IN THE IMAGE OF GOD: PERSONS IN COMMUNION

25. Communion and stewardship are the two great strands out of which the fabric of the doctrine of the imago Dei is woven. The first strand, which we take up in this chapter, can be summarized in the following way: The triune God has revealed his plan to share the communion of Trinitarian life with persons created in his image. Indeed, it is for the sake of this Trinitarian communion that human persons are created in the divine image. It is precisely this radical likeness to the triune God that is the basis for the possibility of the communion of creaturely beings with the uncreated persons of the Blessed Trinity. Created in the image of God, human beings are by nature bodily and spiritual, men and women made for one another, persons oriented towards communion with God and with one another, wounded by sin and in need of salvation, and destined to be conformed to Christ, the perfect image of the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Body and soul

26. Human beings, created in the image of God, are persons called to enjoy communion and to exercise stewardship in a physical universe. The activities entailed by interpersonal communion and responsible stewardship engage the spiritual - intellectual and affective - capacities of human persons, but they do not leave the body behind. Human beings are physical beings sharing a world with other physical beings. Implicit in the Catholic theology of the imago Dei is the profound truth that the material world creates the conditions for the engagement of human persons with one another.

27. This truth has not always received the attention it deserves. Present-day theology is striving to overcome the influence of dualistic anthropologies that locate the imago Dei exclusively with reference to the spiritual aspect of human nature. Partly under the influence first of Platonic and later of Cartesian dualistic anthropologies, Christian theology itself tended to identify the imago Dei in human beings with what is the most specific characteristic of human nature, viz., mind or spirit. The recovery both of elements of biblical anthropology and of aspects of the Thomistic synthesis has contributed to the effort in important ways.

28. The view that bodiliness is essential to personal identity is fundamental, even if not explicitly thematized, in the witness of Christian revelation. Biblical anthropology excludes mind-body dualism. It speaks of man as a whole. Among the basic Hebrew terms for man used in the Old Testament, nèfèš means the life of a concrete person who is alive (Gen 9:4; Lev. 24:17-18, Proverbs 8:35). But man does not have a nèfèš; he is a nèfèš (Gen 2:7; Lev 17:10). Basar refers to the flesh of animals and of men, and sometimes the body as a whole (Lev 4:11; 26:29). Again, one does not have a basar, but is a basar. The New Testament term sarx (flesh) can denote the material corporality of man (2 Cor 12:7), but on the other hand also the whole person (Rom. 8:6). Another Greek term, soma (body) refers to the whole man with emphasis on his outward manifestation. Here too man does not have his body, but is his body. Biblical anthropology clearly presupposes the unity of man, and understands bodiliness to be essential to personal identity.

29. The central dogmas of the Christian faith imply that the body is an intrinsic part of the human person and thus participates in his being created in the image of God. The Christian doctrine of creation utterly excludes a metaphysical or cosmic dualism since it teaches that everything in the universe, spiritual and material, was created by God and thus stems from the perfect Good. Within the framework of the doctrine of the incarnation, the body also appears as an intrinsic part of the person. The Gospel of John affirms that "the Word became flesh (sarx)," in order to stress, against Docetism, that Jesus had a real physical body and not a phantom-body. Furthermore, Jesus redeems us through every act he performs in his body. His Body which is given up for us and His Blood which is poured out for us mean the gift of his Person for our salvation. Christ's work of redemption is carried on in the Church, his mystical body, and is made visible and tangible through the sacraments. The effects of the sacraments, though in themselves primarily spiritual, are accomplished by means of perceptible material signs, which can only be received in and through the body. This shows that not only man's mind but also his body is redeemed. The body becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit. Finally, that the body belongs essentially to the human person is inherent to the doctrine of the resurrection of the body at the end of time, which implies that man exists in eternity as a complete physical and spiritual person.

