Human Dignity and Bioethics

78 | Robert P. Kraynak
more precise meaning to the Imago Dei.
Yet, it is unclear if any of these attributes is as important as the
simple fact of God’s election of man for special care and the election
of Israel for an eternal covenant. In this sense, the Imago Dei—as
God’s mysterious election of certain beings for divine favor—is the
premise of the entire Old Testament, which may explain why it appears
prominently in Genesis up to the first covenant (with Noah)
and then drops out of sight.
It is not until the New Testament that the original language of
Genesis about the Imago Dei reappears in the Bible. Here, we find a
dozen references to the image, likeness, and figure of God as well as
other references to the children of God and to partakers of the divine
nature. Some of these terms are reserved for Jesus Christ, who is called
“the image (eikon) of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). These descriptions
seem to connect the Imago Dei of Genesis with the central
article of the Christian faith, the Incarnation, in which the invisible
God becomes a visible man in Jesus Christ. As Paul says, “though he
was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing
to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being
born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:5-7). The point of using
the language of image and likeness from Genesis to explain the birth
of Christ may be inferred from Paul’s theology: while God originally
created man in the divine image, that image has been partially lost and
needs to be restored by Christ, who is the real image of God. Unlike
the foolish pagans, who “exchange the glory of the immortal God for
images of mortal men or animals” (Romans 1:20-23), Christians see
the real image of God in the immortal man, Jesus Christ. Christ combines
in his person the image of God (immortality) and the likeness of
fallen men (mortality) and therefore is able to restore the lost image of
God to man (to restore lost immortality).
The lesson of the Bible seems to be that the Imago Dei includes
the rational soul or intellect of man but does not equate human dignity
with it. The Bible even uses the image of God to avoid designating
a set of qualities as the essential attributes of man, thereby
precluding a Christian theory of human nature in the strict sense.
Instead of focusing on attributes, the Bible presents man in terms of
his relations to God: originally man was close to the image of God,
then he fell away, and eventually the lost image of God was restored