Image of God deepens the meaning of the secular concept of individual
intentionality by providing a transcendent context for interpreting the secular concept. Image of God is a religious theme first seen in scripture. The creation story proclaims that on day six the human person (male and female) is made in God's image and likeness and, like God, the human person is designated as master of the rest of creation.5 One need not take the creation story literally to understand its meaning. Image of God implies that human persons reflect the qualities of God as master of creation. This is as God ordered it. God's dominion over all of creation including human persons, and human persons serving along with God as stewards over the rest of creation, constitutes the original harmony intended by God.6 Therefore, like God, human persons demonstrate loving concern for creation. God would not run roughshod over creation nor would God destroy
any of creation for His own satisfaction. In a like manner, those who are image of God treasure and honor God's creation. To do otherwise would not be as God intended for those created in God's image. Human persons are created by a loving God and participate in co-creating through proper stewardship of what God has created. This responsibility as co-creator elevates and sanctifies the status of human persons as image of God.
Theological discourse contends that image of God is not reversible.7 Image of God was assigned to human persons and describes the special status humans have with God and with God's creation. Therefore, human persons as image of God are part of God's creation. Sanctity of the human person is rooted in an understanding of the human person's relationship with God and with God's creation. Human persons are said to have a transcendent nature, meaning they can transcend who they are through self-creation. They are able to make choices and work to bring about what they hope for and what God intends for them and for all of creation.8
The image of God is a core creational theme of Christian anthropology that involves a special relationship between God and human persons.9 Scripture, both
Christian and Hebrew testament accounts, provides insight into what is expected of the human person who is made in the image of God.10 When God creates the human person in God's image, it is with a certain intention or destiny for the human person.11 While the intention is God's intention, the human person chooses to respond, thus participating in one's own destiny. God offers support to help those made in God's image to attain their destiny. Through a covenant forged with those who are made in his image, "You will be
my people and I will be your God", there is an assurance of God's presence on the journey. God's fidelity is unconditional.
While God is always faithful, those who have been made in his image are not. However, God does not turn his back on his people. God continues to call them to love as God loves, to care as God cares. As long as God continues to love those made in God's image, human persons will enjoy a sacred dignity whether they are faithful to their responsibilities or not.12 Human persons have an opportunity to amend their choices and renew their commitment and thus continue their journey toward a final destiny of union with God.
All who are made in the image of God have a responsibility to live lives reflective of that image. At a minimum such lives demonstrate faithfulness to God, care for the poor and vulnerable, and efforts at transforming oneself and society as God intends for God‘s people.13 However, there are those who are challenged with even greater
responsibility. Some made in God's image are called to lead others toward their destiny.14 Scholars refer to this as the election of the chosen people of Israel.15 This election is part of the agreement between God and those who are made in God's image. In fact, some scholars consider giving oneself in service to others the fundamental responsibility of being made in the image of God.16 For the Christian, Jesus is the perfect image of God. Jesus demonstrates how human persons respond to the call to transform the world in accordance with God's plan and their own destiny.17
The incarnation emphasizes the sanctity of the human person, for in the incarnation the image of God is epitomized in the radical union of God and human
In love God sends his son to be an example, to be the perfect image of the invisible God and to challenge human persons to a new covenant. "As I have loved you, so you must love one another".19 That which human persons are most intensely invited to imitate is God as love. The sanctity of the human person lies in God's creation of the persons in his image.20 God gifts the human person not only with a nature made in God‘s image but with the grace necessary for the human person to fulfill that destiny.21
Grace is the self-communication of God to God's creation.22 God shares God's self with human persons in an effort to insure the person is able to consider possibilities that extend beyond what is normal. Grace enables persons to transcend normal possibilities.23 Through God's imparting God's self to the human person, God becomes both the goal and the motivating force toward that goal.24 God's good creation is the human person made in
God's image and gifted with grace to fulfill human destiny of sharing the vision of God25 Grace enables the human person to make choices that transcend a worldly point of view, hope against all hope, love without counting the cost, find meaning in what appears meaningless. This does not mean that human persons are denied freedom and choice and are simply programmed as God designs. Nor does it mean that all human persons accept grace and are automatically oriented toward God.26 While grace is constantly given, always and everywhere, accepting grace is a choice each human person makes.
Human beings say their yes or no to their graced condition (their orientation toward the immediacy of God) over some worldly reality because they have this orientation consciously and freely only in relationship to someone or something in their world. This is why their history is the history of their free relationship to their graced transcendentality, why it is salvation history.27
Human nature in its graced state as well as its un-graced state retains its natural tendency toward God in whose image persons are made.28 However, it is the integration of nature and grace that defines the human person.
The religious theme of being made in the image of God provides a transcendent context for interpreting the secular concept of individual intentionality. This
interpretation deepens individual intentionality by positioning it within a faith perspective that considers individual intentionality as inclusive of a deeper relational understanding of the individual with a primordial orientation toward God and God's intention. In other words, human persons are not left solely to their own devices. Human persons, through a constant exposure to grace, are encouraged toward choices aimed at fulfilling their destiny with God. To be the image of God involves an imperative calling to live out of the fullness of the gifts received by moving out of oneself and into the world of
relationships.29