30. In order to maintain the unity of body and soul clearly taught in revelation, the Magisterium adopted the definition of the human soul as forma substantialis (cf. Council of Vienne and the Fifth Lateran Council). Here the Magisterium relied on Thomistic anthropology which, drawing upon the philosophy of Aristotle, understands body and soul as the material and spiritual principles of a single human being. It may be noted that this account is not incompatible with present-day scientific insights. Modern physics has demonstrated that matter in its most elementary particles is purely potential and possesses no tendency toward organization. But the level of organization in the universe, which contains highly organized forms of living and non-living entities, implies the presence of some "information." This line of reasoning suggests a partial analogy between the Aristotelian concept of substantial form and the modern scientific notion of "information." Thus, for example, the DNA of the chromosomes contains the information necessary for matter to be organized according to what is typical of a certain species or individual. Analogically, the substantial form provides to prime matter the information it needs to be organized in a particular way. This analogy should be taken with due caution because metaphysical and spiritual concepts cannot be simply compared with material, biological data.

31. These biblical, doctrinal and philosophical indications converge in the affirmation that human bodiliness participates in the imago Dei. If the soul, created in God's image, forms matter to constitute the human body, then the human person as a whole is the bearer of the divine image in a spiritual as well as a bodily dimension. This conclusion is strengthened when the christological implications of the image of God are taken fully into account. "In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear….Christ fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling" (Gaudium et Spes 22). Spiritually and physically united to the incarnate and glorified Word, especially in the sacrament of the Eucharist, man arrives at his destination: the resurrection of his own body and the eternal glory in which he participates as a complete human person, body and soul, in the Trinitarian communion shared by all the blessed in the company of heaven.

Man and woman

32. In Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul II affirmed: “As an incarnate spirit, that is a soul which expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an immortal spirit, man is called to love in his unified totality. Love includes the human body, and the body is made a sharer in spiritual love” (11). Created in the image of God, human beings are called to love and communion. Because this vocation is realized in a distinctive way in the procreative union of husband and wife, the difference between man and woman is an essential element in the constitution of human beings made in the image of God.

33. "God created man in his image; in the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them" (Gen. 1:27; cf. Gen. 5:1-2). According to the Scripture, therefore, the imago Dei manifests itself, at the outset, in the difference between the sexes. It could be said that human being exist only as masculine or feminine, since the reality of the human condition appears in the difference and plurality of the sexes. Hence, far from being an accidental or secondary aspect of personality, it is constitutive of person identity. Each of us possesses a way of being in the world, to see, to think, to feel, to engage in mutual exchange with other persons who are also defined by their sexual identity. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others" (2332). The roles attributed to one or the other sex may vary across time and space, but the sexual identity of the person is not a cultural or social construction. It belongs to the specific manner in which the imago Dei exists.

34. The incarnation of the Word reinforces this specificity. He assumed the human condition in its totality, taking up one sex, but he became man in both senses of the term: as a member of the human community, and as a male. The relation of each one to Christ is determined in two ways: it depends on one’s own proper sexual identity and that of Christ.

35. In addition, the incarnation and resurrection extend the original sexual identity of the imago Dei into eternity. The risen Lord remains a man when he sits now at the right hand of the Father. We may also note that the sanctified and glorified person of the Mother of God, now assumed bodily into heaven, continues to be a woman. When in Galatians 3:28, St. Paul announces that in Christ all differences – including that between man and woman – would be erased, he is affirming that no human differences can impede our participation in the mystery of Christ. The Church has not followed St. Gregory of Nyssa and some other Fathers of the Church who held that sexual differences as such would be annulled by the resurrection. The sexual differences between man and woman, while certainly manifesting physical attributes, in fact transcend the purely physical and touch the very mystery of the person.

36. The Bible lends no support to the notion of a natural superiority of the masculine over the feminine sex. Their differences notwithstanding, the two sexes enjoy an inherent equality. As Pope John Paul II wrote in Familiaris Consortio: “Above all it is important to underline the equal dignity and responsibility of women with men. This equality is realized in a unique manner in that reciprocal self-giving by each one to the other and by both to the children which is proper to marriage and the family….In creating the human race ‘male and female,’ God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity, endowing them with the inalienable rights and responsibilities proper to the human person” (22). Man and woman are equally created in God’s image. Both are persons, endowed with intelligence and will, capable of orienting their lives through the exercise of freedom. But each does so in a manner proper and distinctive to their sexual identity, in such wise that the Christian tradition can speak of a reciprocity and complementarity. These terms, which have lately become somewhat controversial, are nonetheless useful in affirming that man and woman each needs the other in order to achieve fullness of life.

