Hmmm....So people who lack rational understanding, moral obedience, and/or
religious communion (with God, or with each other, do you mean), lack the
image of God?
Depending on the matters of degree here, in this case probably most
Americans lack the image of God! :^I
Perhaps this list is a good place to start, but I doubt it's close to a
destination.
Problems with it I notice:
(1) Not clearly either conjunctive or disjunctive.
(2) None of these characteristics are particularly binary -- all are
continua, with only zero as a lower limit and no clear upper limit. (This
is fine so long as the image of God admits finely of degrees [even between
individuals, if this list be definitive], but most seek a more crisp
distinction, perhaps even a clear bifurcation, and at a macro-level, perhaps
at least a species level.)
(3) Largely Scripturally and theologically speculative. Scripture just
doesn't talk much about the imago Dei, especially as distinct from non-imago
characteristics of man, or non-imago unique characteristics of man.
--John
-----Original Message-----
From: evolution-owner@udomo2.calvin.edu
[mailto:evolution-owner@udomo2.calvin.edu]On Behalf Of Jim Bell
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 1998 11:20 AM
To: evolution@calvin.edu
Subject: After Fundamentalism
Glenn writes:
<<Exactly what objective criteria would you advance that we can see in the
fossil record which would allow us to infer the existence of the Image of
God?>>
I think Henry's list is a good place to start:
1. rational understanding (Gen. 1:28ff.)
2. moral obedience (2:16-17)
3. religious communion (3:3)..
Note that #2 requires a code, and #3 requires an object of communion, not
mere "consciousness."
You know what this means, of course. There may NOT be any evidence in the
"fossil record." The evidence may go back only so far as the Sumerians..
Hard as it is to accept, Glenn, you may not be able to find evidence for
everything you desire..
<<Is the definition of the image of God someone who looks exactly as us?
If art, religious articles, burial, and altars won't convince someone that
there is a spirituality among a given ancient human, I fear that nothing
will.>>
What is "spirituality"? What is "religious"? These amorphous terms can be
mangled to mean just about anything. They are not rigorous enough to help
us here. Find a Neanderthal site with the 10 Commandments, and you're onto
someting. Otherwise, you may be simply foreclosed. Sometimes you cannot
impose your agenda on the physical record. Isn't that what you object to
with the YECs?
Jim