Sacred Symbology pt. 5. The Imago Dei: A Prophetic Think Tank
When we speak a word to another, we have its meaning in mind and the word is used as its carrier. These words and meanings are locked together and everyone agrees that this is to remain steady. If we give the word, we expect a meaningful response respective of that word and not some other word. When one receives a word, we must have the word first in mind and then the agreed meaning follows on after it is digested. If we, the one giving the original communication, gives a word of meaning and we receive back by the other party as an evidence of its understanding another word unrelated or irrespective of the expected meaning, as discussed, we have no communication at least and possibly an indication of some kind of pathology on the part of the receiver.
The image of God is something not exactly man or God but separate from them, like words and meanings. God and man exchange word/image to effect communication and relationship upon agreement to its meaning. Man’s image of God is the image of a miraculous Word and evidence that he has been transformed miraculously by God’s original and intended Word and meaning. But, it must be kept in mind, this Word is not any word or any kind of word, because in sharing a very common means of communication many opportunities for misunderstanding and insularity presents itself on the part of man, and because it must bridge the distant ontological gap between man and God.
Our minds might naturally turn to the thought that this looks a look like Barth’s relational definition. But Barth’s definition implies that this communication between man and God, which is one of revelation by God and response by man, need not contain any specific biblical revelation by God or knowledge on the part of man. This is because, to Barth, it is important only that the biblical revelation is seen as pointing to God, but God’s is still mysterious and unfathomable, and the scriptural revelation is not that objective revelation itself. God reveals Himself through history and through human language, the symbols that man uses, but the symbols are only important to the extent that they have some of His content. The symbols are not themselves to be seen as God’s revelation in any important sense, and man must, essentially by religious feeling, through language, connect with God’s unfathomable being.
The result is an unfathomable theology. The results of this are that the laws of symbolism, which are as much a part of language as the meaning it conveys, are not to be considered specifically, objectively informative of God to any objectively transformative degree. Though not consciously intended by Barth, the result is that God’s revelation need carry only God’s content, the declarations of God’s being and nature, which is uncontrolled by any part of a language other than that which it needs in order to exist and function and work to transfer that revelation from God to man or from man to God.
It is assumed that God’s declarations of Himself in scripture to be considered container or control focused on a direct response by man, not that this content is understood and accepted by a man with respect to that specific revelatory information. God’s word is a general revelation to this modern theory, not a certain revelation that benefits man only if certain knowledge be gleaned therein, and not necessarily supernatural. Likewise, it is not a word of God that necessarily can be even be comprehended, but is most importantly felt by religious sensibilities. The result is a deeper but more insipid religiosity into uninformed fideistic, emotional attitudes toward God. As one restaurant chain’s slogan intones, “no rules, just right.”
Barth and all the others have a problem destructively nurturing an approach to religion, whether intended or not, primarily as man’s symbolic thought, act or communication in response to a revelation of God’s existence and heart which may exist in any form other than that which demands it be anything but a generally defined revelation as to its informational, motivational power.
That revelation may be natural or special, or that revelation may primarily address man’s emotions, intellect or behavior. If a natural revelation, it can informationally be about creation, self-consciousness, or logical axioms. If a special revelation, it can be about the Koran or Bible, or, if the Bible, it is of a distilled creed, the Eucharist, the Trinity, “Jesus is Lord,” or such streams of scripture as “go to the ant, thou sluggard,” or Isaiah chapter 53. The only important thing is that that man loves the revelation, and real love is to be understood as resting on a largely intuitive base in view of our ideas about God, which is felt resembles this God which is understood through His emphasized mysterious nature rather than His revealed and clear nature since feeling is as ineffable as God. Whether man, in response, is righteous primarily through his physical response, emotional response, rational response, is not important, only that he is responsive.
There is a reason for these conclusions that stem from a justified fear of equating man with God, and the need to stress their moral, spiritual differences while only admitting their superficial similarities. The problem is that it produces an Imago that is entirely man-centered and acts only one way: from man to God without first from God to Man.
But man is uniquely made to handle this transcendent symbolic type that God gives for special communication with him, by both his potential nature and loves. Man is the symbol that God creates to be fully symbolic of His power and nature. Man is Matter that also has an immaterial existence beyond himself, without which he would be limited only to a mechanical, unconscious, static force. God’s symbolic type that he gives to Man’s attention is the same, unlike feeling, being an immanent and abstract, exposable structure that opens to the moral senses the true nature and power of man and that of God.
By the way, speaking of the organic similarities between man and God, this spiritual immateriality of man that forms his nature is not to be confused with the idea of immateriality which lies at the bedrock of matter. Gravity is an immaterial force connected with mass, but without mass, there is no gravity. Gravity is, therefore, an immateriality that is contingent upon mass. But man’s immateriality is not contingent upon his body. That is, for all we know there is a vital connection between the body and the spirit, whereas there would be no gravity without mass, and there is a contingency between them, but the central theme of religion is that spirit can maintain its independent character from the body by special fiat from its creator, and continue on. In Christianity, it is joined with a new and perfect body, instead of being captured by the entropy of the universe. This distinction has value in making a contrast between a transcendent symbol given deliberately by God for man’s enlightenment and salvation and the religious one man creates for himself.
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