37. To be sure, the original friendship between man and woman was deeply impaired by sin. Through his miracle at the wedding feast of Cana (John 2:1 ff), our Lord shows that he has come to restore the harmony that God intended in the creation of man and woman.

38. The image of God, which is to be found in the nature of the human person as such, can be realized in a special way in the union between human beings. Since this union is directed to the perfection of divine love, Christian tradition has always affirmed the value of virginity and celibacy which foster chaste friendship among human persons at the same time that they point to the eschatological fulfillment of all created love in the uncreated love of the Blessed Trinity. In this very connection, the Second Vatican Council drew an analogy between the communion of the divine persons among themselves, and that which human beings are invited to establish on earth (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 24). While it is certainly true that union between human beings can be realized in a variety of ways, Catholic theology today affirms that marriage constitutes an elevated form of the communion between human persons and one of the best analogies of the Trinitarian life. When a man and a woman unite their bodies and spirits in an attitude of total openness and self-giving, they form a new image of God. Their union as one flesh does not correspond simply to a biological necessity, but to the intention of the Creator in leading them to share the happiness of being made in his image. The Christian tradition speaks of marriage as an eminent way of sanctity. “God is love, and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating man and woman in his image…, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility of love and communion” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2331). The Second Vatican Council also underlined the profound significance of marriage: “Christian spouses, in virtue of the sacrament of matrimony, signify and partake of the mystery of that unity and fruitful love which exists between Christ and His Church (cf. Eph. 5:32). The spouses thereby help each other to attain to holiness in their married life and by the rearing of their children” (Lumen Gentium 11; cf. Gaudium et Spes 48).

Person and community

40. Persons created in the image of God are bodily beings whose identity as male or female orders them to a special kind of communion with one another. As Pope John Paul II has taught, the nuptial meaning of the body finds its realization in the human intimacy and love that mirror the communion of the Blessed Trinity whose mutual love is poured out in creation and redemption. This truth is at the center of Christian anthropology. Human beings are created in the imago Dei precisely as persons capable of a knowledge and love that are personal and interpersonal. It is of the essence of the imago Dei in them that these personal beings are relational and social beings, embraced in a human family whose unity is at once realized and prefigured in the Church.

41. When one speaks of the person, one refers both to the irreducible identity and interiority that constitutes the particular individual being, and to the fundamental relationship to other persons that is the basis for human community. In the Christian perspective, this personal identity that is at once an orientation to the other is founded essentially on the Trinity of divine Persons. God is not a solitary being, but a communion of three Persons. Constituted by the one divine nature, the identity of the Father is his paternity, his relation to the Son and the Spirit; the identity of the Son is his relation to the Father and the Spirit; the identity of the Spirit is his relation to the Father and the Son. Christian revelation led to the articulation of the concept of person, and gave it a divine, christological, and Trinitarian meaning. In effect, no person is as such alone in the universe, but is always constituted with others and is summoned to form a community with them.

42. It follows that personal beings are social beings as well. The human being is truly human to the extent that he actualizes the essentially social element in his constitution as a person within familial, religious, civil, professional, and other groups that together form the surrounding society to which he belongs. While affirming the fundamentally social character of human existence, Christian civilization has nonetheless recognized the absolute value of the human person as well as the importance of individual rights and cultural diversity. In the created order, there will always be a certain tension between the individual person and the demands of social existence. In the Blessed Trinity there is a perfect harmony between the Persons who share the communion of a single divine life.

43. Every individual human being as well as the whole human community are created in the image of God. In its original unity – of which Adam is the symbol – the human race is made in the image of the divine Trinity. Willed by God, it makes its way through the vicissitudes of human history towards a perfect communion, also willed by God, but yet to be fully realized. In this sense, human beings share the solidarity of a unity that both already exists and is still to be attained. Sharing in a created human nature and confessing the triune God who dwells among us, we are nonetheless divided by sin and await the victorious coming of Christ who will restore and recreate the unity God wills in a final redemption of creation (cf. Rom 8:18-19). This unity of the human family is yet to be realized eschatologically. The Church is the sacrament of salvation and of the kingdom of God: catholic, in bringing together man of every race and culture; one, in being the vanguard of the unity of the human community willed by God; holy, sanctified herself by the power of the Holy Spirit, and sanctifying all men through the Sacraments; and, apostolic, in continuing the mission of the men chosen by Christ to accomplish progressively the divinely willed unity of the human race and the consummation of creation and redemption.

