What does it mean to say that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God? This is a difficult question to answer because in order to answer it properly one has to know what image of God is being reflected in the human person. Some would say for this reason it is an impossible question to answer. I disagree, and I believe that the answer to this question can provide great spiritual knowledge to the one who understands it. The answer can be trans-formative.
In order to understand the God whose image we were made to reflect, we need only look at God’s main attributes, like infinite goodness, love, joy, peace, etc. How do we know that these are God’s infinite attributes? Because human beings seek what is good, and loving, and what will bring them happiness. Human ideas of love, and the good, and what will truly make them happy are in a state of error and disorder, however, no one can deny that all human beings seek good things in abundance. Therefore, they must be the attributes which show us what image of God we were made to reflect.
We can then conclude that since we all desire these things, then human beings were made to reflect infinite goodness, mercy, love, compassion, forgiveness, happiness, life, health, etc; that is, we were made to reflect any positive idea or attribute you can think of. These attributes are what God IS, and therefore this is what humans SEEK, and thus comprises the image we were made to REFLECT. However, our errors, lack of faith, fear, encounters with evil, and other problems of life cause us to reflect other things into the world, bringing trouble, pain, suffering, death, and other negative experiences to ourselves and others. This happens because humans have freedom, which is attribute of God, and as a result they can choose things which they believe are good and will make them happy, but these choices are made in error. For example, the modern world is in obsessed with material prosperity, because they believe, in error, that it will make them happy, provide them access to love, fame, adoration, etc. What it brings, however, is a deeper slide into error, and pain, and unhappiness.
The unfortunate side effect of the human propensity to choose that which appears good, is that people begin to believe that life is a mixture of good and evil, joy and pain, which is symbolized wonderfully in the story of the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The reason God warns Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is because we were not made to reflect good and evil, we were made to reflect good and as a result, experience God’s infinite life. Through freedom, human beings choose both good and evil, and through this error leave themselves outside the garden, cut off from the Tree of Life, trapped in a world of struggle, frustration, pain, and lack.
The path back to the Garden, the Way to the Tree of Life lies in realizing the central, foundational truth of the Bible which calls us to become images of the infinite and invisible God. We can do this because Jesus has shown us the Way, through Love, Works of Charity, Service, and Prayer. We can train our mind to depend on God alone, and to think and act on thoughts of infinite love, happiness, joy, health, and know that the more we think these thoughts and act on them, the more we become transformed into the image of the Infinite God. And if God is with us, then truly who can stand against us?
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