Which View of the Image of God Is More Consistent with Christian Orthodoxy?

 If the ontological image of God is moral responsibility and decision making, intellect, relational, etc. then is not man also made in the image of anything else that has those qualities? Does he not image the devil? Demons? Angels? Even other men? What special relationship is there between man and God if man also images all of these other beings too? 

Is it not that man is physical and these others are spiritual? Is that not the difference between them all? But is not that also the difference between man and God? So how is it that man's physical nature can be God's image?

Most of these advocates don't believe that man images God physically, as that would make God physical in their minds, since they think that the word "image" means "reflection in some way." But this is part of the problem. The word "image" does not mean "reflects an appearance of" or "looks like in some way" to where we can only look at spiritual qualities of God and see how the relate to us.

The word "image" here refers to a cult image. A cult image is a physical image that provides a medium for the god to work in the world. Through this physical image, the deity uses it to create order in a particular area, in his temple and then in the city in which the temple resides. It represents the deity's domain and sphere of rule. From that sphere, chaos is thwarted by the deity's presence and work through the idol/image. But one would have to say that the image of God is functional and not ontological in order to say that man is God's image in his physical nature. In other words, if man is God's image in his physical nature and the word "image" means "looks like" then either the Mormons are right or the word "image of God" refers to man's function as God's physical medium in the world, not something that evidences that man is like God in his ontology in some way.

I think this is a real problem for those who define the image of God the way that they do. They are essentially arguing that man only images God in some spiritual way. which is the adoption of a gnostic view. Man, in his spirit, reflects the divine, but not in his crude or evil physical form. 

Hence, it seems that the functional view would be the view more in line with orthodoxy and the ontological view assumes a gnostic view of man, where his physical nature must be disregarded when speaking of the image ontologically. 

They All Have Become ἄχρηστος

 Romans 3:12 argues that humanity all together has become achreiow, a word translated as "worthless." Someone arguing on FB for the inherent value of man found other English glosses that he thought fit his argument better to where it was translated as "unprofitable" or "unserviceable." 

Now, this is a distinction without a difference if this debate is known well. The entire point is that if man is unusable for any service or unprofitable for any service then the word is conveying the same thing by being translated "worthless." 

Here is the BDAG entry for both the verb and noun.

ἀχρειόω (s. ἀχρεῖος) (t.r., S., Vog.; by-form ἀχρεόω Tdf., W-H., M., Bov., N25; SIG 569, 31; s. B-D-F §30, 2) 1 aor. inf. ἀχρειῶσαι LXX; 3 pl. pf. ἠχρείωκαν Da 6:21. Pass. 1 aor. ἠχρεώθην; pf. ptc. ἠχρειωμένος (Philo Mech. 60, 16; Polyb. 3, 64, 8 al.; Vett. Val. 290, 1; OGI 573, 16: LXX; ἠχρειώθησαν Just., D. 27, 3; Theoph. Ant. 2, 35 [p. 188, 29]) in our lit. only pass.

① make useless, outwardly, in symbolism, of damaged sticks Hs 8, 3, 4.

② of becoming a liability to society because of moral depravity become depraved, worthless of pers. Ro 3:12 (Ps 13:3; 52:4).—M-M.

ἄχρηστος, ον (s. χρηστός, χράομαι; Theognis+) pert. to not serving any beneficial purpose (in Gr-Rom. society gener. pert. to lack of responsibility within the larger social structure, s. antonyms εὔχρηστος, χρηστός) useless, worthless, perh. in wordplay on the name Onesimus and certainly w. the term εὔχρηστος (as Hv 3, 6, 7; cp. Hs 9, 26, 4; Jos., Ant. 12, 61) Phlm 11 τόν ποτέ σοι ἄ. who was once useless to you (ἄ. τινι as EpArist 164); ἄ. of a slave Epict. 1, 19, 19 and 22 (cp. wordplay χρήσιμον ἐξ ἀχηρήστου Pla, Rep. 411a). W. περισσός Dg 4:2.—Hv 3, 6, 2; Hs 9, 26, 4; ὀξυχολία ἄ. ἐστιν ill temper leads to no good m 5, 1, 6.—DELG s.v. χρή. M-M. TW.

Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 160). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Man is worthless in terms of his function, and is, therefore, worthless in terms of his form. That is the point of it. 

If gold is no longer valuable due to its servicing function, it is no longer valuable, period. But one might say, "If gold were to lose its monetary value, it could still be used for other things. But that is to say that it is not rendered unserviceable but rather merely had a change of service. So this is not what the word means. Another might say, "Well, even though the gold has no other function, it can still be valuable to the owner. But this is a misunderstanding as well. If it is pleasing in its appearance or just in its existence to the owner then it is serving a function and is, therefore, serviceable/functional/valuable. Changing the translation with other synonyms does not help the case. 

Likewise, the Hebrew word it is translating in Psalm 14:1 is the word שָׁחַת, which is something that is ruined in terms of its function. It is rendered useless as it no longer functions for the purpose it was created. 

Man no longer functions in any good way, which is the point of Romans 3:9-18. He, therefore, does not have value as something that is in some way pleasing to God just by virtue of being man (Rom 8:8). He is not pleasing in function, and therefore, has no value in form. 

This may sound awful to our modern ears but I would suggest it is the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are not like gold that simply has no monetary value but is still valued by its owner due to some inherent worth or delight. We are more like garbage that has no value whatsoever and is good for nothing but to be thrown away.

Instead, God, in His great mercy and love has chosen, without being compelled by some inherent worth or value in man, freely and without attraction to man's worthiness, decided to redeem what was without value and give the worth and value of the Son of God to worthless people. Those who have been redeemed are now the most valuable creatures that could ever exist. Those who are called by the gospel are being offered the inexpressible and exclusive riches of Christ's value to God and may now obtain this free gift through faith in His Son. 

Fallen man is no longer valuable as God's image but he may become so through the One who is most valuable, and as the images of God, instruments of creation and life, Christians, our duty is to express this magnificent offer to everyone everywhere. The barren may become fertile again by the magnificent work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In this way, I wonder if those who argue so rigorously that man must retain some inherent value realize that they may actually be diminishing the glory of the gospel in doing so. If man is inherently valuable as the image of God then why wouldn't God value him and save him? Who wouldn't buy back some gold? But only a God whose love and mercy is beyond measure buys back garbage and makes it into gold.

Jesus Is More the Image?

 I was reading comments on FB concerning the image of God debate this morning and it seems clear that there is a bit of a confusion concerning ontology and function. The statement was made that Jesus is more the image of God than fallen man, and I immediately thought to myself, "In what way?"

 Likewise, in a recent conversation a couple of my fellow church officer's had at a conference with another conference attendee, I was accused of divorcing ontology/form and function with my view, an accusation of which I was surprised since the exact opposite was going on. It is those who believe that fallen man is God's image who must either slip into a gnostic division between form and function or agree with me that the form should not be called the image of God. Let me explain.

If man is ontologically God's image, he cannot be something else. He can only be what he is ontologically. Since God did not make man in any way the devil's image, he cannot, by nature, be the devil's image, which is to say that he cannot, by nature, be evil.

Now, of course, we do not believe that man's created nature is evil, but this is missing the point. My point is that if man is made as God's image, he can only function that way. He cannot function in any other way.

What this means is that the image must be divorced from any moral quality, as we know that man does become wicked. The image, therefore, cannot have anything to do with God's goodness, a right relationship with God, etc. If it does, then we have a contradiction between form and function. The gills on a fish are breathing air, its fins may fly, and a bird's lungs can breath water. Form and function are linked. No one can act contrary to his ontology because no one has the ability to act beyond his limitations. 

If man is the image of God by nature, however, not only can he not be anything else, he cannot act in accordance with any other nature. That means that if there is a moral quality to the image at all, man must not only remain inherently good, but can do no evil.

This, we know, is not true. So what is really going on here?

I think that what is truly going on is the old "image and likeness" view that some have held in church history due to tacking on an extra image of God to man. The first is that man is the image of God only in certain human abilities. In other words, in a sort of generic humanity. Man can reason, have relationships, make moral decisions, etc. but this generic humanity has no moral quality to it. It is amoral, and therefore, can fall toward the good or the evil. 