Sin and salvation

44. Created in the image of God to share in the communion of Trinitarian life, human beings are persons who are so constituted as to be able freely to embrace this communion. Freedom is the divine gift that enables human persons to choose the communion which the triune God offers to them as their ultimate good. But with freedom comes the possibility of the failure of freedom. Instead of embracing the ultimate good of participation in the divine life, human persons can and do turn away from it in order to enjoy transitory or even only imaginary goods. Sin is precisely this failure of freedom, this turning away from the divine invitation to communion.

45. Within the perspective of the imago Dei, which is essentially dialogical or relational in its ontological structure, sin, as a rupture of the relationship with God, causes a disfigurement of the imago Dei. The dimensions of sin can be grasped in the light of those dimensions of the imago Dei which are affected by sin. This fundamental alienation from God also upsets man’s relationship with others (cf. 1 John 3:17) and, in a real sense, produces a division within himself between body and spirit, knowing and willing, reason and emotions (Rom. 7:14 f). It also affects his physical existence, bringing suffering, illness and death. In addition, just as the imago Dei has an historical dimension, so too does sin. The witness of Scripture (cf. Rom. 5:12ff) presents us with a vision of the history of sin, caused by a rejection of the divine invitation to communion which occurred at the beginning of the history of the human race. Finally, sin affects the social dimension of the imago Dei; it is possible to discern ideologies and structures which are the objective manifestation of sin and which obstruct the realization of the image of God on the part of human beings.

46. Catholic and Protestant exegetes today agree that the imago Dei cannot be totally destroyed by sin since it defines the whole structure of human nature. For its part, Catholic tradition has always insisted that, while the imago Dei is impaired or disfigured, it cannot be destroyed by sin. The dialogical or relational structure of the image of God cannot be lost but, under the reign of sin, it is disrupted in its orientation towards its christological realization. Furthermore, the ontological structure of the image, while affected in its historicity by sin, remains despite the reality of sinful actions. In this connection – as many Fathers of the Church argued in their response to Gnosticism and Manicheanism and -- the freedom which as such defines what it is to be human and is fundamental to the ontological structure of the imago Dei, cannot be suppressed, even if the situation in which freedom is exercised is in part determined by the consequences of sinfulness. Finally, against the notion of the total corruption of the imago Dei by sin, the Catholic tradition has insisted that grace and salvation would be illusory if they did not in fact transform the existing, albeit sinful, reality of human nature.

47. Understood in the perspective of the theology of the imago Dei, salvation entails the restoration of the image of God by Christ who is the perfect image of the Father. Winning our salvation through his passion, death and resurrection, Christ conforms us to himself through our participation in the paschal mystery and thus reconfigures the imago Dei in its proper orientation to the blessed communion of Trinitarian life. In this perspective, salvation is nothing less than a transformation and fulfillment of the personal life of the human being, created in the image of God and now newly directed to a real participation in the life of the divine persons, through the grace of the incarnation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Catholic tradition rightly speaks here of a realization of the person. Suffering from a deficiency of charity because of sin, the person cannot achieve self-realization apart from the absolute and gracious love of God in Christ Jesus. Through this saving transformation of the person through Christ and the Holy Spirit, everything in the universe is also transformed and comes to share in the glory of God (Rom. 8:21).

48. For the theological tradition, man affected by sin is always in need of salvation, yet having a natural desire to see God - a capax Dei - which, as an image of the divine, constitutes a dynamic orientation to the divine. While this orientation is not destroyed by sin, neither can it be realized apart from God's saving grace. God the savior addresses an image of himself, disturbed in its orientation to him, but nonetheless capable of receiving the saving divine activity. These traditional formulations affirm both the indestructibility of man's orientation to God and the necessity of salvation. The human person, created in the image of God, is ordered by nature to the enjoyment of divine love, but only divine grace makes the free embrace of this love possible and effective. In this perspective, grace is not merely a remedy for sin, but a qualitative transformation of human liberty, made possible by Christ, as a freedom freed for the Good.

