The Creator of God and free man

“The first promise which we hear from the Bible about man is his creation in the image of God.  What is meant by this, and what does it mean today? “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him.” (Gen. 1:27).  This means, first of all, that man is a creature of God, like all His other creatures.  They are His fellow-creatures.  He is not their God, and conversely neither “Mother nature” nor “Father State” are his God.  In between God and nothing man exists together with all other beings, as the creation of the divine good pleasure.  There is a solidarity which embraces Him together with nature.  This belief in creation has a critically liberating force, if it is taken seriously.  The gods and demons vanish from the world, which is understood as a creation of this transcendent God.  This cuts the ground from under the feet of  the self-deification of man, of national politics, of nationalism and of the fetishism of goods.  There are no divine men.  Human man is neither “man”s God” nor “man’s wolf”, but is conscious of being a creature of a free God among his fellow-creatures.  Like them he has been called out of nothingness into endless existence.  This means, further, that of all creatures it is man alone that has been created and destined as the image of God upon the earth.  The image or likeness is something that corresponds to God Himself and is meant to do so.  In His image the creator wills to find His partner, His echo, and His honour.  In His image He wills to be present Himself upon the earth.  His image is meant to represent Him and to act in His name.  In His image He can Himself be encountered, and His goodness experienced.  The doctrine of creation sees all things as a creation of God, but man as the image of God.  This indicates the special position of man in the world.  Things and animals are just what they are.  But man is a mirror of what he fears and loves above all things.  This may be a mirror of his bodily interests, a mirror of his society, a mirror of his own work ahd his social roles, but always and image of what he loves and fears.  This is hte point of his off-centre position.  The appointment of man in the image of God means that man cannot be absorbed in that which is to hand, but that the infinite distance of the creator from his creation also destines man to infinite freedom over against all finite things and relationships and even his own reality. It is the honour of man that he is counted worthy of this relationship.  And it is his wretchedness that from the moment he forgets his transcendent background, he must expect or fear infinitude in infinite things, and divinity in earthly and human relationships.  “What you put your heart on is your God”, Luther rightly said in the Larger Catechism.  “He who looks upon himself does not give out light”, says a Chinese proverb.”

 

Quote: Jurgen Moltmann, On Human Being, pgs. 108-109