2.1 Grammatical-historical

The theological process is primarily understood through the lens of the grammatical historical reading of biblical texts, according to this method. Exegesis is the process of drawing out the meaning of a particular text in its context by taking into account the meaning of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax and reading the text in light of its historical, literary, and cultural contexts. In this way, many who adopt such a method will also adopt a canonical (i.e. standard) notion of texts that must be understood in light of the whole. This, then, necessitates that one also take up, at a minimum, a theological method that requires one to make decisions about individual textual meanings in light of the meaning of the entire scriptures (assuming that the scriptures are defined by one singular divine action and are unified under a singular author). John Cooper expands on what some mean by the method to include a theological hermeneutic in his assessment of the scriptural teaching on human constitution which he defines as:

Theological or canonical interpretation collates and synthesizes the teaching of all texts to formulate the doctrine of scripture as a whole on specific topics and into a coherent synthesis of all doctrines. (Cooper 2016: 28)

In defining human constitution as a scriptural teaching, Cooper recognizes that theological determination is required. The manner in which he envisions this possibility of arriving at a meaning of human constitution is through a careful consideration of ‘God’s composition of human beings, the unity of human beings, and the disintegration and reintegration of death and resurrection’ (Cooper 2016: 29). Naturally, this narrow question on human constitution is important to theological anthropology, but it will also impact other categories and loci of anthropological doctrine.

Further questions will emerge in theological anthropology as one makes decisions about topi and their particular loci in the divine arrangement of doctrine. To complicate theological method even further, theological anthropologists will be confronted with other theological questions about where to place emphasis from the narrative portrait of scripture as they determine various topi in their logical order. Some of these questions will include the following questions of which theological anthropology methods emerge : what and when should the theologian highlight the creaturely or divine nature of humanity? What role does Christ have in anthropology (e.g. christocentric, logical, purposive, formal, material)? Where should the theologian place emphasis on the human in terms of the material arising out of the scriptural narrative: creation, fall, redemption, or eschaton (end times)? What does it mean to be human? Is it primarily a physical or embodied discussion or is there a place given to the immaterial, and how do we discern that in scripture? How should we understand types in scripture and how much latitude is given therein? Is there a sacramental meaning in scripture? Are some texts underdetermined in their meanings? Where do we find meaning? Does the community of faith have some role to play in determining the meaning of texts in a holistic arrangement? Does the church provide a formal role to hermeneutics? What we have here with a grammatical-historical approach, according to Cooper and other interpreters, seems to yield a view of the human as a body-soul unit, but this opens up a discussion about the nature of the human both in terms of personal identity and the ‘image’.

2.2 Christological anthropology

It is important to point out the trivial nature of Christian anthropology as christological anthropology. In some real sense, all of Christian anthropology is christological or christocentric in that humans find their true expression in the doctrine of Christ. Christ is both the anthropological exemplar and the anthropological norm of what it means to be human. Normally, however, when the term is used more is intended.

Accordingly, while it remains true that all of Christian theology is christological in some sense, most reserve the descriptors ‘christological’ or ‘christocentric’ for anthropologies that have a more robust commitment to the centrality of Christology in both the method and scope of Christian anthropology, and an important distinction exists between theologians who ground their christological anthropologies in a more thoroughgoing christocentrism and those that do not (Cortez and Hill 2023).

So, too, a christological anthropology that takes seriously the fact that Christ exemplifies normative humanity yields the view that Christ in his humanity persists without his human body (hence a human soul) during Good Friday and the day of resurrection. As such, given that Christ is our exemplar, if he persists as an ensouled being without his body, so do we exist as ensouled beings without our bodies.

2.3 Augustinian/Thomistic synthesis

At the heart of both Augustine’s and Thomas Aquinas’ anthropology is a commitment to the soul, an immaterial core of human persons that links us to God. It is this core that provides the foundation for both our metaphysical similarity to God and our epistemic awareness of God. It is by way of the soul and the internal connection to God that we come to know God (what some later theologians like John Calvin have referred to as the sensus divinitatis ). Both highlight the interior nature of knowledge of God that is had via the soul. Now, the respective philosophical anthropologies are distinct between Augustine and Aquinas, but there are several essential commitments that overlap between them and link their commitment to human constitution to their wider theological projects. Both are committed to the following theses: (1) the soul as the image of God, (2) the link between this metaphysical and epistemic project, (3) the natural or creational image as linked to the redeemed image in Christ, (4) the soul as the carrier of the transcendental (goodness, truth, and beauty) as pointers to the divine, and (5) the final unveiling of the image of all human’s eschatologically in deification. The present view, then, takes it that the human is to be understood from the vantage point of a ‘high’ anthropology distinct from a ‘low’ anthropology (see Zahl 2023).

Both the Thomist and Augustinian traditions highlight the soul as the core part where humans relate to God due to intrinsic properties and capacities. And, while this view is often described as a structural capacities view, it might be more fitting to describe it in terms of the soul as a concrete part. It is the substance that provides the ground for the intrinsic properties that relate to God. Further, it is the capacities that are descriptive of the substance that make possible ongoing participation in God. Finally, the nature of the substance has other characteristics that are only unveiled in Christ at the eschaton. In this way, there is a richness to both the Augustinian and Thomist synthesis that makes any reduction to a singular property or feature difficult. Furthermore, it is in this way that the view(s) has a richness from which later theologians and sub-traditions draw in order to constructively develop more refined understandings of the human (and the image of God, more on that below).

Douglas Finn agrees with this when he describes Augustine’s theological anthropology along the same lines:

According to Augustine, an image is distinguished from other likenesses by its relationship to its source. An image reveals something about its archetype, with which it shares some qualities. By contrast, many things may resemble each other without sharing the same origin. Their likeness to each other conveys nothing about their respective sources. (Finn 2021: 161).

Earlier Finn describes the centre of Augustine’s theological anthropology as the soul and its intrinsic properties (Finn 2021: 157). Aquinas agrees as far as this goes (Helm 2005; 2018). Aquinas, similarly, follows Augustine in his emphasis on the soul as the meeting place between humans and God, yet places greater emphasis on God’s dwelling with humans at creation and redemption as both a way of healing the human and elevating the human (Doyle 2021: 174–181). Further, there is a dual-functionality of the soul that is prominent in the writing of Aquinas, grounded in his philosophical assumptions and rooted in what some will argue is a more functionally integrated vision of the human (Meconi 2017). In other words, the soul, by its nature, has relational capacities in virtue of the soul’s connection to the body in the created order and other capacities in relation to the redeemed order. The importance here for modern and contemporary developments will lean on different patterns of scriptural reading of the human’s relation to other creatures, human relation to God both in human society as well as in the divine society of angels and God.

That said, these respective views or traditions within the wider tradition become the ground of reflection for central attributes that overlap human nature with the divine nature in both creation and redemption. Oftentimes this is understood according to Boethius’ definition of the person as a ‘rational nature’. These often come up in conciliar statements, confessions, and other symbols of the faith, particularly with respect to the attributes of holiness, righteousness, and the will – all of which richly reflect themes in scripture according to human development (e.g. Leiden Synopsis; WCF 4.2; RCC 1701–1715).

