ABSTRACT
Kathryn Tanner contributes a thoughtful Christological view of the “image of God” where humans become an image through participation in Christ (as the archetype where we are the ectype), which I call a Christ-participatory view.1 As such, she offers a defensible, yet open to question Christological reading of the Creation narrative of the “image” (instead of humans imaging God or Trinity; Christ is the image). In this way, she posits a view that is strikingly in contrast with a view characteristically described as a substantive view, a natural “image,” and an intrinsic image.2 My goal is to constructively compare and contrast Tanner’s imago view with a view that is more in line with “western” and Augustinian (used as a term of art) intuitions and is more in keeping with a plausible account of scripture.3 Justification for this aligning with an Augustinian tradition finds support in Augustine’s referring to the soul (and all its features) as an “image” of God.4 By interacting with Tanner, I hope to show that one can affirm a view in line with a substance view that is able to accommodate Tanner’s concerns and incorporate some of the insights from Tanner’s external Christ-participatory view. In order to do this, I suggest a more finely grained account of a substantive view is required with the use of intrinsic teleology.5 In this chapter, I argue that both views satisfy contemporary theological desiderata for the “image” from creation, Christology, and teleology. However, I suggest that the substance view I advance is superior in its accounting
for the Creational data from scripture, providing a stable ground for personal identity and the “image,” and providing a ground for making sense of teleological union with Christ.
