Human Dignity in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition

Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant Perspectives

John Loughlin, John Loughlin

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350073715
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Dignity is a fundamental aspect of our lives, yet one we rarely pause to consider; our understandings of dignity, on individual, collective and philosophical perspectives, shape how we think, act and relate to others. This book offers an historical survey of how dignity has been understood and explores the concept in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. World-renowned contributors examine the roots of human dignity in classical Greece and Rome and the Scriptures, as well as in the work of theologians, such as St Thomas Aquinas and St John Paul II. Further chapters consider dignity within Renaissance art and sacred music. The volume shows that dignity is also a contemporary issue by analysing situations where the traditional understanding has been challenged by philosophical and policy developments. To this end, further essays look at the role of dignity in discussions about transhumanism, religious freedom, robotics and medicine. Grounded in the principal Christian traditions of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and Protestantism, this book offers an interdisciplinary and cross-period approach to a timely topic. It validates the notion of human dignity and offers an introduction to the field, while also challenging it.

1

‘So God Created Humanity in His Own Image’ (Genesis 1.27). What Does the Bible Mean and What Have People Thought It Meant?

John Day

Introduction

One way in which the dignity of human beings has been grounded is in the belief that we are all created in the image of God. For example, during the Renaissance, Agrippa von Nettesheim ([1529] 1990: 49, ET 1670: 1) appealed to this belief in the very first paragraph of his book in defence of the status of women. Again, more recently, Archbishop Desmond Tutu (e.g. 2014: 19–21) frequently appealed to this notion as a basis of his opposition to apartheid and racism in South Africa. The belief has played a larger role within Christianity than in Judaism, even though it is rooted in the Hebrew Bible. But within the Hebrew Bible it is somewhat unusual, for it affirms the Godlikeness of human beings, whereas so much of the Old Testament emphasizes God’s otherness over against humanity.

But in what sense exactly are human beings Godlike? What does humanity’s creation in the image of God actually mean? This has been a most disputed topic and has given rise to a vast literature in Old Testament studies¹ as well as in theology more generally.² Over the centuries, theologians have made many suggestions which are essentially guesswork. As one Old Testament scholar put it, ‘Many “orthodox” theologians right through the centuries have lifted the phrase “the image of God” (imago dei) right out of its context, and like Humpty-Dumpty, they have made the word mean just what they choose it to mean’ (Snaith 1974: 24).³ This is certainly true, but it also has to be admitted that working out exactly what the Bible does mean is not that simple, since it does not offer an explanation.

Curiously, in view of its later importance in Christian theology, there are only three passages alluding to the image of God in humanity in the Old Testament, though it is referred back to occasionally in the Apocrypha and New Testament. These three Old Testament passages are all from the Priestly source in the early chapters of Genesis. First and best known, in connection with God’s creation of humanity, is Gen. 1.26-7:

And God said, ‘Let us make humanity⁴ in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humanity in his own image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

This is later referred back to in Gen. 5.1-3, ‘When God created humanity, he made them in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and called their name humanity when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.’ Finally, the last reference is in Gen. 9.6, where, following the Flood, God declares to Noah, ‘Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall their blood be shed; for God made humanity in his own image.’

The nature of the image

Spiritual views

Traditionally in Christian theology the idea of people being made in the image of God has been understood as referring to humanity’s reason, soul, spirituality or suchlike: some internal aspect of the human person that sets us apart from animals and makes us resemble God. This is probably the best-known kind of interpretation for many people, even though most modern Old Testament scholars believe it to be either mistaken or only partially true. For example, Augustine of Hippo (De Trinitate, esp. books 7–15; see Sullivan 1963) saw an analogy between the Trinity and the threefold division of human memory, intellect and will. But this is purely fanciful, and of course the Old Testament knew nothing of the Trinity. Many like Athanasius (De Incarnatione, 3; see Bernard 1952) and Aquinas (Summa Theologiae, part 1, Question 13; De Veritate, 10) envisaged the image as specifically referring to human reason, whereas Ambrose (Hexaemeron, 6.7-8) and Calvin (Institutes, 1.15.3) believed it alluded to the human soul. But in suggesting these various ideas, Christian theologians were clearly simply speculating when endeavouring to calculate what it was that humanity had in common with God (in contrast to the animals), rather than relying on biblical evidence.

A further Christian reading distorting the original biblical meaning is to be found in the second-century Church Father Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses, 5.6.1; 5.16.1-2; see Holsinger-Friesen 2009), who made a distinction between the image and likeness of God. He thought the image referred to the permanent features of the human person, like reason, whereas the likeness of God alluded to human qualities lost at the Fall, but which could be regained through Christ. This view persisted till the Reformers rightly questioned its exegetical viability. The evidence of the Bible suggests that there is no essential difference between the image and likeness of God; the two terms are used interchangeably. Thus, whereas Gen. 1.26 declares that God made humanity in the image and likeness of God, the very next verse as well as Gen. 9.6 simply say that he made humans in the image of God, while Gen. 5.1 only says that God made humanity in the likeness of God.

Another misguided idea is found in the Protestant Reformers, who tended to speak of the image and likeness of God in humanity as something that was marred or obliterated as a result of the Fall (Luther in Pelikan 1958: 61; Calvin 1847: 94–95). However, in Gen. 9.6, we still read of humans possessing the image of God long after the Fall, in the time of Noah; similarly, the New Testament letter of James declares that we are made in the image of God (Jas 3.9). It is somewhat puzzling that the Reformers, who claimed to give priority to Scripture, adopted such a manifestly unbiblical view.

