Fragments of Catholic Truth: I am made in the image of God: What does...mean and what...involve?

SanCarol.PCN.net ^ | 8 April 2009 | Monsignor Raffaello Martinelli

[Salvation]

What are the sources or inspiration for these subjects?Basically they are inspired by the documents of the Holy See, and in particular by the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its Compendium. This was a deliberate choice so as to create an awareness of the vast richness, completeness and beauty of these documents which are, in some circles, hardly known at all. In this way, it is possible to present the essential and fundamental contents of the faith which are professed, not just by the individual Catholic, but by the Catholic Church throughout the world as it adheres to the Magisterium of the Pope and the bishops. It is this teaching that was willed by Christ himself in order to confirm the faith of individual believers, so that, through the centuries and in various different parts of the world, everyone should profess the one true Catholic and Apostolic Faith.

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Why are the topics treated in this work presented in a dialogical way?From an editorial point of view, the arguments are presented in a dialogical manner, that is to say with questions, each of which is followed by a brief response. This dialogical format, while inviting us to continue reading, is born of and remains faithful to a constant and noble catechetical tradition in the history of the Church. It is well known that many catechisms responsible for the faith formation of entire generations used – and in a very fruitful way – this kind of pedagogical tool. It should not be forgotten that the same Christian faith, a special gift of God, can itself also be described as a continuous dialogue between God with man, and between man and God.
I am also convinced that this approach can help to meet the needs of the today’s world, which certainly has an appetite for interviews of a journalistic type, let alone a taste for synthetic sound bites and catchphrases. This may be due in part to the fact that many people nowadays have little time and, even though they say they are Catholics, need to deepen their faith. This lack of time, unfortunately, often leads to religious ignorance, which in turn, results in a widespread relativism, an arbitrary subjectivism and, last but not least, an impressive reduction in mnemonic capacity regarding the contents of faith. This is not only the case in children and young people but also in adults, both in their catechetical journey and in their various and demanding activities and profession.

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Why was the sub-title “Fragments of Catholic Truth” chosen?

The word Fragments was inserted as a sub-title in order to underline the fact that only some of the contents which form the rich and mysterious tapestry of the Catholic Faith, as well some of the challenges that grip the present world, were being presented in this volume. At the same time I would like to stress that, in dealing with each single topic, I do not intend to present all its aspects and contents. For this reason I do not wish – due to a lack of space and time – to give each subject a comprehensive and complete treatment but merely to offer some suggestions, fragments of reflections.

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What is the purpose of this work?It is hoped that it may help people to know the beauty and the importance of the Christian faith that is offered to all in a better way by discussing certain of the issues that characterize our society at this point in time.
For this reason it is aimed at Christians in order to give them the opportunity to know and to deepen certain contents of their faith, and to every person who wishes to know what the Catholic Church, through some of her official documents, believes and lives, with the Lord’s help.

Rome, 8 April 2009
Anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood

The Primicerio
of the Basilica of Saints Ambrose and Charles in Rome
Monsignor Raffaello Martinelli

[Salvation]

I am made in the image of God: What does this mean and what does it involve?

I am made in the image of God: What does this mean and what does it involve?

Where do we find the basis for the assertion that

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 “I am created in the image of God (Imago Dei)?” We find it in the Bible. In fact, in the very first pages we read: “God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27).

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When does man begin to exist in the image of God?From the first moment of conception. Such a dignity is therefore present in every phase of human life. The Church proclaims this truth not only with the authority of the Gospel, but also with the force of reason; because of this the Church feels able to appeal to every human being of good will in the certainty that the realisation of this truth might benefit each individual and the whole of society.

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From where does our being in the image of God come?

• It comes from God. It is God himself who gives this special gift to man. Man receives it gratuitously. Thus, it is neither a human achievement nor a work of man.
• It is up to man:
  • to recognise such a gift;
  • to thank the Giver, God;
  • to show forth and make the fruits of this gift grow in his life;
  • to witness courageously, in his own daily life, to being made in the image of God.

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What does it mean to say: “God created us in his own image”?

• “To say that God has created us in his image means that:
  • he wanted each one of us to express an aspect of his infinite splendor;
  • that he has a design for each of us;
  • that each of us is destined to enter by means of a journey which is specific to each person into blessed eternity. That the creature is made in the image of God is thus properly by reason of the fact that it participates in immortality not by its nature, but as a gift of the creator.
    This orientation towards eternal life is what makes man the created being corresponding to God.
• The dignity of man is not something which presents itself visually it is neither measurable nor quantifiable; it escapes the parameters of scientific or technological reason. But our civilization and our humanism have achieved progress only to the extent to which this dignity has been more universally and more fully bestowed upon ever greater numbers of people” (Card. Joseph Ratzinger, Speech to the Pontifical Council for Healthcare, 28 November 1996).