The soul points to the mystery and transcendence of reality, resisting reduction in created reality, which grounds the respective creational capacities of humans without isolating created humanity from redeemed humanity. In a similar way that the divine nature has been described as a diamond that has many facets that reflect the other and cannot be sharply separated, so it is with the ensouled human. The various features from beauty, goodness, and truth are known in and through the soul and find typological expression in scripture and, on a substance dualist view, the tradition’s appropriation of it. There are other features that take up interest in historical reflections following different Platonic developments. Some emphasize the ‘wonder’ of man (Finn 2021: 157–159; 163–166). Others highlight not rationality but intellectual knowledge (see René Descartes) or perceptual faculties (see Locke and Berkeley ). And others more recently, still, highlight facets of the human as an imaginative being (Hedley 2016). All of these features highlight what is central to Augustine and Aquinas, namely the soul as the meeting point with the divine being. Such a view has an important place for Christology, thus overlapping with the christological model, but, given mystery, also has an important place for the next view – which highlights eschatology and deification. Yet the difference between Augustine/Aquinas and the deification model is certainly one of emphasis on the initial reality of humans as first created and that of humans finally. Augustine and Aquinas highlight the creational reality of humans prospectively. And the deification model looks at the human retrospectively (Crisp 2016).

2.4 Anthropology as deification

The emphasis on humans eschatologically has been a strong and persistent theme in the history of Christian dogma. There is some trivial sense in which several of the views adhere to the fact that the anthropos will be revealed at the end of times in glory, at the summing up of God’s redemption of humans. Both christological and substantive models found in the Augustinian/Thomist synthesis can and do appropriate themes from the deification model. Commonly this view has been posited as the Patristic model of theological anthropology with its excessive emphasis on an apophatic anthropology and the need to define humans, only or primarily, eschatologically. In this sub-tradition, you might call it, there remains a traditional emphasis on humans as ensouled beings who have an inner connection or dynamism for God that can be unlocked, as it were, through participation with divine action in creation and in redemption. But, once again, the emphasis upon the apophatic nature of humanity must be underscored and cannot be overstated. Gregory of Nyssa highlights the instability of humanity at creation and the inability to describe the human, thus placing emphasis on the end of humanity – at least according to recent interpreters (Boersma 2013; Zachuber 1999).

The anthropology-as-deification model highlights that humans are only known eschatologically. In other words, the true nature of humans as divine image bearers is known eschatologically, so it is the apophatic aspects of humanity that truly describe what it means to be human. By apophatic, what is intended is that there are certain aspects or attributes of humanity that are not known or only known by way of negation concerning what it is that we now know (i.e. cataphatic). And, eschatological is intended to mean that there is a later unveiling in time in God’s history of redemptive action. In other words, what is intended by these two terms is that humans have apophatic features (that make humans what they are or what God intends them to be) that will only be revealed eschatologically, i.e. in the consummation of divine action through redemption.

There are concerns with the approach to anthropology-as-deification. The most obvious objection is that it places too much emphasis on the eschatological apophatic meaning of humanity and not sufficient attention is given to the natural, creational meaning of humanity that is arguably an emphasis in the creation narrative. The notion that we are entities created by God with ‘natures’ fitting for the respective tasks given to us by God at creation becomes an important datum for exercising reflection on what it means to be human. That said, the present account is motivated by concerns for humanity as truly revealed in Christ in the eschatological future, but without articulating some notion of the human as substantial it becomes suspect what it is that contemporary theologians are actually referring to when talking about humans.

2.5 The tradition’s central claims on a substance dualist view

There exists a distinction between what may be called piecemeal approaches that uproot anthropology from historical development and concrete situations and attempt to derive an understanding of the human from some abstract place. By way of contrast, those concerned with a traditional theological anthropology have a distinct approach. This latter moodis what one might call the ‘traditioned’ mode of theological anthropology that seeks to stay close (as rationally or experientially possible) to the moods, themes, patterns, and commitments of the wider Christian tradition. It is here that there are some clear themes that shape the wider tradition, and these provide the grammatical rules for anthropology as clearly expressed in creeds, conciliar statements, confessions, liturgical documents, and consciously appropriated by key theological authorities.

A central idea that is taken up in the wider Christian tradition is the soul. The soul becomes, in many ways, the centre of what it means to be a human and a person. Further, it is the soul that is central to the imago Dei (considered below). The soul is that immaterial core, or ingredient (depending on your philosophical anthropology), that relevantly relates to both God as Creator and humans as creation. It is the soul that serves not only as the preconditions for the marks of the human (e.g. relationality, representation, choice, and the connecting point for union with God), but the soul is central to the ontological meaning of humanity’s representational function, priestly mediation, and eschatological end.

The soul was the key indicator of humanity’s imaging function as expressed in creedal and conciliar statements, liturgical documents, and confessions, thereby a central component in all three major traditions (Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Reformed Christianity). However, the latitude of meaning concerning the soul is vast. Of course, there are two central philosophical anthropologies represented in most of the Western tradition (from Roman Catholics to variants of Protestantism) that lean toward Aristotle (particularly Thomist anthropology) and Plato (particularly Augustinian anthropology). There are strands of the theological soul tradition that highlight its role as the theological or ontological meaning of freedom of the will (as highlighted in some Western traditions with an emphasis on the original guilt and the overturning of that in redemption) or the covenantal function of representation (as found predominantly in the Reformed scholastic tradition). In the Eastern tradition, there is an emphasis on the meaning of the soul as priestly capacity. There are also strands that move beyond Augustine’s emphasis of the soul as the core place in which humans meet or unite to God (as well as Bonventure with his highlighting of the soul’s ascent to God) and the ground for seeing God to mysticism (where the demarcations of Creator-creature become fuzzy, as in representatives like Meister Eckhart). Mystical theology, generally, and mystical anthropology, particularly, requires (especially as seen in Eckart) a choice to be made between flesh and spirit, body and soul, internal life and external life, and, ultimately the divine and the human creature (Turner 1998: 147). This is precisely part of the rationale for why mystical theologians remain on the fringe of catholic theological anthropology. Where catholic theological anthropology attempts to occupy the space between the Creator and creature as expressed most clearly in a Christology that roots our final identity in the normative exemplar of humans. In this way, a traditional or catholic anthropology maintains the tension that permits a harmony between being united to God (via Christ), seeing God in Christ, and furnishing a ground for our particular creaturely identities that are neither eschewed by the divine nor undermined by a creaturely anthropology. In this way, the tradition supplies us with a mechanism for upholding the tensions between the extremes of a low anthropology and a high anthropology.

Stepping back from these approaches for a moment, a traditional theological anthropology that prizes a substantival approach can be systematically understood through the lens of two categories. The first is through the lens of personal identity as the stable referent that persists through change. The second is through the lens of narrative identity as the category for understanding humans in relation to God and the rest of creation. This latter category captures the notion of contingent identities. Contingent identities, further, capture the diversity of ways humans are described in their covenantal contexts and the varied ways in which scripture talks about the human as bearing the image of God.

Lewis Ayers once argued that it is the soul that furnishes the ‘anthropological context within which the structure of traditional discussions of grace and sanctification and the restoration of the imago Dei can be articulated’ (Ayers 2008: 183, note 22). Both Augustine and Aquinas explicitly highlight this fact of the soul as central to a theological anthropology. Peter Burnell summarizes Augustine’s view of human persons reflecting Ayers’ basic claim. He states:

At the resurrection, then, when human nature will be transformed into an immortal nature, the transformation will be in the inner quality of the human being. Both body and soul will be changed, but the change will be constituted by a divinely wrought modification of the soul. (Burnell 2005: 42).

