Man,
Created in the Image of God: How Man is Unique Among All Other Creatures
on EarthMan,
Created in the Image of God: How Man is Unique Among All Other Creatures
on EarthThe Bible makes the claim that humans alone are "created in the image of God."1 What exactly does this mean? Some have equated the image of God as being the physical characteristics of our bodies that make up the way we look. In fact, the Mormons have taken this interpretation to extreme by saying that God is just a glorified man, who has both flesh and blood. However, the Bible says that both males and females are created in the image of God.1 Unless God were a hermaphrodite (having both male and female sexual organs), this phrase could not refer to just physical characteristics. In addition, there are various verses in the Bible that describe God as having non-human physical characteristics, such as feathers and wings.2 Should we think of God as being an overgrown chicken? Certainly not! God is so unlike humans physically, that the Bible often paints word pictures to give us a glimpse of what God is like.
So if the "image of God" does not refer to physical characteristics, what does it refer to? It is certainly likely that part of the "image of God" refers to the ability of humans to be creative. Anthropology tells us that sophisticated works of art first appeared in the fossil record about 40,000-50,000 years ago,3 at the time that moderns humans first appeared. No other species of animal, including the apes, are able to create and understand images of art and drawing.
Human consciousness is a mystery that has evaded decades of intensive research by neurophysiologists. According to a recent article:
When an organism's neural pathways grow sufficiently complex, materialists insist, their firings are somehow accompanied by consciousness. But despite decades of effort by philosophers and neurophysiologists, no one has been able to come up with a remotely plausible explanation of how this happens--how the hunk of gray meat in our skull gives rise to private Technicolor experience. One distinguished commentator on the mind-body problem, Daniel Dennett, author of Consciousness Explained, has been driven to declare that there is really no such thing as consciousness--we are all zombies, though we're unaware of it.4
Another thing that makes humans unique is personality. According to Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist at New York University:
"We have no idea how our brains make us who we are. There is as yet no neuroscience of personality. We have little understanding of how art and history are experienced by the brain. The meltdown of mental life in psychosis is still a mystery. In short, we have yet to come up with a theory that can pull all this together."5
Is the human brain that much different from that of our closest "relatives," the chimpanzees? According to Daniel J. Povinelli, from the University of Louisiana's New Iberia Research Center
"Humans constantly invoke unobservable phenomena and variables to explain why certain things are happening. Chimps operate in the world of concrete, tangible things that can be seen. The content of their minds is about the observable world."6
Insight into how chimpanzees really think can be seen in some recent experiments performed by Dr. Povinelli. In these experiments, the researchers used the chimps' natural begging gesture to examine how they really think about their world. They confronted the chimps with two familiar experimenters, one offering a piece of food and the other holding out an undesirable block of wood. As expected, the chimps had no trouble distinguishing between the block and the food and immediately gestured to the experimenter offering the food. Next, the researchers wanted to see if the chimps would be able to choose between a person who could see them and a person who could not. If the chimpanzees understood how other animals see, they would gesture only to the person who could see them. The researchers achieved the "seeing/not-seeing" contrast by having the two experimenters adopt different postures. In one test, one experimenter wore a blindfold over her eyes while the other wore a blindfold over her mouth. In the other tests, one of the experimenters wore a bucket over her head, placed her hands over her eyes or sat with her back turned to the chimpanzee. All these postures were modeled after the behaviors that had been observed during the chimpanzees' spontaneous play. The results of the experiments were astonishing. In the tests involving blindfolds, buckets and hands over the eyes--the apes entered the lab and paused but then were just as likely to gesture to the person who could not see them as to the person who could. In several cases, the chimps gestured to the person who could not see them and then, when nothing happened, gestured again, as if puzzled by the fact that the experimenter did not respond. In the case of experimenters facing with their backs to the chimps, they performed as if they knew that those facing way from them could not see and offer them food. However, subsequent experiments proved that the chimps had merely responded to conditioning from the initial experiments, since they had only received food from those experimenters who faced them. This was proven by having experimenters facing away from the chimps, but then turning to look over their shoulders. The chimps were just as likely to gesture to the experimenters facing away as the one who turned to look at them. Chimpanzees have no clue that humans must face them in order to see. It is obvious from these experiments that chimpanzees lack even a simple understanding of how their world works, but merely react to conditioning from directly observable events.7
Besides the rather obvious differences in the way animals process information in their brains, the Bible (and science) confirm that there are major differences in the ways humans make moral judgments (animals don't make such judgments, as we shall see). Part of what is meant by the term "in the image of God" can be found in chapters immediately following its first usage (Genesis 1) in the Bible. Both Adam and Eve had a personal relationship with God in the Garden of Eden. Such a personal relationship is not described, nor seen, for any other animal species. It is the presence of a spirit that was instilled into humans8 that separates us from the animals. There are three kinds of life that God has created in this universe:
| Creature: | Examples: |
| Body only | Lower life forms, including reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates |
| Body and soul | From the Hebrew nephesh, or soulish creatures, including birds and mammals |
| Body, soul and spirit | Humans9 and angels |
The soul is best described as the characteristics that make up the advanced brain, including mind, will and emotion. Only birds and mammals exhibit these characteristics, which is why humans can form mutual relationships with birds and mammals.
