In the Image of God

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Kent
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Latin West ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Middle Ages

Christian writings from late antiquity through the Middle Ages have much to say about the dignity of various beings but little to say about the dignity that all humans have simply because they are human. Few authors of the Latin West used the biblical account of creation to argue for the kind of human dignity we often hear about today. Why? This chapter argues that two factors do much to explain their silence. First, patristic and medieval authors believed that God made angels as well as humans in his image, so that humans were not the sole creatures endowed with understanding, will, and free choice. Second, most authors thought that human nature was badly deformed by the Fall and needed to be reformed in the likeness of Christ. They focused less on creation than salvation, an end they believed attainable only through the grace of baptism and God-given virtues.

scholarly journals Vrou as beeld van God, Deel 1: 'n Historiese ondersoek - Vanaf Genesis tot die Middeleeue

2000 ◽  
Vol 56 (2/3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Patriarchal Society ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Middle Ages

Woman created in the image of God, Part 1: a historical investigation - from Genesis to the Middle Ages. This study indicates that the traditions in the Pentateuch, especially the creation traditions, implied the egalitarian status of man and woman as image of God. The context of this traditions, however, was patriarchal and thus opened the possibility of the exploitation of women. Though Genesis 1:27 does not specifically attest to the asymmetry between man and woman in patriarchal society, the fate of women in general was bound up with the presentation of God as a male creator. The implications of this presentation can be clearly seen in texts of the intertestamental period. The study points out the degree to which Philo's view of a hierarchy concerning man and woman as immanent to God's order of creation, strongly influenced Christian thought on the place of women. Since the "fall of woman" necessitates a "soteriology", women in general are portrayed negatively in patristic texts. Mary is seen as the positive counterpart of Eve. The image of women then becomes that of submission on account of their alienation from God. The article concludes with the view of Thomas Aquinas that the subservience of slaves is less than that of women, because in their case it is not an order of creation.

Circe’s Beasts and the Image of God: More’s Creative Appropriation of Pico’s Humanist Spirituality

Moreana ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (Number 179- (1-2) ◽  
pp. 45-62
Author(s):  
Joseph W. Koterski
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Spiritual Warfare ◽  
General Question ◽  
The Image Of God

In More’s preface to the first of the letters of Pico that he translated for inclusion in his Life of Pico, he explains Pico’s account of the beasts into which Circe changes various men. To what he finds in Pico, More adds his own comments about possible deformations of the image of God within us. This paper reviews relevant portions of More’s Life of Pico and of Pico’s letters in light of the general question of Pico’s grounds for the dignity of human nature and argues that More has provided a kind of friendly amendment to the views of Pico on the ultimate grounds for human dignity, not only in the preface to the letters but also in his way of handling Pico’s three sets of rules for spiritual warfare.

scholarly journals El rigor y la gloria: el Juicio Final y su repercusión en la modernidad

Medievalia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-70
Author(s):  
Cossette Galindo Ayala ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Last Judgment ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Middle Ages

This work presents a historical journey on the doctrine of the Last Judgment, starting from its antecedents in ancient Judaism, its rise in the millennial ideology of the Middle Ages, until reaching certain perspectives of its repercussion in Modernity. The Final Judgment forms a doctrine that combines the image of God as a rigorous judge who executes the Law, applying the punishments or prizes related to the works carried out in life, with the vision of a glorious king who will manifest his messianic kingdom in which the human beings will be saved by grace of divine intervention.

Persons Together

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Market Relations ◽  
The Image Of God

This chapter moves into the political and economic aspects of human nature. Given scarcity and interdependence, what sense has Judaism made of the material well-being necessary for human flourishing? What are Jewish attitudes toward prosperity, market relations, labor, and leisure? What has Judaism had to say about the political dimensions of human nature? If all humans are made in the image of God, what does that original equality imply for political order, authority, and justice? In what kinds of systems can human beings best flourish? It argues that Jewish tradition shows that we act in conformity with our nature when we elevate, improve, and sanctify it. As co-creators of the world with God, we are not just the sport of our biochemistry. We are persons who can select and choose among the traits that comprise our very own natures, cultivating some and weeding out others.

TheTraditio Legisin Late Antiquity and Its Afterlives in the Middle Ages

Gesta ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-52
Author(s):  
Armin F. Bergmeier
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The Middle Ages

Vir Dei: secular sanctity in the early tenth century

1972 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Derek Baker
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Social Organisation ◽  
Life Crisis ◽  
Literary Convention ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Middle Ages

As recent anniversary studies have emphasised, the vir Dei, the man of God, has been a christian type since the time of St Antony, and whatever pre-christian elements were embodied in the Athanasian picture the Vita Antonii possessed a christian coherence and completeness which made of it the proto-type for a whole range of literature in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. In hagiography the Antonine sequence of early life, crisis and conversion, probation and temptation, privation and renunciation, miraculous power, knowledge and authority, is, in its essentials, repeated ad nauseam. Martin, Guthlac, Odo, Dunstan, Bernard are all, whatever their individual differences, forced into the same procrustean biographical mould: each is clearly qualified, and named, as vir Dei, and each exemplifies the same - and at times the pre-eminent – christian vocation. Yet if the insight provided by such literature into the mind of medieval man is instructive about his society and social organisation, and illuminating about his ideal aspirations, the literary convention itself is always limiting, and frequently misleading. As Professor Momigliano has said, ‘biography was never quite a part of historiography’, and one might add that hagiography is not quite biography.

scholarly journals Church and state in South Africa and human rights

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Piet J. Strauss
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
World War ◽  
Central Tenet ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Second World

After the Second World War, there was a universal rise and greater acknowledgement of human rights, which entered churches and ecumenical organisations’ way of thinking. Human rights influenced the church’s understanding of justice and human dignity both internally and externally. The concept of human dignity came from the biblical believe that man is created in the image of God. In South Africa human rights were also increasingly recognised and respected. A charter of human rights was included as chapter 2 of the 1996 Constitution and churches regard human dignity as a central tenet of their approach to members and non-members. Differences between church and state on the issue have arisen as the result of differences on the freedom of religion. Church and state in South Africa can complement each other in the promotion of human dignity.Opsomming: Kerk en staat in Suid-Afrika en menseregte. Na die Tweede Wêreldoorlog is menseregte wêreldwyd erken en aanvaar. Dit was ook die geval in kerke en ekumeniese organisasies. Menseregte het kerke se siening van geregtigheid en menswaardigheid in hulle interne sowel as eksterne optrede beïnvloed. Die begrip menswaardigheid het ontstaan uit die bybelse oortuiging dat die mens na die beeld van God geskape is. In Suid-Afrika is menseregte ook toenemend erken en aanvaar. ’n Verklaring van menseregte is as hoofstuk 2 in die 1996-grondwet ingesluit en kerke beskou menswaardigheid as toonaangewend in hulle benadering van mense binne en buite die kerk. Verskille tussen die kerk en die staat in Suid-Afrika oor menseregte het ontstaan as gevolg van verskille oor die inhoud van die vryheid van godsdiens. Teen hierdie agtergrond kan kerk en staat mekaar egter aanvul in die bevordering van menseregte.

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