This view has merit, as Calvin, reflecting the wider Catholic heritage, describes our spirit as the image of God (1975: 449; see also Calvin, Psychopannychia). Calvin bears this basic Thomist and Augustinian insight in another place. He states: ‘For although God’s glory shines forth in the outer man, yet there is no doubt that the proper seat of his image is in the soul’ (Calvin, chapter XV.3 ). As does the lengthy Westminster Confession: ‘After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image’. Terence Nichols summarizes the rationale for this soul-context and develops it in his argument from catholic personal eschatology when he says: ‘then even in heaven we could not know God directly, through intuition; for that to happen, we would need a spiritual receptor, a faculty by which we could perceive the spiritual God. […]Without such a faculty, we can know God only indirectly’ (Nichols 2010: 123; see also Helm 2005: 371). The centrality of the soul to a substance dualist theological anthropology is clear in the Roman Catholic Catechism: ‘Endowed with “a spiritual and immortal” soul, the human person is ‘the only creature that God has willed for its own sake’. ‘From his conception, he is destined for eternal beatitude’ (1703). A collage of attributes, often called structural capacities, that serves as theological preconditions (from freedom of the will, intellect) are identified with souls and regularly expressed in variant Reformed symbols of theological anthropology (see the Leiden Synopsis, disputation 10, 13).

The following will lay out the rationale for a substantival view of the human as an ensouled being that undergird the logic of a traditionalist approach to theological anthropology. The desiderata below furnish one way for upholding a traditional theological anthropology.

Desiderata of a substance dualist theological anthropology:

1. Stable identity with narrative identity: both stable identity and narrative identity are important. Narrative identity has taken centre stage in modern and postmodern theological developments (as with Jürgen Moltmann), but narrative is, arguably, insufficient for accounting for personhood without some stable referent. This is where some sort of substance becomes relevant to the grounding of the human person as the locus of theological reflection; something a traditionally inclined theological construction is determined to maintain.
2. Creator-creature distinction: Image as both creaturely and divine: humans are both creaturely and divine, temporal and eschatological. These twin features introduce complex tensions when considering the human that would seem to rub against aspects of a high anthropology and low anthropology, as described above. And, yet, they are common to the scriptural story line when considering the soul’s union with Christ where human images are described in ways that are not simply created entities, but redeemed entities. Just consider the fact that the scriptures describe redeemed human identity in light of a variety of metaphors that transcend created categories from adoption as children of God.
3. Particular images with glorified images: humans are images both individually and collectively. Insofar as humans are individuals they reflect the image as Adam represented God to humans and they are images of redemption in relation to Christ.
4. Minimalist christological anthropology (christocentric and christotelic): A minimalist christological anthropology takes it that humans are both normatively explained by Christ as redeemed ‘images’ and as best exemplified by Christ.
5. Dogmatic continuity: image as the leitmotif of scripture: one of the contemporary challenges concerning a theology of the human is the way in which the theological interpreter of scripture can make sense of the diverse ways in which the image is understood. With the seeming diversity of proposals on the ‘image’ one could be left with the impression that scripture has no clear, continuous understanding across the narrative, but, instead, the proposal advanced here furnishes one viable way to synthesize the material of scripture concerning the ‘image’ in a way that takes seriously the data of creation and the data of redemption via Christ. And, such an approach, avoids breaking up the variant meanings of the ‘image’ into discrete pieces that have no logical connection across the narrative of scripture.
6. Synthetic possibilities with philosophy, science, and culture: given the systematic proposal advanced here as a consistent reading of traditional theological anthropology, there are several implied benefits in contemporary discussions on philosophy and science.

The following sections describe human identity as conceived through the tradition as satisfying the above desiderata for theological anthropology. What seems to be prized by the tradition, as explained earlier, is that central notion of human identity often called ‘the soul’ that serves to ground identity and the image.

3.1 Substantialist approaches

Substantial approaches to human and personal identity give precedence to substance over relations or events. A substance is defined as a thing, a countable item, and as independent from other things or substances. Relations and events are contingent and dependent. Relations depend on substances. Indeed, it is substance as a category that dominates most of the tradition’s reflections and stands at the heart of what we are talking about when describe God, humans as his image bearers, and the rest of creation (Crisp 2016).

3.2 Relational approaches

Relational approaches specifically identify humans in their varied contexts pertaining to God and the rest of creation. These approaches, while prominent in contemporary theology, arguably require a substantial ground that provides the continuity for the varied descriptions and identities given in scripture. Through exploration of the various relational identities, this section will suggest that these not only presume a substance, but how they also provide additional texture and meaning to the more fundamental question: what does it mean to be human? In other words, the relational approaches are not in competition with a structural/substantival approach, but aid in filling out the narrative identity described already.

3.3 Personal identity and narrative (i.e. contingent) identity

Personal identity refers to that fact, state, or feature that makes each individual that individual. Narrative identity is distinct from personal identity (i.e. strict identity of personhood, if there exists such an identity) and provides a conceptual category for making sense of different types of contingent identity. Humans have many types of contingent identities that encompass occupations, functions, roles, and relations. These have varying levels of importance.

Farris fills out the definition of narrative identity, in the following:

Narrative identity is the identity that is contingent on the relationships we enter into. Narrative identity is fundamentally second-personal (i.e., narratives that use “you” in a way that brings the reader into the story and helps the reader imaginatively assume the identity of the character in the story) in that our narrative depends on the relationships we have with other people and our environment. When I say, “I am a professor,” I am making a statement about my story. I am saying something about what it is that I am in the context of the relationships that I have and the functions that I fill in my sphere of influence. When I say, “I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri,” I am once again making a statement about my story and some of the facts contained therein. It is here that I believe that the body plays a fundamental role in one’s narrative identity. (Farris 2020: 45)

This distinction of personal identity and narrative identity helpfully distinguishes the different types of identity presumed in the scriptural narrative that often becomes conflated in contemporary theological appropriations of the scriptural distinctions on identity. In keeping these notions of identity distinct, one can synthesize the data of scripture in a coherent way that permits distinctions of human identity and the ‘image’ across the phases of redemptive history.

3.4 Origin and destiny

Origin and destiny are important facets of what it means to be human. And, how one understands both can factor into either how it is that one understands personal and/or narrative identity. The latter point is an essential place for understanding humans. Our origins certainly reveal a central feature of our creatureliness and God’s design for us. The scriptural authors reflect on this important facet of human identity at our creation. Just consider the Psalmist’s reflection on Creation:

O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures. (Ps 104:24)
Also consider Job’s reflections on our creaturely nature:
Man who is born of a woman
is few of days and full of trouble.
He comes out like a flower and withers;
he flees like a shadow and continues not. (Job 14:1–2)

Our bodily interactions impact us in deep ways. They impress upon us our identities as biologically distinct sexes. Additionally, it is through the body that we enter into social interactions. In both profound ways and superficial ways, these creaturely realities impact our perspectives on life.

Another aspect of our origins impacts how it is that we understand the human. If, in fact, we are ensouled beings, as a substance dualist perspective suggests, then there is a question about the origins of that soulish part or ingredient that is central to our being who we are. It is this discussion that occupies significant space in the wider tradition. There were commonly three distinct positions occupying the attention of traditional theologians: creationism, traducianism, and the preexistence view. Creationism is the view that souls are directly and immediately created by God at each individual instance where a human person comes into existence. Traducianism, historically, affirms the fact of at least one, if not, two originally created human individuals (presumably the literary figures scripture refers to as Adam and Eve) from which each succeeding soul is generated through a biological or spiritual mechanism. The preexistence view, following Plato and Origen among others, affirms that souls pre-existed their bodies in some heavenly state. However, the preexistence view has largely been relegated as an archaic option only fit for the metaphorical waste bin of history. Post-Darwin, there was a reconsideration of humans as ensouled beings and the need for this discussion. But, even for those who affirm that humans are souls, there is a distinct option on offer: namely, an emergentist view of the soul (e.g. advanced by Hasker 2000). On an emergentist account, while there is a recognition of the need for creation at some level and the need for the soul as substance to provide the continuous ground for personal identity, the mechanism for generating souls is distinct from the traditional options already mentioned. What all these views recognize is the need for a soul as the metaphysical basis of personal identity despite what modern and contemporary discussions, i.e. post-Darwinian renovations, have argued that we are not immaterial entities with mysterious origins.