Then there is a moral function assigned to the man that is also called the image or likeness of God (some people divorced the words image and likeness in order to support this paradigm), so that man is actually the image of God in two ways, one ontological and one functional. The functional image does not necessarily flow from the formal image because the formal image is generic and we know that man falls and becomes evil in function, so it can only be generic.

Now, here is the issue. If man's abilities, like rationality, being relational, able to make moral decisions, is the ontological or formal image of God, then we must also say that the angels, the devil, demons, etc. are also the formal or ontological image of God. I might even argue that some animals fall into this category, depending upon how we define "moral decision making" and how that might be distinguished from what unbelievers do but I digress. This would be a rather novel doctrine but it follows necessarily if that is the way we define the image. But it also means that saying that someone is the image of God in the formal sense doesn't really mean much. One is merely saying that everyone is a higher created form than anything that does not have those qualities but there is no special relationship in it.

Likewise, I actually affirm that humans are made this way ontologically. My contention has always been that this is never called the image of God in Scripture. Scripture always discusses the image of God as the functional image, so to make up another definition for the term that includes all of humanity is simply applying biblical terminology to something that is never associated with that terminology. 

However, many do not divorce the moral quality of man from the ontological image, and this is both where we have a logical problem and a slip into gnostic thought. Now, to be clear, gnostic thought does not confuse form and function, as these people often do, but rather posits two forms/two ontologies to humanity. Man does evil because he is ontologically evil by nature in his flesh, but he can do good because he is ontologically good in his spirit. So man has two ontological natures, one good and one evil. The reason why this is the case is because he can do good or evil, and since ontology cannot be divorced from function, he must have two ontologies. 

What those who are offering up is that man has an amoral ontology, something with which I would agree, but a moral duty to use that ontology to be in right relationship with God and do good upon the earth as the instrument of God. Again, we all agree. The issue is whether this is also to be called the image of God and only Scripture and logic will help us here.

So what becomes extremely important is understanding what an image is in the ancient Near East rather than assume we know what an image is because our English word for image sounds like Scripture is talking about a reflection or something. An image in the context of a temple (I realize the idea that Genesis 1 is a cosmic temple is another issue) is talking about a cult image of the deity. In fact, leaving behind even the idea that Genesis 1 is a temple, the fact that you would have the phrase "the image of [insert deity]" shows that we are talking about a cultic image. 

So what is a cultic image and how does it function? Imagine someone creating an image for Marduk. He ontologically makes the image in such a way so that it can function as an image. He is making this image for Marduk but let's say someone steals the image and puts it in the temple of Sin, the moon god, in order to function as his image now. It is no longer the image of Marduk even though it was originally made for Marduk. The reason why it can be used this way is because it is not inherently the image of Marduk. It is not ontologically the image of Marduk. It is simply ontologically an image but it can function as either the image of Marduk or the image of Sin or any other god it is used for. 

Now, part of this understanding is knowing that the images in the ancient Near East did not necessarily look like the gods they were imaging. That is why one could have images that were animals that represented various strengths or domains, or it could be made as some sort of human figure that could represent any god, or a combination of both. So the word "image" does not automatically mean "looks like in some way" when we are talking about a cult image. That is an important point that is often misunderstood.

However, if an image was made specifically with ontological qualities where it could only be the image of Marduk and never anything else, then it cannot function as an image for any other god. This is where we run into a problem. If man is the image of God ontologically, then he cannot function as the image of the devil in any way. If man is only an image ontologically, however, who was made to function as the image of God, then man may walk out of God's temple and into the devil's to image him because although the form of being an image is inherent the function of being the image of God is not. The form is being an image so man must image something by nature. Form and function cannot be divorced. But this means that man is not ontologically the image of God but rather an image made to function as the image of God in a right relationship with God as His instrument of creation and good in the world.

This goes back to our FB discussion. If man is formally the image of God, then Jesus cannot be more the image of God in that sense at all. That would mean that He is more than human in His created nature as a man. That would be heresy. Jesus is God as the Creator but He is fully man, not more and not less. 

Likewise, if we are merely saying that Jesus is more the image of God than fallen man because He functions as the image of God, then we would all agree that He is more than but I would say that He is more than fallen man because fallen man does not function as the image of God at all. He functions as the devil's image.

