Image of God/ Imago Dei
Gregg’s reflection
In my coaching work, I have learned to ask what image of God my client holds. How we see God affects how we see ourselves, how we see the world, and the religion we practice. For decades, I saw God as a judge to be feared, ready to whack me whenever I messed up. My image of God was in many ways formed by my impatient, angry, perfectionist father. Funny how that happens.
Decades of meditation helped me see more deeply into God and into myself. The picture of God as Compassionate Lover slowly began to replace my image of God as a harsh judge. Through the Structure Work I was studying with Robert Fritz, I began to see I had an operating system that made me believe I had to prove myself worthy. When this surfaced in a structure session, Fritz asked me, “Is that how your religion works?”
In that moment, I realized that while I had given intellectual assent to the Lutheran theology of Salvation by Grace through Faith, my subconscious believed the lie that I had to make God smile in my own strength. If I could do that, why would I need Jesus? I could be my own savior. I now see all structures as self-salvation efforts. The evil one twisted one wire deep within, and shorted out the idea of Grace being the source of salvation.
This began to come clear to me as I was beginning my coaching work. Doing structure work with clients helped me see the same broken operating system time and time again. This led me to begin to uncover the image of God my clients hold. I found even pastors preaching reformed theology of Salvation by Grace had fallen into this trap.
Seeing this helped me to start asking: Are you Driven or Drawn? In our culture, being driven is a mark of success. Yet, if you examine the picture, something is driving us if we are driven. I was driven by a deep feeling I was ‘not good enough.’ If this idea resonates, see my post on this subject. So, come along as we examine what Scripture, the saints and mystics say about the Image of God. Blessings
Journaling Prompts
What image of God do you hold? On a scale with Compassion on one end and Judgment on the other, where do you see God? How would your view of yourself and your religion change if you could see a God of compassion and love?
Scripture
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness….” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26-27
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
Romans 8:29
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18
And put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:24
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Colossians 1:15
Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
Colossians 3: 9-10
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
Hebrews 1:3
Ancient Writings
I am as I am in the eyes of God. Nothing more, nothing less.
St.Francis of Assisi
The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw and knew I saw all things in God and God in all things.”
God is “within all things but not enclosed; outside all things, but not excluded; above all things, but not aloof; below all things, but not debased.”
God is one “whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” Therefore the origin, magnitude, multitude, beauty, fullness, activity, and order of all created things are the very “footprints” and “fingerprints” of God. Now that is quite a lovely and very safe universe to live in. Welcome home!
Bonaventure
Each of us has a soul, but we forget to value it. We don't remember that we are creatures made in the image of God. We don't understand the great secrets hidden inside of us.
St. Teresa of Ávila
Modern Writings
When Christians hold a toxic image of God, then they are more likely to engage in toxic behaviors. In the spiritual direction world, we talk a lot about “image of God.” Every human being (yes, even atheists) have an image of God. We have an idea in our tiny little skulls about what God is like.
Is God infinitely loving, or filled with wrath? Is God’s justice fueled by compassion or by a desire to punish? Does God want God’s followers to be living examples of compassion and care, or is God mainly interested in our obedience and conformity to a narrow understanding of what “holiness” and “righteousness” might be? Everyone has an image of God. For most of us, that image may grow and evolve over the course of our lifespan.
Carl McColman, If you worship an Angry God, You’ll be an Angry Person, Anamchara, July 4, 2024
In Christ, we see an image of a God who is not armed with lightning bolts but with basin and towel, who spewed not threats but good news for all, who rode not a warhorse but a donkey, weeping in compassion for people who do not know the way of peace.
In Christ, God is supreme, but not in the old discredited paradigm of supremacy; God is the supreme healer, the supreme friend, the supreme lover, the supreme life-giver who self-empties in gracious love for all. The king of kings and lord of lords is the servant of all and the friend of sinners. The so-called weakness and foolishness of God are greater than the so-called power and wisdom of human regimes.
We might say that two thousand years ago, Jesus inserted into the human imagination a radical new vision of God—nondominating, nonviolent, supreme in service, and self- giving…. Maybe only now … are we becoming ready to let Jesus’s radical new vision replace the old vision instead of being accommodated within it.
Brian D. McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian, p. 92–93.
In the long light of human history, then, it is not belief in God that sets us apart. It is the kind of God in which we choose to believe that in the end makes all the difference. Some believe in a God of wrath and become wrathful with others as a result.
Some believe in a God who is indifferent to the world and, when they find themselves alone, as all of us do at some time or another, shrivel up and die inside from the indifference they feel in the world around them.