3.5 A rich-property view of human persons as soul-substances

A rich property is a complex property of teleologically related higher-order actualizations of a nature. In this case, if humans are teleological beings and can actualize what is intrinsic to their natures, then the rich property is able to capture what is unique about humans from creation, across redemption, and the eschaton. The human, then, has latent potentialities that exist at creation and these are related to later states or phases of existence in God’s redemptive plan for humans. By extension, this position satisfies the holistic nature of the imago Dei that is portrayed in scripture by affirming its enduring nature yet having connections to its glorified end (wherein souls bear a rich property). What we see below concerning the image is that relational and functional views portray the image function as a fluctuating representation of humans. The sort of rich property view of human nature furnishes a ground for making sense of the image as present from human origins yet persisting across the redemptive portrayal of the image.

4.1 Biblical accounts of human nature

Human Nature is described according to the biblical-canon development through creation, redemption, and the eschaton (e.g. David Kelsey and Robert Jensen). Some would have you believe that the biblical account is primarily conceived of in terms of the creation, redemption, and new creation (i.e. the new Earth of resurrection life; see Wright 2008; Turner 2018; Middleton 2005). However, this, arguably, misses the heavenly nature of humanity’s end and purpose so described in Western and Eastern Christianity and is a central fixture in Reformed Catholic readings of scripture (e.g. Levering; Hodge 1999). Assuming the tradition accurately captures the meaning of the human in the canon narrative development, then these visions of recent biblical exegetes miss the point of scripture and what some will describe as the dual-functionality of the human image as both earthly or creaturely and heavenly (Meconi 2017). By using the term ‘heavenly’, what is intended are those apophatic realities, identities, or features that are only revealed as humans are united to Christ (the divine-human) who transcends creaturely identity.

4.2 Biblical accounts of the imago Dei

Any account must take note of key scriptural passages on the imago Dei. The starting point, narratively, is Gen 1:26–28. It states:

Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’

As is clear, Gen 1:26–28 gives us some information in the context of God’s creation of humankind. Humans are described as representing God (v. 26). Ruling is significant to the role God gives to his human creatures over all other creatures (v. 26). Creation of the image includes both male and female (v. 27). Finally, the content and blessing of the image is expressed in the acts of procreation and dominion (v. 28).

Highlighting and clarifying the meaning of the ‘image’ as representational serves a biblical-theological purpose in the covenantal plan unfolding in scripture, but, as so many biblical scholars point out, it lends itself to some ambiguity (Beale 2008). There are numerous meanings of ‘representation’ that include: reflect, represent, copy, picture or resemble. The most fundamental meaning includes ‘resemble’ since if x copies, pictures, or reflects y, it follows that x resembles y in some way. The notion of ‘representation’, however, may not entail a resemblance relation as images often indicate (i.e. as copies, pictures of something else), even if it serves to situate the relation between humans to the Creator and to the creation in their respective covenantal contexts. That said, there are reasons that naturally incline one to affirm a resemblance relation between humans and God. The resemblance view is the most obvious meaning of ‘image’ and is basic to the definitions offered. Further, the resemblance relation furnishes, once again, a leitmotiv between the creational understanding of the ‘image’ by linking it to the redemptive or christological meaning of the ‘image’ only later unveiled in the narrative of scripture.

Beyond this, the passage does not explicitly tell us what the image is, and passages of scripture that occur later in Genesis and elsewhere inform the Gen 1:26–28 image concept. Theologian Nico Vorster argues that the Genesis notion of the imago Dei is ‘open-textured’ (Vorster 2011: 12). The “image” meaning is underdetermined in the Gen 1:26–28 passage and requires additional information to fill out its meaning. Systematic theologian, Stephen Wellum, and Old Testament scholar, Peter Gentry, argue that Gen 1:28 actually provides us with an ontological understanding of the image as that which is presupposed in the covenantal representation function rather than being equivalent to the covenantal representation function (Gentry and Wellum 2012: 186, 200–201; see also Mangano 2008). In fact, they argue that grammatically the covenantal representation spoken of in Gen 1:26 presupposes an image, which I suggest creates conceptual space for a traditional understanding that we are ensouled beings as the appropriate context for understanding the ‘image’ in and across the movements of the scriptural narrative. The grammatical construction of imaging the royal ‘we’ (which is either a reference to the heavenly court or specifically the Trinity) includes a cohortative subjunctive and should be translated literally ‘so that’ they may rule or take dominion. Presumably, ‘dominion’ means stewardship of the earth of which God has entrusted to his covenantal representatives who are to function as rulers and priests. Beyond this meaning, it is arguable that there is some semantic latitude in the rest of Genesis, not to mention the rest of the Old and New Testament teaching on the ‘image’ (Farris 2015).

4.3 The image as representational across covenants

If we are to take seriously the narrative development of the image in scripture, then we must consider the development that occurs at creation, through redemption, and finally the eschaton. These will be relevantly weighted depending on a wide and varied resourcing of theological sources that will inevitably privilege certain periods of divine action in history.

A systematic account needs to plausibly capture the holistic sense that the scriptures give to the content of the image across the scriptural story. Some have referred to this as the ‘all of the above’ approach (Cortez 2010). Others give more synthesis to the teaching of scripture by highlighting the holistic nature of the human in scripture (Peterson 2016). What is clear is that the wider context of the ‘image’ as described in the Creation narrative is the emphasis on two features that describe the ‘image’ as ‘dominion’ and ‘dynasty’ (Dempster 2003). Dominion is an important feature, highlighting the kingly role of the image as centrally a covenantal concept (see also Gen 9:6). The ancient Near Eastern context is a natural habitat for understanding the image as representing ‘dynasty’ (i.e. its emphasis on the familial heritage and the Kingly context; see Levenson 1998; Dumbrell 2013). Such an idea finds grounding in the extended sense of ‘image’ in Gen 5:1–3 that treats it as a familial, father-son relationship. These twin and interrelated concepts are taken up throughout the covenantal development of humans as image bearers and provide trajectory to its elastic meaning. In these ways, we have good reason, arguably, for understanding ‘image’ as a central and formal organizing motif in scripture that has several strands or features later to be picked up in the Old and New Testaments that find material development in the history books, the Wisdom literature, and the Prophets.

Naturally, a stronger version of christological anthropology may be consistent here if one privileges the material as formally understood by way of Christ. What this means is that one could start theological reflection on the image along the scriptures’ natural developing unfolding of the image, but the anchor and, better, formal principle will always point to Christ. A stronger material christological anthropology may rub against these intuitions of beginning with the creational material (as seen with someone like the Reformed theologian Allen 2018) and require a re-reading of creational material in light of christological determinations. Further, an anthropology as deification approach will elevate the material information of creation, the Old Testament in light of a formal commitment to the apophatic human defined by the eschaton. However, an Augustinian/Thomistic synthesis might, arguably, bring together a minimalist or modified christological anthropology and the eschatological ends of humans whilst also maintaining the integrity of the human as image bearer at creation and redemption.