So what is it to really say that Jesus is more the image of God than fallen man but to agree that fallen man is not the image of God? If one says that fallen man still retains some good moral quality to him in his function then we must move on to prove total depravity from Scripture against what is clearly the beginning of Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian anthropology. 

In the mean time, this problem of form and function is resolved by merely allowing Scripture to guide our vocabulary in the matter and categorize the philosophical view of what man is in distinction from other creatures with some other nomenclature.

As a last comment, it is interesting that Reformed folk in general tend to ask the question, "By what standard?" when it comes to legal and ecclesiastical definitions but even if they come to the understanding that the ontological image of God is not biblically attested seem content to use unbiblical definitions of phrases when it comes to this issue.

Why Evangelicalism's View of Essentials Produces Rotten Fruit

Ideas have consequences. I know that should seem obvious but we've so downplayed the importance of ideas today that a reminder doesn't hurt. I'm told there is a sign hung at the entrance to Auschwitz that reads, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." It's a fascinating thing that most evangelicals are staunchly committed to their religious ideas concerning what is essential and what is not, but have little understanding of their own history concerning how they got those ideas. We've all heard the mantra that is falsely attributed to Augustine, "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity." Certainly, in all things charity but what is assumed to be essentials and non-essentials is a matter of debate, and it is a vitally important debate at that.

The story, although severely oversimplifying, is basically this in a nutshell. Liberalism, which adopted the ideas of the Enlightenment, like egalitarianism and inclusivism, did not like the restrictions that Christian orthodoxy placed on the church in light of the philosophical and scientific fads of the day as well as the fatigue of religious infighting stemming from what were considered the "religious wars" and continuing through denominational splintering.  They desired a much more inclusive orthodoxy that had a wider base than what historic Christianity could offer so that everyone could join hands in order to fight the moral decay of the culture due to the undermining of Christianity by secular culture. Coupled with an egalitarian tendency to see authority as tyranny and an inclusive tendency to see doctrine as that which divides, many liberals taught that those who denied what was historically considered to be orthodox was not definitional for who could consider themselves a Christian, even though many of them held to traditionally orthodox tenets themselves.

In fact, one of J. Gresham Machen's points in Liberalism and Christianity is that Liberalism is not a different religion just because it denies certain doctrines. Liberals may affirm every one of what were called "fundamentals." Instead, what made it a different religion is the idea that one could still claim to be a Christian even though he rejected one or more of them. In other words, liberalism is not the denial of certain doctrines but the belief that doctrine should not divide.

Fundamentalism, historically named, was a counter-movement that often missed the mark by attacking liberalism by affirming those things that liberals often denied or claimed were unnecessary to believe as a Christian. Rather than understanding that liberalism was not a denial of orthodox doctrines but a redefinition of orthodoxy that placed a lesser importance on an affirmation of those doctrines, it spent most of its time defending these particular doctrines and not as much time defending the idea that these doctrines were necessary because they were at the foundation of a Christian worldview, which is what was really being attacked. Hence, the foundations were held but the rest of the house was allowed to fall into decay.

As a result, in the 1950's, the Enlightenment worldview displayed itself in the church's adoption of Neo-Evangelicalism in the West. Assuming the liberal ideas of inclusivism and egalitarianism, along with the fundamentals of their parents, Evangelicalism denounced the divisiveness of most doctrines but held to the importance of those their parents had called "fundamentals." In other words, both of the essential components of fundamentalism and assumptions of liberalism concerning doctrine were adopted in order to create what we now see as Evangelicalism. The only rejection of liberalism was that evangelicals did not apply this idea originally to the fundamentals. They just applied it to all other doctrines. 

During this time, what was left behind, was any sort of robust biblical thinking about orthopraxis. This has its roots in the fact that the original disagreement between liberalism and fundamentalism was not over morality, which each largely agreed upon. Over time, however, because of the corrosion of an orthodox Christian worldview within liberalism, its morality also began to change and be conformed to a moral system more consistent with Enlightenment principles of egalitarianism and inclusivism. 

With the advent of Margaret Sanger reversing the Comstock laws and convincing women to take upon more egalitarian roles, liberalism's inability to provide a worldview that stood against these ideas soon simply gave way to them. Quite a few years before Sanger's campaigns, the social gospel was making inroads into the church with its adoption of the universal fatherhood and brotherhood of man, arguing that Christians needed to think about a new view of orthodoxy simply because the old one was in the way of this new Spirit-led social movement.