49. The reality of personal sin shows that the image of God is not unambiguously open to God but can close in upon itself. Salvation entails a liberation from this self-glorification through the cross. The paschal mystery, which is originally constituted by the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, makes it possible for each person to participate in the death to sin that leads to life in Christ. The cross entails, not the destruction of the human, but the passage that leads to new life.

50. The effects of salvation for man created in the image of God are obtained through the grace of Christ who, as the second Adam, is the head of a new humanity and who creates for man a new salvific situation through his death for sinners and through his resurrection (cf. 1 Cor 15:47-49; 2 Cor 5:2; Rom 5:6ff). In this way, man becomes a new creature (2 Cor 5:17) who is capable of a new life of freedom, a life "freed from" and "freed for."

51. Man is freed from sin, from the law, and from suffering and death. In the first place, salvation is a liberation from sin which reconciles man with God, even in the midst of a continuing struggle against sin conducted in the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Eph 6:10-20). In addition, salvation is not a liberation from the law as such but from any legalism that is opposed to the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 3:6) and to the realization of love (Rom 13:10). Salvation brings a liberation from suffering and death which acquire new meaning as a saving participation through the suffering, death and resurrection of the Son. In addition, according to the Christian faith, "freed from" means "freed for": freedom from sin signifies a freedom for God in Christ and the Holy Spirit; freedom from the law means a freedom for authentic love; freedom from death means a freedom for new life in God. This "freedom for" is made possible by Jesus Christ, the perfect icon of the Father, who restores the image of God in man.

5. Imago Dei and imago Christi

52. "In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear. For Adam, the first man, was a type of him who was to come, Christ the Lord. Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling. No wonder, then, that all the truths mentioned so far should find in him their source and their most perfect embodiment" (Gaudium et Spes, 22). This famous passage from the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Church in the Modern World serves well to conclude this summary of the main elements of the theology of the imago Dei. For it is Jesus Christ who reveals to man the fullness of his being, in its original nature, in its final consummation, and in its present reality.

53. The origins of man are to be found in Christ: for he is created "through him and in him" (Col 1:16), "the Word [who is] the life…and the light of every man who is coming into the world" (John 1:3-4, 9). While it is true that man is created ex nihilo, it can also be said that he is created from the fullness (ex plenitudine) of Christ himself who is at once the creator, the mediator and the end of man. The Father destined us to be his sons and daughters, and "to be conformed to the image of his Son, who is the firstborn of many brothers" (Rom. 8:29). Thus, what it means to be created in the imago Dei is only fully revealed to us in the imago Christi. In him, we find the total receptivity to the Father which should characterize our own existence, the openness to the other in an attitude of service which should characterize our relations with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and the mercy and love for others which Christ, as the image of the Father, displays for us.

54. Just as man's beginnings are to be found in Christ, so is his finality. Human beings are oriented to the kingdom of Christ as to an absolute future, the consummation of human existence. Since "all things have been created through him and for him" (Col 1:16), they find their direction and destiny in him. The will of God that Christ should be the fullness of man is to find an eschatological realization. While the Holy Spirit will accomplish the ultimate configuration of human persons to Christ in the resurrection of the dead, human beings already participate in this eschatological likeness to Christ here below, in the midst of time and history. Through the Incarnation, Resurrection and Pentecost, the eschaton is already here; they inaugurate it and introduce it into the world of men, and anticipate its final realization. The Holy Spirit works mysteriously in all human beings of good will, in societies and in the cosmos to transfigure and divinize human beings. Moreover, the Holy Spirit works through all the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist which is the anticipation of the heavenly banquet, the fullness of communion in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

55. Between the origins of man and his absolute future lies the present existential situation of the human race whose full meaning is likewise to be found only in Christ. We have seen that it is Christ - in his incarnation, death and resurrection - who restores the image of God in man to its proper form. "Through him, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross"(Col 1:20). At the core of his sinful existence, man is pardoned and, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, he knows that he is saved and justified through Christ. Human beings grow in their resemblance to Christ and collaborate with the Holy Spirit who, especially through the sacraments, fashions them in the image of Christ. In this way, man's everyday existence is defined as an endeavor to be conformed ever more fully to the image of Christ and to dedicate his life to the struggle to bring about the final victory of Christ in the world.

CHAPTER THREE

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