Assuming one takes seriously the canon-development of the image both formally and materially, there is a need to assess key passages that go some way in describing the image. For this, we must begin with the start of creation, namely Gen 1:26–28. There is a growing agreement amongst biblical exegesis as to the translation of these passages that renders Gen 1:28 as ‘according to the image’ (Clines 1968; Kilner 2015). However, when taken up in a wider canonical reception some have concluded that there is an ontological dimension to these passages (Wellum and Gentry 2005). With that said, the latitude of meaning requires additional theological work that can be garnered in favour of what has been termed the anthropology as deification, christological-anthropology, and the Augustinian/Thomistic models.

One of the biblical-narrative objections to whatmay be called a strong christological and anthropology as deification model comes from the creation narrative’s emphasis on humans as image in and through Adam as a representative head. The trajectory of the creation story as one that finds narrative structure in covenantal representation more naturally fits with alternative models or methods of appropriating scripture. Even more, there is a question on the christological and anthropology as deification models as to whether or not an original pair (Adam and Eve) is necessary to the integrity of the scriptural narrative and to a systematic theology of humans. There are reasons for assuming that a pair is necessary as covenantal and biological representatives because of the need to ground Paul’s logic of an originator for original sin. But, as one would expect, there are responses at the disposal of the defender of the christological or anthropology as deification (Crisp 2016: 225–226). What this discussion clearly shows is that exegesis is insufficient for establishing theological meaning of the creation passages and, specifically, a theology of human beings.

This, then, leads to the need for careful, systematic analysis of the passages taken together in a holistic teaching on humans as image bearers. And while overlapping with the discussion on personal identity already given, can be distinguished from the image. For, it is possible to take the human to be a substantive entity, which could be different from an analysis of the ‘image’ itself. This requires then considering differing models that we have already alluded to.

Structural model: Structural views highlight the capacities or powers of human beings as explanatory of what it means to be human and what it means to reflect the divine nature. Farris puts it this way:

The structural model is the view that the image is identified with specific features or properties or capacities (e.g., consciousness, freedom of the will, the soul). On this model, humans uniquely reflect God in virtue of some feature or set of features, and they act as representatives of creation in virtue of these distinctive characteristics that set humans apart from the rest of creation. (Farris 2020: 84–88)

Arguably, the structural model is commonplace in and throughout the reflections of clergy and theologians. It highlights that which is distinctive of the human in a way that is richly situated in the substantial nature of the human.

Relational model: Relational accounts highlight humans in relation to other creatures or the divine. Otherwise, relational accounts often highlight the human’s uniqueness in terms of the divine setting apart of humans in a communal place. This is in contrast to the structural account that highlights capacities, powers, or potencies of nature. It is also in contrast to what some would count as a substantive account (to be distinguished from the structural account) where humans image God in light of their holistic natures.

Functional model: The functional image identifies the image not with a place, or a capacity, but with tasks in relation to an office within a covenantal framework. Furthermore, the functional account is often taken to find scriptural or exegetical warrant in the creation story found in Gen 1:26–28. That said, it has been argued that Old Testament theologians take the ‘dominion’ call of the creation narrative as primarily descriptive of the image and as the most likely candidate. Whether one takes this as a distinctive model from the relational model is up for discussion. But, given the trajectory of meaning across the canon it is arguable that a relational/functional model is insufficient without some broader metaphysical underpinning, as found in the structural/substantive or christological models.

J. P. Moreland explains what is needed on a relational/functional model that points us in the direction of some distinct ontological option:

There are two ways to accomplish such functionalization. First, the image of God can be taken in the representative sense according to which humankind was made to represent God in his activity of ruling on the earth on God’s behalf. Second, the image can be taken in the relational sense according to which it is constituted by certain interpersonal relationships with God and other persons. It should be obvious that either approach presupposes the ontological understanding. Something can represent God in the way just specified only if it has certain powers and attributes apt for carrying out the appropriate representational activities. And an entity can stand in certain relations and not others depending on the kind of thing the entity is, and an entity flourishes in certain relations and not others depending on the sort of thing it is. (Moreland 2009)

Whether the defender of a relational/functional model agrees, the challenge deserves their attention.

John Calvin, closely reflecting the sub-traditions of both Augustine and Aquinas, in his emphasis on the soul as image, describes the soul as a leitmotif of creation and redemption. He states:

For, while the whole man is called mortal, the soul is not thereby subjected to death; nor does reason or intelligence belong to the body merely because man is called a ‘rational animal.’ Therefore, although the soul is not man, yet it is not absurd for man, in respect to his soul, to be called God’s image; even though God extends to the whole excellence by which man’s nature towers over all the kinds of living creatures. Accordingly, the integrity with which Adam was endowed is expressed by this word, when he had full possession of right understanding, when he had his affections kept within in the bounds of reason, all his senses tempered in right order, and he truly referred his excellence to exceptional gifts bestowed upon him by his Maker. And although the primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and heart, or in the soul and its powers, yet there was no part of man, not even the body itself, in which some sparks, did not glow. (Calvin 1975: 88).

4.4 Historical development of the human as an image

There are two key figures that highlight what is often construed as mutually inconsistent approaches but may rather be considered complimentary figures that bring together a substantialist account with a narrative account, namely: Augustine and Irenaeus. Both figures highlight complementary features of the image that can be synthesized and explained in a mind-first substance (i.e. Augustine) and harmonized in a participatory understanding of the human as a dual-functioning figure in creation and across redemption whilst also uplifting the creaturely relations to deified relations (as seen in the personalism of John Paul II’s theology of the body). Irenaeus might be described as giving us a methodology, itself, but it might also be thought of as a methodological constraint on how one should go about developing a theology of the human as an image bearer. Irenaeus develops a recapitulation portrait of humanity that gives credence to both creation and redemption, but understands the whole by connecting the beginning and the end with a full restoration to humanity for what was lost at the fall of humanity with primal sin. It is here that modern exegetes of scripture have found a historical place for understanding the human along narrative lines and is picked up in fascinating ways in various biblical-theological developments of the human (Wright 2005; Jenson 2001). In this way, the flesh of Christ becomes a central motif of scripture and is picked up in a eucharistic theology of human transformation highlighting human resurrection (Behr 2000; Minns 2010).

5.1 The meaning of the human

The above accounts might give one reason to posit that the imago Dei is not substantial or structural. In fact, while the proponent of a substantialist account of humans finds traction in philosophy, scripture, and tradition, it does not demand that the doctrine of the imago Dei be understood along these lines. One might take it that there are several reasons that a substance undergirds the imago Dei, but distinguish these reasons from reasons supporting a structuralist/substantive image (Cortez 2010: 1–10). Along these lines Cortez summarizes the case against a substantial imago Dei because the definition of the image depends upon a system of relations already present in humans from the beginning of the scriptural story (Cortez 2010: 5). He argues that such a position renders difficult the ability to pick out one feature of humans that accounts for the horizontal relation between humans and other creatures – this he calls the philosophical concern (Cortez 2010: 19). Another concern is theological. On the traditional or substantialist approach, it is difficult to pick out one capacity that ‘parallels’ the divine being (Cortez 2010: 18). There are other concerns commonly raised about a substantialist image that isolates humans as mere individuals and gives the impression that the image should be understood in disembodied ways. Having motivated some of the philosophical and traditional reasons for affirming a substantial or structural image, let me respond to each of these briefly. The philosophical concern can be alleviated if we understand humans as substantially distinct from other creatures. The theological concern can be alleviated when we recognize the fact that humans bear a relation to the divine via the immaterial component that links human persons to the divine. Both of these are well-situated in the Plato-Augustine-Calvin-Descartes tradition as well as the Thomistic tradition – although these two look different in terms of the underlying philosophical anthropology undergirding them and will impact how one understands the epistemic end for which humans aim. By understanding that God, in his nature, is not a material being, it bears repeating from within this tradition that what bears a similarity relation (i.e. ‘resemblance’) or parallel will not be material but immaterial. The latter two concerns, too, can be accommodated, but this will depend on other philosophical principles. The substantialist model is not beholden to an individualist rendering, but it can be articulated, and arguably has been within the Platonic tradition, as collectivist or communal. The disembodied concern need not render the body a non-image, but a secondary image that participates and is elevated by the soul (Feingold 2018: 43).