The view that the image of God in humanity refers purely to some kind of spiritual resemblance between God and human beings persisted among Old Testament scholars throughout the nineteenth century and among some even into the twentieth century (e.g. S. R. Driver, W. Eichrodt, H. H. Rowley),⁵ but it now has virtually no support. However, the situation is different among systematic theologians. In addition to some modern systematic theologians who reiterate older purely spiritual views mentioned above, there have been newer suggestions such as that humans being in the image of God refers to their freedom (Seeberg 1924: 499) or self-transcendence (Niebuhr 1941: 176–178) in addition to reciprocal views to be considered below. None of these can claim support from Genesis.

Nevertheless, as we shall see later, although not the whole truth, humanity being in the image of God does partly imply some kind of spiritual resemblance between God and humans.

The functional view

By contrast, a very different interpretation of the meaning of human beings bearing the divine image has been dominant among Old Testament scholars since the 1960s. This is the so-called functional view. By this is meant the understanding that it alludes to humanity’s position as God’s viceroy, having dominion over the earth and its living creatures.

This functional view was already occasionally held among the early Church Fathers, for example by John Chrysostom (Homilies on Genesis, 8.3) and Theodoret of Cyrrhus (Questions on Genesis, 20). It was also maintained later by some early Socinians (Unitarians), who incorporated this doctrine in their Racovian Catechism of 1605 (Oederus 1739: 48), as well as by some early Remonstrants (Dutch Arminians). It was also held by the prominent tenth-century Jewish rabbi Saadia (Zucker 1984: 257–258). Additionally, a few nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars followed this view (e.g. Holzinger 1898: 12). All these held this position because in Gen. 1.26ff. the reference to humanity’s ruling the animals and the earth follows shortly after the allusion to humanity’s being made in the image of God. However, it is more natural to suppose that humanity’s lordship over the animals and the earth is a consequence of its having been made in God’s image, rather than what the image itself denotes. This is made clear by v. 28, where God’s command to humanity to rule over animals and the earth takes place only after God’s blessing of them and commanding them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, whereas humanity has already been made in God’s image in v. 27. This important point is often overlooked by defenders of the functional interpretation.

The conclusion that God’s image in humanity refers to something other than humanity’s rule over the animals and the earth is also supported by a consideration of the other Genesis passages which refer to the image of God. Thus, in Gen. 5.1-2, the statement is repeated: ‘When God created humanity, he made them in the image of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and called their name humanity when they were created.’ Then v. 3 continues, ‘When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.’ Note that the same language is used of Seth’s resemblance to Adam as is used of Adam’s resemblance to God. This resemblance clearly includes a physical resemblance and cannot have anything to do with ruling over animals and the earth. Again, in Gen. 9.6 we read, ‘Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall their blood be shed; for God made humanity in his own image.’ These words are surely implying something about the inherent dignity and worth of human life, rather than referring to humans have dominion over the animals and the earth.

In spite of all this important counter-evidence, the most common view among Old Testament scholars since the 1960s has been that the image of God in humanity refers to humans ruling over the world.⁶ Why should this be? The continued repetition of this view probably owes something to intellectual fashion. Just as someone said that history does not repeat itself, but historians repeat one another, so there is an undoubted tendency for commentators to repeat one another. But the original impetus for the popularity of this view came in the 1960s, when two Old Testament scholars, Hans Wildberger (1965, repr. 1979) and Werner H. Schmidt (1964: 127–149),⁷ independently presented evidence that in ancient Egypt and Assyria the king could be spoken of as being the image of a god. They further suggested that in Genesis 1 the idea that human beings generally are created in the image and likeness of God is a democratization of this concept. As stated, this view has become very popular in Old Testament circles. There is a particularly thorough defence of it by J. Richard Middleton (2005). By contrast, only a minority of systematic theologians have taken this view (e.g. Hall 1986).

There are, however, some problems with this view. Firstly, we have no evidence that the Israelite kings themselves were ever spoken of as being in the image of a god. The assumption has to be made that the Israelites borrowed the imagery from either Egyptian or Assyrian kingship and then democratized it to refer to humanity. But with regard to Assyria, it must be noted that the imagery is rare: only six references are known (see Angerstorfer 1997), and of those four come from a single scribe about three individuals in two letters from the time of Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) and a fifth comes from the reign of his successor Ashurbanipal (668–c. 627 BC), while the other is from the time of Tukulti-Ninurta I (c. 1243–1207 BC). It does not seem very likely, therefore, that P’s language was adopted from the Assyrians. What then of ancient Egypt? It is true that there are far more occurrences of the concept in Egypt, but although there are occasional allusions down to Ptolemaic times, they are overwhelmingly from the eighteenth dynasty (c. 1550–1290 BC), about 800–1050 years prior to the time of the Priestly writer. Incidentally, although the Priestly writer probably wrote in the early post-exilic period, c. 500 BC, not long after the Babylonian exile, no references to the king as the image of a god are attested in Babylonia at any period.⁸

A popular variant of the functional view maintains that it was the custom of placing actual images of foreign kings in conquered territory as representations of their authority in absence that lies behind the alleged democratized representation of humans as images of the invisible God in Genesis (e.g. Brueggemann 1982: 32). However, as noted earlier, the fundamental objection to any functional understanding of the image of God is that it does not fit any of the three passages in Genesis very well. Even in Gen. 1.26ff. humanity’s rule over the earth is more naturally a consequence of its being in the divine image, not what the image itself is.

Finally, those who adopt the functional view tend to argue that human beings are not said to be made in (or after) the image and likeness of God but rather as an image and likeness of God. This involves taking the preposition beth, ‘in’, in b^etselem as what is called beth essentiae, ‘as’ (Clines 1968: 75–80, repr. 1998: 470–475; Gross 1993: 35, 37; Janowski 2000: 1159, ET 2009: 414). However, as J. M...