Imago Dei C (for Catholic and/or Catechism)

Some lines from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the ‘image of God’…Par. 356: ‘Of all visible creatures only man is “able to know and love his creator”…he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. It was for this end that he was created.’ Par. 357: ‘He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead.’ Par. 358: ‘God created everything for man, but man in turn was created to serve and love God and to offer all creation back to him.’

In these paragraphs we see several things at work, and though the Catechism is not putting it in the same terms as I am, one can see the relational networks in four directions, as mentioned earlier: toward God, self, neighbor, and creation. What I find beautiful in these opening pages of the Catechism is the notion of sharing in ‘God’s own life.’ It is seen in the opening sentence of the entire Catechism, too: ‘God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.’ Again, we see the perichoretic life of the Triune God being extended, offered, and shared with humanity. We are invited to participate in nothing short of God’s own blessed life!

And of particular interest on ‘male and female’ and the ‘image of God’…Par. 370: ‘In no way is God in man’s image. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective “perfections” of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.’ What this means, I think, is that when it comes to Jeffrey Rudy being made in the ‘image of God’ I am so because primarily I am a person created for relationship…and this is more essential than that I am a male.

Or, perhaps it’d be better understood analogically: The three Persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, Spirit) are able to be distinguished from one another (i.e., the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and so on) based on certain characteristics. (Here, I am indebted to a friend’s input, who wrote more at length about this facet of the topic, which you can read here.) For instance, as the early Church Fathers assisted us in understanding, the Father is the uncreated creator; the Son is the agent through whom the Father created all things and is the ‘Word’ who became flesh; the Spirit proceeds from the Father, etc. However, even in the three Persons there is such a strong ‘communion,’ if you will, whereby one cannot fully understand or define any of the Persons apart from the Others. In fact, their Personhood can only be understood in light of the eternal communion that exists among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Similarly, I am distinguished from, say, my wife Carrie in several ways, among them that I am a male and that she is a female. However, being created in and for the ‘image of God’ as we are, our personhood (another way of speaking of the ‘image of God,’ I think) is strengthened when we are in closer relationship and communion with one another. This is why I think marriage, though imperfect, is perhaps the best analogy we have of somehow grasping what little we can of the doctrine of the Trinity: One Being, Three Persons; the biblical understanding of marriage: One Flesh (or ‘Being,’ if you will; you can no longer define me apart from my wife), Two Persons.