The more serious concern for the substantial view is that it lacks exegetical support (Cortez 2010). But, it is important to point out that the biblical material does not grant us a clear metaphysical portrait beyond a commitment to mere or general substantial dualism. That commitment is firmly entrenched in the traditioned appropriation of scripture and firmly grounded in a canonical reading of humanity. With that said, all theories of the image presume an ontology of the human and demand some metaphysic, unless one wishes to do theology without metaphysics of which there are recent attempts (Hector 2011). All relations depend on Relata and the functional view, of which so many exegetes are now committed, depends on powers respective of the types of beings under consideration. But barring this move, the concern that a substantial view has metaphysical commitments is not a strong objection to the view. These reasons do not demand one affirm a substantialist view, but they do soften the blow of the common objections and open the door to it. The more serious concern is that the biblical data, especially confined to the Old Testament, gives us no exegetical reason to affirm a substantial, or soul, view of the image.

The common contemporary move to dismiss what appears to be a traditional account that highlights ensouled beings as image bearers due to recent revisions of human constitution and trends toward relational ontologies may be too quick. The intuitive support for a substantially unique view of the image finds traction in several intuitive places that have been taken up and developed in the recent theological anthropology literature. There are, however, a variety of ways that the ‘image’ doctrine along the lines of a structural or substantival view have been taken up in contemporary constructive theological anthropologies that deserve a mention as viable projects for deeper reflection on what it means to be human through the ‘image’ notion.

One of the ways is to understand that humans are unique in terms of the consciousness properties they bear in contrast to other creatures, which establishes a similarity relation between God and humans (Moreland 2008; 2009). Relatedly, one might take it that the nature of freedom found in humans is unique in the creaturely kingdom. One fascinating and recent approach has taken language to be a unique marker of the human (Huyssteen 2006). Another mark suggested has been that the phenomenon of laughing is distinctively human (see Scruton 1986). And, in recent years, these features of consciousness, language, and laughing are uniquely understood by way of imagination, which is another route for re-envisioning the Platonic tradition’s emphasis on the soul of humans (Hedley 2016). By highlighting these features as marks of the image, recent figures highlight the transcendentals of humans, which distinguishes them from other creatures and points to their immortal natures. If souls are, by nature, immortal, then this is one feature that resembles the divine nature and undergirds other features. The body is mortal by virtue of its being able to die. The soul is immortal in its ability to persist and not die (i.e. in the sense that it does not cease to exist in the way that bodies cease to exist). And, if the soul as x persists through the death of the body y, as a natural object, then the soul exists in some sense as an immortal entity. Of course, this does not rule out the possibility that God could destroy the soul (as Matthew 10:28 suggests), but that would yield a distinct or additional act beyond that which is natural. In this way, the soul is either ‘conditionally’ immortal in that God gives additional life to the soul to persist beyond natural death or ‘qualifiedly’ immortal in the sense that barring a divine act of destroying the soul the soul will persist.

And, while the structural view is often associated with the substantive view, there may be an additional objection to the structural view. The structural view isolates different attributes, properties, and capacities as descriptive of the image. However, the problem with finding one attribute or capacity is that humans exhibit these at varying levels and to varying degrees. One can certainly mitigate these concerns by pointing out that these capacities point to the image insofar as there exists a fact of the matter to them. Otherwise, the common charge of denigrating certain races, people groups, unborn children, and handicapped leads to a denigration of some image bearers in favour of others. But, this points to the fact that humans are concrete beings rather than beings in the abstract. And, if one can ground the fact of being a human and a person in a substance, then it undermines the charge that humans exhibit the ‘image’ on a sliding scale (Farris 2016; McIntosh 2023: 4–6). Instead, a substance view grounds the fact that individual humans as collectives exhibit the ‘image’ as a fact. Now, this does not mean that there is no role given to the quality of one’s appropriation of the gifts of creation and redemption, but the fact of their being an image is not conditioned by meeting shifting human standards or abstractions. Instead, the human is a stable image of God.

Another line of response to the exegetical concern, which as we have seen is the objection that structural/substantival views have no exegetical support, is to argue from a holistic canonical reading of scripture by highlighting the synthetic nature of the biblical data on the image. When one does this, not only do we find different aspects or features of the image doctrine codified in different phases of redemptive history, but we realize that if there is to be a synthesis then a structural/substantival notion is an option worth taking seriously. In doing this, there is a place for humans as ensouled beings that are able to act. The types of substances sufficient for the image has import to how we understand the biblical data. First, they are able to capture the polyvalent description of scripture given to the image doctrine. Second, they highlight the teleological nature of the image suggested in the scriptural development of the notion from creation, redemption, and the eschaton (Farris 2015; see also Barr 2008: chapter 8).

5.2 Creation and the imago Dei

As discussed previously, some have argued that the creation narrative, particularly in Gen 1:26–28, highlights for us a relational or functional notion of the image. However, the exegetical evidence for this conclusion is strained and does not obviously support a functional view. In fact, the exegetical weight points in the direction of something being the image or being in the image that is called (i.e. by way of the creation mandate) to perform as God’s covenantal representatives. So, the creation data does not obviously support either a relational or functional view – even if certain functions are expected of God’s image bearers. While it does give credence to the functional relation as central to carrying along and developing the image doctrine through the covenantal storyline of scripture where God gives life and blesses that life, there is not a good reason to rule out a substantialist view (cf. Crisp 2016: 222). In fact, the doctrine is taken up in interesting narrative ways when considering God’s action toward his image bearers in redemption.

5.3 Redemption and the imago Dei

One of the most apparent challenges to the christological model of the image comes from the biblical data on redemption. When we consider the redemptive material, not only does it arguably presume a creational notion of the image, but, more importantly, if a christological model is true then we must consider the fact that the material from redemption refers to those who are united to Christ as ectypes of the archetype. What this means is that the ‘image’ doctrine applies solely to them and not to the unbelievers who are otherwise outside of the covenant promise (Pannenberg 1995: 208). There are, of course, responses by defenders of the christological model that account for the redemptive material in different ways so as to include all humans in the election of Christ as the head, thereby rendering all in the image of God in some way. However, this may seem to some as contrived and ad-hoc.

5.4 Imago Dei and Jesus Christ

Some have claimed that the New Testament data, and particularly the Pauline data on the image, highlight Christ as the image exclusively (Cortez and Hill 2023). But, once again, it is not entirely clear why the defender of a substantial view should find this concerning or should take it that the christological focus gives us a comprehensive sense of the meaning of the image. The central passages often cited in favour of this approach include 2 Cor 4:4, Col 1:15–18, and Heb 1:3. There is one Pauline passage that is often cited in favour of a traditional substantial view (even an essentialist account of the image), and is not straightforwardly identified with Christ, namely 1 Cor 11:7. To be fair to the christological model, it is clear that these Pauline passages (with Hebrews) indicate that Christ is the image. But, once again, both the traditional substantive view and the christological image must make sense of the Old Testament passages that indicate that humans are image-bearers. Defenders of both models have various ways to synthesize the biblical material.

