The Image of God and Human Dignity: A Complex Conversation

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-334
Author(s):  
Andrew Lustig
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
The Image Of God

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.

Racism as a challenge for church and society in democratic South Africa: Human dignity perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leepo J. Modise
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Relationship ◽  
Physical Organic ◽  
Philosophical Interpretation ◽  
Church And Society ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Image Of God

The image of God has been vandalised by racism in South Africa, which it is argued is a sin. It is an ecclesiological responsibility to address the vandalised image of God in South Africa. The author will argue from the human relationship as a build-up to the Theanthropocosmic principle. This principle denotes the relationship between God (theos) the human being (anthropos) and the physical-organic environment (cosmos). For addressing this responsibility, the grounds of internal racism are exposed using a philosophical interpretation. According to the author, there is a correlation between sin and racism. The latter is viewed as multidimensional from a Theanthropocosmic perspective.The theoretical framework will be within hamartiology and soteriology. The philosophical interpretation will be utilised to broaden the understanding of the theological problem of the vandalised image of God.

The Struggle for Human Dignity in a Consumer-Oriented Culture

2016 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-123
Author(s):  
Beverly Eileen Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Economic Injustice ◽  
Negative Feelings ◽  
The Image Of God

This article addresses the need to ground our discussions and advocacy to rectify economic injustice in the basic affirmation that the most vulnerable victims of injustice are above all full human beings created in the image of God and that their humanness is therefore inscribed with a dignity which we are bound to respect. There are three areas in which we need to be more attentive to the ways in which our discourse and assistance unwittingly reinforce patterns of defacement even as we seek to address economic injustice: (1) addressing our biases and negative feelings about the materially disadvantaged; (2) clarifying who the materially disadvantaged are; and (3) enlisting the aid of the impoverished in seeking the solutions to economic injustice.

THE FIRST WORD: TO BE HUMAN IS TO BE FREE

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond M. Tutu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The Image Of God

AbstractIn this essay, Archbishop Tutu explains how Christianity understands the inherent freedom, dignity, and human rights of each person to be a consequence of being created in the image of God. This idea contains radical liberative potential to challenge oppression and create structures for human flourishing. While Christianity has not always lived up to the liberative potential of its teachings, and too often has contributed to hatred, oppression, and violence, Archbishop Tutu argues, the power of religious voices remains essential in the struggle against oppression and for the protection of human dignity.

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.

The Image of God in Man—is Woman Included?

1979 ◽  
Vol 72 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 175-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryanne Cline Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Image Of God

“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind (adam) in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion….’ And God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Gen 1:26–27 clarifies that the Hebrew termadamstands for the generic species of humanity which is composed of men and women. If there is any doubt on this interpretation, Gen 5:2–3 declares and defines again: “When God created humankind, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them humankind when they were created.”The “image of God in man and woman” opens us to transcend both the masculine and feminine metaphors for God which abound in the Bible and to transcend our historical selves and social institutions in recognition of the Holy One. It would appear that whatever one's interpretation of the “image” and “likeness” of God, one would have to recognize that the biblical text makes explicit that in our resemblance to the Divinity and in our dominion over the earth and animals, men and women share a common human dignity.

Montaigne on Justice and Law

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valérie M. Dionne
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Divine Justice ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Alternative Solutions ◽  
The Ideal

This article examines the distinction that Montaigne makes between law and justice, between the words of the law and the ideal of justice. In refuting the concepts of divine justice and natural law, he demystifies justice and hopes to humanize law. He does not criticize the force of the law, but he condemns violence in the name of justice, and illustrates that justice as an ideal is problematic because impartial judgment is all but impossible to attain. Courts must not imagine that they operate in the image of God as purveyor of an absolute justice. Rather the authority of the law derives from usage alone. Judges must therefore uphold human dignity by recognizing the impossibility of judicial certainty and moderate the severity of their sentences accordingly. Montaigne lays the groundwork for modern views of alternative solutions to punishment, and for understanding the fallibility of the ideal of justice.

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.

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