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.