5.5 Modern challenges

There are a variety of modern objections to the substantialist view. Most of these are directed to the concern that uniqueness is not met. These objections commonly raised are directed to the notion that the church does not clearly share a commitment to a substantialist image. By avoiding the challenges to the substantialist account, some prominent theologians who remain close to the Tradition have opted for a relational account (Dalferth 2016: 18–4373–74). Others have opted for some version of an apophatic and eschatological account (Tanner 2010a).

6.1 Uniqueness challenge: cosmology

There are a variety of challenges from cosmology that would render a substantival theological anthropology a fiction. Most of these concerns would undermine not simply theological anthropology, but, more, the theism that undergirds it. Some of the concerns that have been advanced include the possibility there are other rational, conscious beings in parallel universes or outer space that would sufficiently satisfy the conditions of the image as structural or substantialist in nature. Yet, such concerns simply raise questions about how specific revelation also applies to these hypothetical beings.

6.2 Uniqueness challenge: biology

Probably the most powerful objection to the traditioned doctrine of the substantial image comes from biological evolution. This has been advanced in a variety of ways and in several contexts. But, let us consider the articulation of this challenge from one proponent, Joshua Moritz (2017: 45–56). One might refer to one variation of this challenge of biology as the challenge of demarcation. This has to do with the inability to mark out a clear kind-difference between human animals and the rest of the animal kingdom. The idea is basically captured in what follows. According to recent biological evolutionary studies there is no kind-difference between higher-level animals and human animals. In fact, the distinction is only a distinction in degree of quality not of kind. There are no kind-essentialisms that can be marked out any longer for biological organisms. The old kind language reminiscent of Aristotle and the vitalist traditions of the seventeenth century are no longer holding credence in the world of biological studies. Instead, what we have are developmental differences that exist in biological genetics that cross the span of evolutionary history and provide a continuous link across the animal kingdom. What this means is that there is no fundamental way to identify a unique mark between humans and other animals. So much the worse for traditional theological anthropology or so the story goes. But is this all that there is to say? Some believe to the contrary that there are, in fact, kind-distinctions within biology, especially between humans and higher-level animals. But even if this were not the case the uniqueness can be found elsewhere, namely in the fact that humans are at their core souls, body-soul composites, or hylomorphic compounds that require a new creation. The point is that this objection only seems to apply to a purely materialistic view of humans and fails to take into account the unique features of ensouled beings that are set apart for God’s special program in the universe.

6.3 Uniqueness challenge: environment

There exists a notable body of literature that takes the emphasis found in substantialism and the functional view as denigrating to the environment. One of the objections common to a traditional theological anthropology is that it leads to a type of global dualism or theistic dualism of God and world – where the two are radically bifurcated. And, if there exists the bifurcation commonly perceived then the microcosm problem of humans dominating the Earth with their own idiosyncratic concerns leads to a much larger concern with God, and humans over the world as dominator and dominated. Consider Sallie McFague as one of those who issues such a challenge. McFague states:

What if the model was revised so that God as “person” would be not just mind, but also body? What if we did not insist on radical dualism between God and world, with God being all spirit and the world being all matter or body, but imagined a model with God and the world being both? That is, what if the world were seen to be God’s body, which is infused by, empowered by, loved by, give life by God? (McFague 2008: 71)

Another philosopher of religion and theology Pamela Sue Anderson states:

Giving supreme perfection, and so authority, to the ideal of reason ensures the man has his ultimate gender ideal: the omni-perfect Father/God. Often there is still no awareness among philosophers of religion that their ideal is problematic; and this is reinforced by divine, omni-perfect attributes; the latter serve as the core concepts and central topics in philosophy of religion. So, this patriarchal ideal ensures the dominant authority of men who remain blinded by their vision. Of perfection, unaware of the implications for the ‘rationality’ of their beliefs concerning women, as well as non-patriarchal men. (Anderson 2014: 12)

In both cases there is a similar concern that a substantival theological anthropology with God as this supreme, perfect being with omni-attributes is simply the ideal projection of the male ego that retains a biased idiosyncratic perspective from no place at all. However, in response to this sort of objection, Emilie Judge-Becker and Charles Taliaferro respond to the charge of epistemic bias, perspectival bias, and male-dominated egos . They argue that rather than this projected ideal of a God’s eye perspective being a perspective from nowhere or from an abstraction, it is a perspective from ‘everywhere’ (Crisp 2016: 87). In other words, it is a perspective that takes into account all other perspectives including those of women, disabled people, the disenfranchised, and the victims. If Judge-Becker and Taliaferro are right, then the objection advanced by McFague and Anderson does not amount to an obvious objection to a substantival Christian theological anthropology.

7.1 Why the doctrine matters

Theological anthropology has, arguably, two sources: natural revelation and special revelation. And, both inform an understanding of the human. The importance of the doctrine cannot be overstated because every single ethical, social, and political concern will have some recourse to one’s commitments to a theological anthropology. In fact, all of our contemporary discussions presume some content about what we mean by the human. From race relations, to disability, to vaccines, to gender and sexuality, all require careful and critical reflection from within the church’s reflections. This reflection will differ based on several complicated hermeneutical, philosophical, and theological guiding principles. Most notably, where we place emphasis on sources of information for arriving at a doctrine of humanity depends on how much weight we give to natural law or the collective wisdom of biological scientists. Further, as we have seen above, how and where the theologian places an emphasis on the narrative phase will have importance to the overarching structure of theological anthropology. Is it creation, redemption, or the eschaton? Further, are there different types of images as some biblical interpreters have argued? Is the image something that we can lose and regain or is it fixed in the creation story? Answering all of these questions will depend on complicated hermeneutical assumptions guided and informed by philosophy, the sciences, and theological tradition.

7.2 Individualism versus collective identity

The discussion on individualism and collectivism is a complicated and often ambiguous one. The most obvious place which this discussion presupposes the primacy of individual or collective identity centres on the discussion on ‘rights’ in a judicial context (e.g. as in the Constitution of the US with its appeal to the Lockean notion of ‘rights’ to liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness). The discussion occurs in earlier church history discussions on original sin of which Pelagius was isolated out by the wider conciliar consensus as committed to individualism – of which there is no way to predicate original sin from Adam to his progeny. And, the Catholic Church has settled on some complex agreement between individuals and collectives. The discussion has had wide and varied appropriation in the context of racial discussions and, in particular, how it is that we go about counting collectives as societies, nations, ethnicities, and races. The two broad categories of race include realism and anti-realism and, within that, the question of whether race is construed realistically as fundamentally biological or a social construct. Alternatively, some argue that race is not real and what really matters is the individual.

In recent history, there is a vigorous discussion that at its heart concerns the question of individualism vs. collective identity. One of the fundamental categories that has and continues to occupy a central place in theology is the category of the biological, natural family (Roberts 2007). Considering gender and sexuality, recent Roman Catholic theologians drawing upon the richness of their own tradition and the codifiers of it reflected in Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis construe humans as fundamentally collectives or communally arranged. The most fundamental community is not the individual isolated, but the individual in a family (Levering 2020a). The family is construed as a biological reality of two heterosexual couples (e.g. recall again the ‘similarity’ and ‘difference’ categories earlier concerning the nature of one-flesh or conjugal union) (Girgis, Anderson and George 2012). It is this biological reality that is naturally real and sacramentally real and set at the heart of the Church’s teaching on the image of God as a Trinity, which is sacramentally realized in the mysterious union of Christ and his Bride, the church (Matthews 2022; Allen 2018). Such a view is committed to a strong traditional sexual ethic of a gender binary biologically rooted in sex.

