesis aim to outline something concretely apparent in the human being that sets the human apart from all of ‘incarnate’ creation.” ‘A Study of the Development and Significance of the Idea of the ‘Image of God’ from its Origins in Genesis through its Historical-Philosophical Interpretations to Contemporary Concerns in Science and Phenomenology’, doctoral dissertation, The Department of Philosophy National University of Ireland, Maynooth. 29th October, 2010, 17.

(16) Chad McIntosh argues, “Although these terms denote distinct concepts, resemblance is arguably the most privileged, since if x reflects or copies or pictures y (or is a reflection or copy or picture of y), clearly, x will resemble y in some way.” Chad A. McIntosh, “Of Monsters and Men: A Spectrum View of the Imago Dei.” Religions Journal, 2023, 14, 267. Basel, Switzerland. MDPI. 2.

(17) Richard J. Bauckham. “First Steps to a Theology of Nature.” The Evangelical Quarterly, 58:3, July-September, 1986. 233.

(18) Richard J. Bauckham. “First Steps to a Theology of Nature.” The Evangelical Quarterly, 58:3, July-September, 1986. 234.

(19) “Said one way, humans are like God in exercising royal power on earth. Said in another way, the divine ruler delegated to humans a share in his rule of the earth. Both are important ways of expressing the meaning of the imago Dei.” J. Richard Middleton. The Liberating Image. The Imago Dei in Genesis 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. 2005), 88.

(20) John Owen (1616-1683) argued that the original imago Dei suffered from the Fall of humankind and needed to be renewed through a relationship with Christ based on texts such Colossians 3:10, “and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” which resulted in the necessary moral transformation to enable such a restoring relationship. John Owen. The Works of John Owen, “The Trinity Defended: Part 2.” (Scotland, UK: Banner of Truth Trust, 1968 [1850-1853]), Vol. 3 418 19.

(21)Gerrit Berkouwer (1903-1996) refers to this as the ‘relational-ethical’ view. G. C. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God. (trans. Dirk W. Jellema; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), 58-62. This is explained in more detail in chapter 2.

(22) Marc Cortez. ‘Body, Soul, and (Holy) Spirit: Karl Barth’s Theological Framework for Understanding Human Ontology’, International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 10 Number 3 July 2008. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2400.2007.00328.x 342. In what is referred to as “Barth’s mature position” which he developed after he was challenged by Emil Brunner in Natural Theology (trans. Peter Fraenkel; London: Bles, 1948) where his relational view of the imago Dei was adjusted to the I-Thou encounter of humans in their co-humanity (male and female) with God through His word. J. Richard Middleton. The Liberating Image. The Imago Dei in Genesis 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. 2005), 22.

(23) Colin E. Gunton was a student of Karl Barth who introduced the idea that the sexuality of the males and females was an integral facet of the imago Dei. Gunton went further than Barth’s concept by including non-sexual relationships between males and females to “reflect the difference and sameness present in the Trinity.” Colin E. Gunton. Christ and Creation. The Didsbury Lectures. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1992), 101.

(24). John F. Kilner, Dignity and Destiny: Humanity in the Image of God (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015), 37.

© Dr. Andrew Corbett, 13 January 2026, from Melbourne Victoria

Next article: Part 3, Fallacies