The spirit is that part of humans that is able to love and experience God directly.10 It is found in no other animal species, since no other species can experience God or form a relationship with Him.11 Is there any evidence that humans possess a spirit? Recent attempts have been aimed at trying to identify the part of the brain involved in "religious" experiences. Unfortunately, the current studies are restricted to an examination of meditative experiences,12 since the specific subjects used in the research were Tibetan Buddhist meditators. During meditation, the goal is to completely divorce oneself from external sensory stimulation. The ability to do so, apparently leads to some sense of "oneness with the universe", since the brain is deprived of sensory input while still remaining active.
The leaders of these studies, Andrew Newberg M.D., Eugene G. D'Aquili Ph.D., and Vince Rause, claim to have discovered the biological basis for belief in God.13 However, according to Daniel Batson, a University of Kansas psychologist:
"The brain is the hardware through which religion is experienced. To say the brain produces religion is like saying a piano produces music."12
The problem with the theory is that such "religious" experiences do not apply to Christianity, although Newberg tries to make the connection through the reported experiences of a few Christian mysticists. The plain fact is that Christianity does not teach any kind of meditation that leads to the kind of experiences taught in the Eastern religions. Even in prayer, I have never experienced the kind of things described as occurring during Buddhist meditation. God does answer my prayers, but the answer is in the form of fully formed, specific ideas - not any kind of "oneness with the universe". Any kind of non-specific feelings would be completely useless, since it does not provide advice that would be necessary to help one's spiritual walk with God.
Even if there were an area of the brain that might be involved in religious experiences, this idea does not prove that God is a creation of our brains. If God did create us, we would expect that He would provide a means by which we could experience Him. This area of the brain might be part of God's design to make us realize that we are more than just physical creatures. The Bible says that God has given us this knowledge of eternity, possibly involving some sort of "hard-wired" knowledge.14
After Adam and Eve had sinned, they became like God in that they could distinguish good from evil.15 The ability to make moral judgments is also a characteristics that is found only in humans. Even the higher apes cannot make moral judgments about the behavior of other animals. As Dr. Jerome Kagan points out in Three Seductive Ideas, "Not even the cleverest ape could be conditioned to be angry upon seeing one animal steal food from another."16 In addition, there are no non-human animal models for human pride, shame, and guilt.17
In conclusion, it seems likely that "in the image of God" refers to the characteristics of the human spirit and the ability to make moral judgments - things that are not found in any animal species, even those to whom we are said to be closely related. Even evolutionists are beginning to recognize the uniqueness of human beings. Dr. Ian Tattersall, in Becoming Human - Evolution and Human Uniqueness, says humans represent a "totally unprecedented entity" on Earth, and "Homo sapiens is not simply an improved version of its ancestors - it's a new concept." It is the ability to make moral judgments that convinces us of our inability to "measure up" to the intended moral standards laid down by God.18 However, it is the spirit of man that allows us to communicate with God's Spirit through Jesus Christ19 so that we can once again be in fellowship with a Holy God20 and experience the ultimate relationship in the universe.
References
He
[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in
the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning
to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11) For evidence that God has put this
knowledge of Him into even primitive cultures, see Eternity
in their Hearts by Don RichardsonLast updated 03/01/02