Doctrine of Man (Part 4): Man as a Personal Being

Man as a Personal Being

Last time we talked about man's being in the image of God and what this means. I suggested that those who see some sort of a fundamental dichotomy between an ontological or substantial image of God and a functional image of God are guilty of making a false dichotomy. In fact, the reason that man can function in the image of God is precisely because of certain properties that he has ontologically. So it is the ontology that grounds, or is the basis for, the function.

2. Man as personal being

Let's talk a bit more about man as a personal being. In our locus on the doctrine of God, we saw that God is the personal, infinite God; that is to say, on the one hand God is personal (actually tri-personal), but on the other hand God is infinite, necessary, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, perfectly good, and so forth. Insofar as God is infinite, a great chasm separates God from the rest of creation. Man stands on the side of the chasm that belongs to creatures. Man is himself a finite, created thing, and in that respect is like animals, plants, and inorganic substances. He has a hominid body akin to that of the great apes. But insofar as God is personal, man is like God and unlike the rest of the created universe. To say that man is in the image of God ontologically, I think, is to say that man is personal. He is a person in the same way that God is personal, and he has the essential attributes of personhood (though, of course, since he's not infinite he has these attributes to a finite degree), and therefore he can function in certain ways – he can be related to God as God's co-regent on this planet in stewarding the Earth and its resources.

What then are the attributes sufficient for personhood? Reflection on ourselves as persons suggests that such properties as self-consciousness, rationality, and freedom of the will are sufficient for personhood. While higher primates like chimpanzees, for example, may have a rudimentary consciousness of themselves (they seem to be able to recognize themselves in a mirror, for example, although even this is disputed), nevertheless they do not have what philosophers call a transcendental ego, that is to say the ability to reflect upon one's own mental states, to be aware of oneself as a self, to say “I think that” before anything they believe. Similarly, even though chimps exhibit considerable intelligence, they cannot think abstractly as is evident from their inability to learn a language despite endless hours of instruction by primatologists. Even if they have souls they do not have rational souls. Finally, as a consequence, they lack freedom of the will but rather are causally determined to do what they do. On a Christian view of man, however, we have self-consciousness, rationality, and free will, and therefore are persons in the fullest sense of that word. We are as a result responsible moral agents able to relate to God. What an exalted view of man this is compared to the naturalistic view promulgated by people like La Mettrie and Dawkins!

3. Man as Sinner

Let's go on to talk a bit about man in the image of God as sinner. You’ll recall that in the Roman Catholic view, man as sinner is still in the image of God, though he has lost his likeness to God. But for the Reformers, who identified the image and likeness of God, the image of God was virtually obliterated by man’s fall into sin. What should we say about this?

In relationship to God, of course, man is separated from God in virtue of his sin. But that's not destructive of man's being in the image of God. Man is still a personal being, still in the image of God, even though his relationship with God is ruptured because of the fall into sin. In his state of original righteousness, or perhaps better put, in his original state of innocence, there is an open and free-flowing relationship between God and man that is unobstructed by sin. But then in man's fallen state as a sinner the relationship between God and man is severed. There's an obstacle now, namely man's guilt and evil that prevents him from being related to God in the way that he was created to be. He now finds himself alienated from God and estranged from God in this fallen condition.

But then, finally, in the state of grace, man finds his relationship with God restored through Jesus Christ. Now in the state of grace, man is able to experience the relationship with God that he was created to have, albeit a relationship of a flawed and fallen creature, but nonetheless still forgiven and redeemed and regenerated in Christ. When the New Testament speaks of being conformed to the image of Christ, this is a different category from the image of God. This has to do with our sanctification. Insofar as we are in Christ and are being sanctified by his indwelling Holy Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit (such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and so forth), then we become like Christ and so we come to bear his character ourselves.

I think this is a good point at which to close our class. Next time we will turn to the question of the nature of man. We'll look fairly closely at anthropological terms that are used first in the Old Testament and then in the New Testament to describe the nature of man – terms such as body, soul, and spirit.