Rambling Thoughts About the "Imago Dei"

       What does it mean that human beings were made in the image of God? This is a question that has sparked many answers from many different theologians. A surface answer would be that it means that we somehow look like God physically, and this is still how many mistakenly understand the Scripture when it says in Genesis 1 that "haAdam," male and female, was made in the image of God. Thing is, our physical bodies are clearly animal in nature, and research scientists today can trace that lineage of evolution back millions of years to creatures which don't resemble human beings in any way. At some point, all animals on Earth, human beings included, share a common ancestor. Our bodies are very much of these four dimensions, of this space and this timestream. Our thoughts even in trying to describe extra-dimensional realities are limited to the symbology and experiences of the four dimensions by which we are constrained because the physical, animal brain literally can't process anything more.

     But what being made in the image of God tells us is that we, as human beings, are not our bodies. We are not the thoughts our brains come up with, or the sum of the things we experience in this life. We are not our names, our likes or dislikes, or anything else in this world with which we identify. We are not anything which can be corrupted, get sick, be hurt, or even die. All of these things can happen to a human body, but not to the consciousness which inhabits that body. The consciousness which is connected to or inhabits that body is like a person playing a computer RPG using an avatar such as in World of Warcraft or Skyrim. Many horrible things can happen to the avatar that will never touch the player themselves. The player may so identify with the character that it becomes truly traumatizing (though we would suggest that player was imbalanced if it did), but what happens to the avatar can never truly harm the player.

     So then how does this essentially immortal consciousness relate to a human being the image of God? God is the ultimate original, primal Consciousness. Every other consciousness derives from His. What separates each human consciousness from His is our own, individual free will. Our ability to choose differently and independently from what He would choose and do. The "substance" of it, for lack of a better word, is derived from His own Consciousness, but "programmed" in such a way to where we are volitionally autonomous. And this is something He will absolutely never revoke or take away, because to do so would destroy the unique individual consciousness much like wiping a hard drive or clearing the RAM in a computer would destroy the unique data therein. The RAM and Hard Drive of course still physically exist, but the program within is just gone. Our individual free will is precious to Him. This is why He guides, teaches, sometimes coerces, sometimes corners, but never involuntarily overrides a person's free will, never turns them into an automaton no matter how harmful their choices become.

     The human being's physical brain is malfunctioning, as I have written copiously about, but the "imago dei," the image of God that each human being genuinely is remains intact because nothing can actually harm it any more than anything can actually harm the Being from whom it derives. It can become confused with the self-identity which the malfunctioning mind creates, and so share in the suffering which the malfunctioning mind endures, but nothing can actually harm it, damage it, or remove it because the image of God is what each human being really is.