Some believe in a God of laws and crumble in spirit and psyche when they themselves break them or else become even more stern in demanding from others standards they themselves cannot keep. They conceive of God as the manipulator of the universe, rather than its blessing-Maker. . . .I have known all of those Gods in my own life. They have all failed me.
I have feared God and been judgmental of others. I have been blind to the God within me and so, thinking of God as far away, have failed to make God present to others. I have allowed God to be mediated to me through images of God foreign to the very idea of God: God the puppeteer, God the potentate, God the persecutor make a mockery of the very definition of God.
In our conception of the nature of God lies the kernel of the spiritual life. Made in the image of God, we grow in the image of the God we make for ourselves. . . .If my God is harsh judge, I will live in unquenchable guilt. If my God is Holy Nothingness, I will live a life of cosmic loneliness. If my God is taunt and bully, I will live my life impaled on the pin of a grinning giant. If my God is life and hope, I will live my life in fullness overflowing forever.
Joan Chittister, In Search of Belief 20-22.
When I bring myself into the presence of God, I imagine him in many ways: as a loving father, a supporting sister, a caring mother, a severe teacher, an honest judge, a fellow traveler, an intimate friend, a gentle healer, a challenging leader, a demanding taskmaster. All these “personalities” create images in my mind that affect not only what I think, but also what I actually experience myself. I believe that true prayer makes us into what we imagine. To pray to God leads to becoming like God. . . .
Henri Nouwen, Henri Nouwen Society Post, We Become What We Imagine, . May 17th, 2024
Your image of God creates you or defeats you. There is an absolute connection between how we see God and how we see ourselves and the universe. God is Reality with a Face which is the only way most humans know how to relate to anything. There has to be a face!
Without an interior journey of prayer or inner experience, much of religion is largely childhood conditioning, which God surely understands and uses. Yet atheists and many former Christians rightly react against this because such religion is so childish and often fear-based, and so they argue against a caricature of faith. I would not believe in that god myself! Our goal, of course, is to grow toward an adult religion that includes reason, faith, and inner experience we can trust. A mature God creates mature people. A big God creates big people. A punitive God creates punitive people.
If our mothers were punitive, our God is usually punitive too. We will then spend much of our lives submitting to that punitive God or angrily reacting against it. If our father figures were cold and withdrawn, we will assume that God is cold and withdrawn too. Scriptures, Jesus, and mystics to the contrary.
If all authority in our lives came through men, we probably assume and even prefer a male image of God, even if our hearts desire otherwise. All of this is mirrored in political worldviews as well. Good theology makes for good politics and positive social relationships. Bad theology makes for stingy politics, a largely reward/punishment frame, xenophobia, and highly controlled relationships.
Richard Rohr, CAC Daily Devotion, 11/28/21
Much of Christian history has manifested a very different god than the one Jesus revealed and represented. Jesus tells us to love our enemies, but this “cultural” god sure doesn't. Jesus tells us to forgive “seventy times seven” times, but this god doesn't. Instead, this god burns people for all eternity. The mystical, transformative journey cannot take place until this image is undone. Why would you want to spend even an hour in silence, solitude, or intimacy with such a god?
Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love, p. 79
If we want to go to the mature, mystical, and non-dual levels of spirituality, we must first deal with the often faulty, inadequate, and even toxic images of God with which most people are dealing before they have authentic God Experience. Trinity reveals that God is the Divine Flow under, around, and through things. Jesus tells us that God is like a loving parent who runs toward us while we are ‘still a long way off’ (Luke 15:20), then clasps and kisses us. Until this is experienced, most of Christianity does not work.
Richard Rohr, Yes, and, p. 65
We might say that whatever our God is like, whether or not our God exists, our God is still powerful because our image of God transforms us. Like an image in a mirror, our God concept reflects back to us the image of what we aspire to become. Powerful and vengeful? Kind and merciful? Dominating and in control? Relational and respectful? Like God, like believer, we might say. Our image of God, our image of ourselves, and our processes of individual and cultural development move together as in a dance.
Brian D. McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World's Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian
What do the Christian mystics tell us? That the wisdom they offer us can literally unite us with God—or at the very least, give us such a powerful experience of God's presence that it can revolutionize our lives. The purpose of such transformed lives is not primarily to achieve a goal (like enlightenment or spiritual bliss), but rather to participate in the Holy Spirit's ongoing activity—embodying the flowing love of Christ, love that we in turn give back to God as well as to “our neighbors as ourselves.
Carl McColman, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism: The Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality