The Purpose of Human Creation in the Image of God: According to Thomas Aquinas’ Understanding of the Image of God

2021 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 31-61
Author(s):  
Won Rae Jeong
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
The Image Of God

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.

scholarly journals Imago Dei og kroppsliggjort væren: En funksjonshemmingsteologi i lys av Thomas Aquinas

2020 ◽  
pp. 269-286
Author(s):  
Therese Marie Ignacio Bjørnaas
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Imago Dei ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
God's Image ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
The Image Of God

Theologians and philosophers have historically privileged the faculty of rationality in their exegesis of what it means to be created in the image of God. They have argued that we were made in God’s image when we were endowed with a rational soul. This argument is contested by contemporary disability theologians. They argue that by equating the imago Dei with the faculty of rationality Christian theology effectively strips people with cognitive disabilities of their human rights. It justifies elevating the cognitively able over the cognitively disabled in the same way that it justifies elevating the human species over other species. In this article, I will first show that the contemporary Western conviction that ability and independence are normal while disability and dependence are deviant owes much to definitions of the human first proposed by Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, and Immanuel Kant. I will then propose that Aquinas himself offers us a way out of these destructive binarisms. He defines the imago Dei as an embodied soul, an imperfectly intelligent substance that can fulfill its destiny only if it receives the support of society and the intervention of God’s grace. Aquinas’s theology of embodiment does not merely expose false assumptions about ability and disability; it compels us to appreciate the radical dependency and vulnerability of human nature.

scholarly journals Imago diaboli? Luther’s Anthropological Holism

Pro Ecclesia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-471
Author(s):  
Mickey L. Mattox
Keyword(s):  
Deleterious Effect ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Matthias Flacius Illyricus ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Devil

The Flacian controversy in mid-16th century Lutheranism turned on the question whether as a consequence of original sin the image of God in humankind has been lost and replaced by the image of the devil. Is the fallen human being evil per se? Examining Martin Luther’s comments on the story of creation and fall in his Genesis Lectures (1535-1545), I argue that Luther’s insistence on the loss of the imago dei results in an anthropology closer to that of Thomas Aquinas than to Luther’s uncompromising disciple, Matthias Flacius Illyricus. For both Thomas and Luther, original sin is a holistic term that reflects the absence of original righteousness in the essence of the soul. Luther rejects any substantial reading of original sin that would ontologize it as the very substance of the human being. His anthropological holism means that sin has a deleterious effect on the whole human being, including all the powers of body and soul. Sin is privative, a spiritual leprosy that corrupts the whole human being.

THE IMAGE OF GOD, CHRISTIAN RIGHTS TALK, AND THE SCHOOL OF SALAMANCA

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Lantigua
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
School Of Salamanca ◽  
Theological Challenge ◽  
Francisco De Vitoria ◽  
The Image Of God

AbstractThe salience of rights talk in Western cultures has generated constructive responses from various religious traditions. This article contributes to this religious hermeneutic by turning to the first-generation Spanish theologians of the sixteenth-century School of Salamanca, Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo de Soto, as important resources for Christian rights talk. These late scholastic thinkers made the image of God doctrine, as transmitted by Thomas Aquinas, the basis for affirming the worth and human natural rights of Amerindian peoples. To highlight the contemporary relevance of the school, the article engages Nicholas Wolterstorff's recent work on rights and his twofold critique of a capacities approach to human dignity and a virtues approach to justice. The School of Salamanca not only addresses the important concerns raised by Wolterstorff but uniquely offers a view of rights inextricably linked to human capacities and Christian virtue that highlights both the patient and agential dimensions of justice. They provide a critical theological challenge to the dominant secular liberal view of rights in a way that Wolterstorff's account does not.

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.

Gandhian Method of Conflict Resolution: Perception of Educated Youths

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. P. K. Kar
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Integral Approach ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Negative Concept

Gandhiji’s method of conflict resolution was based on truth and non-violence. Truth was for him the image of God. He did not believe in personal God. For Gandhi truth is God and God is truth. Life is a laboratory where experiments are carried on. That is why he named his autobiography “My Experiment with Truth”, without these experiments truth cannot be achieved. According to Gandhi, the sayings of a pure soul which possesses nonviolence, non-stealing, true speech, celibacy and non-possession is truth. The truth of Gandhiji was not confined to any country or community. In other words , his religion had no geographical limits. His patriotism was not different from the service of human beings but was its part and parcel(Mishra:102). Gandhiji developed an integral approach and perspective to the concept of life itself on the basis of experience and experiments. His ideas ,which came to be known to be his philosophy, were a part of his relentless search for truth(Iyer:270). The realization of this truth is possible only with the help of non-violence The negative concept of Ahimsa presupposes the absence of selfishness, jealousy and anger, but the positive conception of ahimsa demands the qualities of love ,liberalism, patience, resistance of injustice, and brutal force.

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