Personalidad Humana
There's got to be a story here. |
“Then
God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness so
that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky,
over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the
creatures that move along the ground.’” (Genesis 1:26, NIV)
This
is part II of “mankind in the image of God.” Earlier, I pondered
the imagery in terms of the physical—the human body, cuerpo
humano. Today, I’d like to consider the implications
personality-wise. Is the writer saying that God’s personality and
our personalities are alike? Is a similar range of emotion and
thought present in God as in us?
Genesis
1:26 contains a “so that,” a reason for the creator to have made
us this way; how else would we have the ability, skill and
intelligence to accept sovereignty over the earth? Most of us, most
of the time would likely question God’s judgment in thinking that
we are up to the job, but such a conclusion can only be reached, I
think, if we make the mistake of reading the allegory as a history.
There’s no disputing, though, that in the realm of all
living things on earth,
it’s mankind that holds the big stick
. . . and uses it ruthlessly;
“livestock” exists in total servitude to mankind. (Interestingly,
“livestock,” or the domestication of animals is generally
considered to have become practice around 10,000 BC, or ca. 9,400
years before scribes composed the Genesis creation allegories.)
Whether
or not the personality of mankind mimics that of the God--as Old-Testament writers visualized him--would have to be tested. The canon
contains a great deal of speech and action attributed to God and
certainly love is there—but so is its opposite: cruel vengefulness
(eg. the flood, Sodom and Gemorrah, the subjugation and genocide of
Ai by Joshua). Question is: does the OT portray us as reflective of
Godly thought and behaviour, or is it the other way ‘round?
What
is clear throughout the OT is the observation that the mind, the will
and the behaviour of mankind falls short of the standard expected by God.
In other words, we are reported to have been created in God’s
image—but have then regressed, kind of like evolution in reverse.
This, in fact, is the key narrative of the entire canon; our
self-destructive propensities continue to this day to be the primary
impediment to our survival. Redemption therefrom our only salvation.
(I
think that in their own way, the deer in the forest, the geese flying
overhead, the dairy cattle, beef cattle, horses, dogs and cats
perceive us as Gods in much the same way as we think of God as a God.
(Except for cats, maybe, who are more disdainful than subservient.)
Fear of mankind is key for them, the fear of God for us. Perhaps
there lies in this some support for the “in the image of God”
shibboleth. Except by now there are—for them—no atheists.)
In
our thoughtful moments, I believe, we all know there are good ways to
be good humans, and I further believe that we know intuitively what
they are. I don’t believe for a minute that we’re born with the
stigma of sin upon us; more appropriate would be the image of a child
being born, being created “in the image of God” with the same
options as her/his allegorical ancestors: Adam and Eve.
And
most importantly, have we as Judeo-Christian religionists viewed
ourselves far too much as “possibly in the image of God, but
broken, guilty,” when we should have been rejoicing much more in
the potential suggested by “in the image of God?”
How much and how often will we reiterate what is vile and loathsome
about us humans and begin to repeat and repeat the goodness and the
potentially-even-greater goodness in us?
Thoughtful
parents know that children develop toward a standard of worthiness
when . . . and only when . . . they’ve grown up with the conviction
that they’re personally valued, worthy. Created in the image of
loving parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, community, church
possibly? The image of God, possibly?
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