Fundamentalism had largely adopted a social gospel because it had often had a similar morality to its own, even though its assumptions were largely that of the Enlightenment. It had been against prostitution, contraception, drunkenness, etc. so that fundamentalists felt they could join hands with those who had similar goals of orienting society toward moral purity. 

What this ultimately led to is that even though fundamentalists countered liberalism in its doctrines, it did not largely counter it in its morality until it was too late. This is largely because its morality looked the same for awhile. But its worldview was clearly a foundation that would later give rise to a completely contrary morality to that of historic, Christian orthopraxis. This would soon be understood by fundamentalists to a degree but it would largely be too late. 

This is important to understand because Evangelicalism adopted no view of orthopraxis due to their parents giving to them no idea that there even was one. Orthopraxis was the culture's orthopraxis. Hence, to this very day, evangelicals argue over whether a homosexual can be a Christian because Christianity to an evangelical is defined by the doctrinal essentials and not any ethical essentials that would stem from a necessarily definitional biblical worldview.

What happened as a result of teaching that Christianity could be reduced to these particular doctrinal "essentials" is that evangelicals were left with a vacuum where they needed a worldview in order to make life decisions. In absence of a Christian worldview, of course, the worldview of the Enlightenment, which is the primary religion of our culture, filled that vacuum.

The sexual ethics of evangelicalism became secondary to one's identification as a Christian. As such, people calling themselves Christians could simply disagree about these things. Homosexuality, transgenderism, birth control, and even abortion were all considered in-house debates. In fact, when asked whether abortion should be included as a part of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority agenda, Falwell replied, "Isn't that a Roman Catholic issue?" Most evangelicals rejoiced a the decision of Roe vs. Wade, as they were as convinced of the social good of abortion as liberalism's social gospel was simply because evangelicalism was void of an orthopraxis when it came to sexuality. Eventually, evangelicals were swayed by an article by John Warwick Montgomery in Christianity Today that argued that abortion was murder and came to adopt, for the most part, that abortion was wrong. Due to the promiscuity created by this void of a Christian worldview in evangelicalism and liberalism, the sexual revolution found its pinnacle in the promiscuity of the 60's and 70's so much so that evangelicals began a counter-campaign of purity culture that attempted to argue that people should wait until marriage. Even with this, however, no robust worldview was offered as to why one should wait. 

Hence, the rebellion of our teenagers, the promiscuity of our culture, and the overall confusion over sexual ethics and the lack of any distinguishable behavior between evangelicalism and the pagans in our culture is directly a result of the thinking that Christianity can be reduced down in its essentials to some core doctrines absent of a fuller biblical worldview that includes both historic orthodoxy and orthopraxis. And as Jesus warned us, bad fruit comes from bad trees, not good ones. You will know the false prophets by their fruit. 

So what I would propose instead of this disastrous experiment that has claimed the souls of so many of our families and bound God's people in so many vices is that we adopt the motto, "In historic Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxis, unity. In historic disagreement within Christianity, patience and tolerance (which deals with the divisiveness issue biblically rather than as Enlightenment inclusivism would). In all things, working toward a biblical worldview with charity." 

The Bible, as adopted by historic Christianity, has given us our essentials (Acts 15:28-29) and they include both doctrines pertaining to worshiping the right God with the right means and practice pertaining to sexuality.

For it seemed best to the Holy Spirit and to us not to place any greater burden on you than these essentials: that you abstain from meat that has been sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality.

These two components set an essential foundation of orthodoxy and orthopraxis for the substructure of a robust Christian worldview upon which a Christian can build a life of godliness as he understands more and more of God's Word. We must not return to the black hole of evangelicalism simply because it creates an immediate, yet artificial, unity. We must strive toward the slower and more difficultly achieved unity of the faith by speaking truth to one another in love until we are all built up in the truth and love of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The worldview of the Enlightenment is a tree that bears the fruit thereof. It cannot bear the fruit of Christianity even when a few doctrines are thrown on top of it. As the sign says, however, if we fail to know our history, we will in fact be doomed to repeat it.