Imago Dei

The stories of creation in Genesis are a poetic and philosophical tour-de-force that present the concept of creation as a pageant or litany of distinguishing one thing from another within the unity of creation as a whole. Several things are particularly significant about Genesis 1, which ends with the work of the sixth day. Classically, this is called the Hexameron, referring to the work of the six days which culminates with the idea of the seventh day as the Sabbath, a day of rest and contemplation. The first chapters of Genesis offer a remarkable and profound way of thinking about reality and the place of our humanity within its order. Some, like Thomas Cahill, have called it “the gift of the Jews.” Why?

Because we begin absolutely with order. Creation is an orderly affair owing to the clear distinction between the Creator and the created. This contrasts with other early cosmogonies - stories of the coming to be of the world - which begin with chaos out of which emerges some sort of order. Here we begin with order that derives from an ordering principle, God as the source and end of all things created. That makes all the difference. It is the counter to the fearful uncertainty in things both ancient and modern culture where one fears that chaos might somehow be greater than order.

It is not a ‘scientific’ account though it provides the metaphysical basis for the possibility of science. Why? Because it assumes that reality is intelligible, a premise of science itself. Here the emphasis is on distinguishing one thing from another: heaven and earth, light and darkness, sun and moon, and so forth. Like science, this rhythmic and poetic account does not divinize the natural world. This is especially clear with respect to the greater light and the lesser light, referring to the sun and the moon in terms of physical light. They are in this account emphatically not deities, not gods, not divine. This is a remarkable counter to other early and later cultures. The Creator/created distinction is altogether crucial.

But de-divinizing nature does not mean denying or diminishing the sense of the beauty and wonder of creation and its life-force. It does not mean reducing nature to merely dead stuff for us to manipulate and use according to an instrumental reason that often leads to destruction. The wonder of creation lies in its intelligibility and essential goodness; the whole is said to be “very good”; this is a strong affirmation of the world. It is to be respected and honoured in its very being as created by the goodness of God,

This emphasis on creation as an orderly affair is important in another way. It speaks to us as thinking and ethical beings who are capable of appreciating the world not as a random and chaotic affair but as orderly and good. That in turn sets us up for the work of the sixth day itself. And what is that work? The creation of our humanity. ‘Adam is the common or generic term for our humanity, not here as a personal name. What is our place in creation as an ordered whole (what the Greeks call the cosmos)? Are we an afterthought, a left-over, something inconsequential and unimportant, mere cosmic orphans cast adrift in an indifferent universe? Such a viewpoint belongs to some earlier cultures, for instance, in the ancient Mesopotamian world as well, perhaps, to our own.

Something very remarkable is said about our humanity that speaks to some of our anxieties and concerns about ourselves. Our humanity is uniquely said to be made in “the image of God”, the Creator, and yet as connected and related to everything else in creation. This suggests both the dignity and the humility of our humanity. We are one with everything else in creation through the forms of our embodied being and yet made in God’s own image, the image of the uncreated principle.

This acts as a corrective to one of the great misreadings of the story. Our humanity generically speaking is said to be given “dominion” over the rest of creation. Yet dominion here can only be seen in terms of our being in the image of the Creator, meaning the Lord, which in Latin is Dominus. That kind of dominion is the exact opposite of our exploitation of the natural world and one another. It means instead that we are to act as God acts in his care and love, one might say, for what he has made and which he sustains and maintains. We are thinking beings who participate in the infinite and divine thinking of God. Creation is not a one-off event but something which is continuous and dynamic. We are being reminded of our place within its order and our relation to God as its principle. This is our freedom and dignity.

That doesn’t mean that people, Christians and others, haven’t acted in a ‘domineering’ and ‘destructive’ way over the natural world and others at times. Such is sin and human folly. The point is that Genesis teaches otherwise. This is seen explicitly in terms of our being tasked with respectful stewardship and care for creation and as having an integral relation to the order of creation, and, importantly, a special relation to God himself. But special in what kind of way? As uniquely made in God’s own image. We are spiritual and intellectual creatures called to act in God’s image in terms of our dealings with nature and with one another. The vocation of our humanity, as the poet, George Herbert, wonderfully puts it, is to be the “Secretarie of God’s praise” and, indeed, “the world’s high Priest” who gathers all creation back to God in prayer and praise.