That's an accurate, but seriously out-of-context quote from Calvin's Commentary on Genesis.
In context, the quote appears in a discussion of Genesis 1:26-27. Specifically, Calvin used the occasion to discuss various Church Fathers' comments re the difference/distinction between the use of the phrase image of God and likeness of God in the Scriptures. Placing your quote into that discussion, the section it appears in begins with this:
In our image, etc Interpreters do not agree concerning the meaning of these words. The greater part, and nearly all, conceive that the word image is to be distinguished from likeness. And the common distinction is, that image exists in the substance, likeness in the accidents of anything. They who would define the subject briefly, say that in the image are contained those endowments which God has conferred on human nature at large, while they expound likeness to mean gratuitous gifts.It later states this, about two paragraphs before your quote appears, putting that quote firmly into it's larger context:
Since the image of God had been destroyed in us by the fall, we may judge from its restoration what it originally had been. Paul says that we are transformed into the image of God by the gospel. And, according to him, spiritual regeneration is nothing else than the restoration of the same image. (Colossians 3:10, and Ephesians 4:23.) That he made this image to consist in righteousness and true holiness, is by the figure synecdochee for though this is the chief part, it is not the whole of God’s image...Your quote, in regards to the image of God and not the likeness of God then appears - and please note that Calvin has already commented on the restoration of the image of God in man, prior to your quote.
The section is concluded thusly:
...The solution is short; Paul there alludes only to the domestic relation. He therefore restricts the image of God to government, in which the man has superiority over the wife and certainly he meant nothing more than that man is superior in the degree of honor. But here the question is respecting that glory of God which peculiarly shines forth in human nature, where the mind, the will, and all the senses, represent the Divine order.
It is worth adding in the Calvinist understanding regarding Total Depravity here, in consideration of this "destroyed image."
Total Depravity is probably the most misunderstood tenet of Calvinism. When Calvinists speak of humans as "totally depraved," they are making an extensive, rather than an intensive statement. The effect of the fall upon man is that sin has extended to every part of his personality -- his thinking, his emotions, and his will. Not necessarily that he is intensely sinful, but that sin has extended to his entire being.The unregenerate (unsaved) man is dead in his sins (Romans 5:12). Without the power of the Holy Spirit, the natural man is blind and deaf to the message of the gospel (Mark 4:11f). This is why Total Depravity has also been called "Total Inability." The man without a knowledge of God will never come to this knowledge without God's making him alive through Christ (Ephesians 2:1-5).
In the article at the top of the thread the term "image bearers" is used in a universal sense to designate all of mankind. Hence the prohibition on the taking of human life for we are all made in the image of God.
Calvin's commentary on Genesis, on the other hand, of which you have posted excerpts, seems to indicate that the restoration of the image of God in man is contingent on man's embracing the Gospel. At least that's how I read it. Here's what I'm reading;
Paul says that we are transformed into the image of God by the gospel. And, according to him, spiritual regeneration is nothing else than the restoration of the same image. (Colossians 3:10, and Ephesians 4:23.) That he made this image to consist in righteousness and true holiness,
Ergo, those who do not accept the Gospel are not "restored" into the image of God. Is that correct? That's a sizable portion of humanity.
If Calvin is insisting that the "image" of God consists of "righteousness and true holiness", doesn't it follow that not everyone has been "restored"? He's talking of spiritual regeneration, right?
I'm confused, too.
I’m not sure what you are saying. Calvin rightly points out that there is a sense (related to ‘government’) in which Paul speaks of man as the image of God and woman not not. But the point we are discussing is that image of God which describes both Adam and Eve.
Do unrepentent sinners bear the image of God? Or is it lost for all in birth and restored only in regeneration - as Calvin certainly seems to say?
The Church fathers said the image is retained. According this older view, the likeness was lost in Adam and his descendents and restored in the new Adam in regeneration.
What say you?