Contrastively, there have been recent accounts that eschew the theological stability of gender and re-envision the nature of sexuality as theologically real or impacting the theological purposes of humankind. Recent proposals of biblically revisionist readings of texts have received significant attention. The primary focus has been on the nature of the biological, natural family as a fundamental category of scripture in light of the New Testament teaching on a redeemed humanity and re-envisioning the category of theological community through an ecclesial lens (Brownson 2013). There is also a growing body of literature drawing from medicine and technology in order to reconcile new constructions of family and community, generally (Hansen 2019). The challenges for such a re-envisioning of the human are, arguably, considerable. First, the overcoming of common patterns of reading for 2,000 years regarding the basis of gender binary in biological sex as theologically significant is not a small challenge. Second, finding a real basis for a community that does the theological work once occupied by the biological, natural ‘family’ may prove difficult. Third, avoiding isolationism, individualism, and reductionism based on loose metaphysical categories requires more attention than what we’ve seen thus far.

7.3 Ecclesial identity

Extending the discussion above in the context of redemptive human identity and our identity in union with Christ, there are recent reflections in contemporary theology that explore the nature of redeemed identity now and in the future. Of particular note, there exist three principal contemporary theologians who highlight the nature of ecclesial identity and how that factors into the imago Dei. The first is a recent retrieval from the Patristic fathers who advance a case for a fundamentally social trinitarian image founded in our ecclesial participation as housed in eucharistic communions (Zizioulas 2001: 55–57, 159–162, 197). Zizioulas develops a sacramental episcopal understanding of the ‘image’ as a collective whole. He offers a summary:

Only if we regard the Eucharist as the revelation of the Church in her ideal and historical unity, and the bishop first and foremost as the leader and head of the eucharistic assembly which unites the Church of God in space and time, do we recognize in each of these their profound ecclesiological content. (Zizioulas 2001: 14)

In this way, his notion of the ‘image’ as a social organic unity occurs as humans are incorporated into Christ, which is the church expressed in local eucharistic communities (Zizioulas 2001: 15). The incorporation into Christ is both sacramental and ontological, but it is given in the community. The important question to answer in how to determine the ontological and sacramental reality has to do with the ordering structure that Christ establishes. The second option is the Latin understanding guided by Aquinas gives a distinct answer from the episcopal model of Zizioulas.

For Aquinas and Zizioulas (representing an episcopal model in Orthodoxy), they both affirm the trinitarian ontology of the church rather than a monistic ontology, Christ’s action of constituting priestly mediation, the fact of ecclesial hierarchical mediation, and the intrinsic sacramentality to the church (rather than mere functional representation). Where they depart is on the understanding as it occurs at the point of the relation between the universal and particular, the singular hierarchical head (i.e. the Pope), and, ultimately, the expression of the ecclesial concerning unity and plurality (Levering 2010: 225).

By way of radical contrast, a third option has been advanced by Miroslav Volf. Volf advances a portrait of the ‘image’ of the social trinity by rejecting the top-down ecclesial structures of ancient hierarchy in favour of an egalitarian and pluralist ecclesiology. This one can call a free-church ecclesiology, but what is important here is how he understands the nature of human identity as fundamentally one that is communal in nature whilst also respecting a plurality of ecclesiological structures as equally valid expressions of the ecclesial image. For Volf, the historical contingencies of monarchy informed the older ecclesial hierarchies of Orthodoxy and Catholicism and are outdated given the values of modern society (e.g. egalitarianism, pluralism, and democracy). Hierarchy, we can now see from history and culture, is no longer a viable form of government. The historical contingencies are pointers to theological, or sacramental realities that confront hierarchy with Jesus’ message of inclusion, the problem of an outmoded gospel, and ultimately the creation of inequality amongst persons. Furthermore, the underlying ontological motivation for Volf is that hierarchical ecclesial models present us with an inequality of persons in the Trinity of which we image (Volf 1996; 1998).

All three views raise important questions about the nature of the church, but for our purposes they raise questions about the nature of personal, human identity and the imago Dei as a christological, communal, and ontological reality. They, too, have implications for social governing of people and how we ground ethical claims about human beings. Further, they point us to reflect more deeply on the stability of the redeemed image, the dynamic conditions for change, and the means by which the image of God is fulfilled.

7.4 Eschatological identity

Eschatological identity plays an important role in how we understand humanity. Recent theological reflections have taken note of this and some theologians foreground this feature of humanity as determinative of human identity. The historical discussion centres on the dialectic between the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body (Cullman 2000). In recent theological speculation, we have seen an almost decisive shift toward the resurrection of the body as determinative of the human identity as a physical reality. Some point out the narrative focus of scripture on the physical resurrection as the eschatological purpose of humanity reflected in Christ’s resurrection as the paradigm for humanity picked up in Paul’s portrait in 1 Corinthians 15. However, this is complicated by several factors. First, it is complicated by the emphasis on the beatific vision and the apparent focus of the scriptural teaching on deification – highlighting the divine portrait and character of humanity, which can hardly be described as primarily physical in nature. Second, while finding fewer scriptural references, the teaching on the disembodied state as an interim period between somatic death and somatic resurrection points to a distinctive aspect of the human story. For these reasons, the wider tradition’s reflections on the human in relation to the divine construes these as less a bifurcation between two contrastive, or worse contradictory, realities, but as complementary realities in an integrative picture of the human as a soul-body unity.

But, there are two practical issues that deserve attention for pastoral reflection. The first concerns the recent emphasis on the nature of deification primarily expounded in the Eastern tradition (yet also found in the Western and Latin traditions) that has been a source of retrieval in recent history amongst Protestant theologians (particularly by T. F. Torrance; see also Canlis 2010). Of particular importance is Maximus the Confessor’s contribution to post-Chalcedonian developments of deification in the ‘theandric’ notion of humans seen principally in the divine assumption of the human. The reality of the anthropos as an interpenetration of the divine and human is exemplified in Christ (where Christ is a divine person assuming the human nature). The sharing of divine properties with human nature is taken up by Maximus as the designed purpose of humanity and raises questions that later Reformed and Lutheran theologians debated through the lens of the eucharistic partaking of the divine nature via his human nature. Maintaining the distinctive of Christ as a divine person in human nature establishes the foil for discussing the human (and is necessarily christological) by also avoiding the tendencies of each toward monophysitism or eutychianism (i.e. the Lutheran impulse) and the Nestorian leaning (i.e. the Reformed impulse).

Deification of humanity is a natural conversation space with recent ideologies, including transhumanism and post-humanism. Transhumanism is often conceived as an outgrowth of secular humanism, and a replacement of its central value being humans, and considers the possibility of improving on human nature through technological advancements. Post-humanism is related to transhumanism, but takes its starting point for the human in a richer feminist perspective for departure from a more egalitarian and eco-friendly interaction with the environment. But, this opens another discussion highlighted by both transhumanism and post-humanism, namely the possibility of Artificial intelligence and the nature of subjectivity.

A more fundamental philosophical question concerns the nature of the ‘subject’ in theological anthropology. Consider this the modern turn in theological anthropology following the lead of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schleiermacher as well as later modern thinkers (e.g. Karl Rahner, Balthasar, and Pannenberg). Both Kant and Schleiermacher lead us to reflect on the nature of consciousness and the subject as central mediums for understanding the human because these provide the impetus for the uniqueness of human beings.