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In what sense is man created in the “Image of God”? “The human person is created in the image of God in the sense that he or she is capable of knowing and of loving their Creator in freedom. Human beings are the only creatures on earth that God has willed for their own sake and has called to share, through knowledge and love, in his own divine life. All human beings, in as much as they are created in the image of God, have the dignity of a person. A person is not something but someone, capable of self-knowledge and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with God and with other persons” (Compendium of the CCC, 66).

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What dimensions of the person are involved in being created in the image of God?

• The whole man and every man are involved.
• In particular:
  • his dignity;
  • his unity of body and soul;
  • his or her existence as man or woman;
  • his relationship with God, with himself, with other people, and with the world.
• Therefore, it is man in the entirety of his existence who is created in the image of God. The Bible presents a vision of the human being in which the spiritual dimension is seen together with the physical, social and historical dimensions of man.

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In what way does being in the image of God involve human dignity?

• It involves his dignity in so far as it constitutes its very foundation. Man, precisely in his being created in the image of God, finds the ultimate basis of his own dignity.
• The dignity of a person, in fact:
  • is not identified with the genes of his DNA;
  • does not depend on what he has or on what he has the capacity to do, much less on his belonging to any race, culture or nation;
  • is not diminished by reason of the presence of various physical or genetic defects.
• The basis of authentic and full dignity, found in every man, subsists in his being created in the image of God. “The dignity of the human person is rooted in his or her creation in the image and likeness of God. Endowed with a spiritual and immortal soul, intelligence and free will, the human person is ordered to God and called in soul and in body to eternal beatitude” (Compendium of the CCC, 358).
• So founded, this dignity distinguishes man in essence from every other creature (because of this, we speak of an ontological difference on the level of existence and not only on the level of functionality between human beings and the rest of the world). The Bible makes this difference evident even in its first pages, when it says of God, after having created the various things of the world: “And God saw that it was good” (Gen 1:26), but, after having created man, exclaims: “God saw everything he had made, and indeed it was very good” (Gen 1:31).

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What is the relationship between man’s being made in the image of God and his communion with God?

• Being created in the image of God is the foundation of man’s orientation towards God. It is precisely this radical likeness to God, one and triune, that provides the basis for the possibility of man’s communion with the Holy Trinity.
  This is what God himself willed. The one and triune God willed, in fact, to share his own trinitarian communion with persons created in his image. More precisely, it is by reason of this trinitarian communion that man was created in the image of God. Man’s end is therefore to know, to love and to serve God in this life and then to enjoy him in the next life, and to love his neighbour as God loves him.
• “Created in the image of God, man also expresses the truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works” (CCC, 2501).

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Does the body also form part of this image of God?

• Yes, the body itself, as an intrinsic part of the person, also shares in being created in the image of God.
• In the Christian faith:
  • it is the soul which is created in the image of God;
  • but, since the soul is the forma substantialis of the body, the human person in its unity is the bearer of the divine image in a dimension as much spiritual as corporeal; ;
  • man does not just have his body, but also is his body;
  • there is thus excluded any body-soul dualism;
  • man is considered in his entirety, in his unity: he is an incarnate spirit, that is, he is a soul that expresses itself in a body and a body that is informed by an immortal spirit;
  • corporeality is thus essential to personal identity;
  • the affirmation of the bodily resurrection, at the end of the world, causes us to recognise that man will exist, also in eternity, as a complete physical and spiritual person.
• The Christian faith clearly affirms, therefore, the unity of the human being and understands bodiliness as essential to his personal identity whether in this life or in the next.

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Why does the image of God manifest itself also in the difference between the sexes?

• This is because a human being exists only as either male or female, and because this sexual difference, far from being an incidental or secondary aspect of personhood, is a constituent element of personal identity. Thus, the sexual dimension also belongs to being created in the image of God. Man and woman are equally created in the image of God, although each in their proper and particular way. For this reason Christian faith speaks of the reciprocity between, and complementarity of, the sexes.
• Created in the image of God, human beings are called to love and to communion. Since this vocation is realised in a particular way in the unitive procreative union between 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. “God created man in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27, cf. Gen 5:1-2). According to Scripture, therefore, the imago Dei manifests itself, right from the beginning, also in the difference between the sexes.
• “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” (CCC, 2332).
• The roles attributed to one or the other of the sexes can vary according to time and place, but the sexual identity of the person is not a cultural or social construct. It belongs to the specific way in which the Imago Dei exists.
• 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 (CTI, 34).
• Furthermore, the incarnation of the Son of God and the resurrection of the body at the end of time extend even into eternity the original sexual identity of the Imago Dei.

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Why does being in the image of God also involve our relationships with other people?

• Precisely because God is a Trinity, that is, a communion of Three persons in the unique divine nature, the person too, created in the image of God, is thus capable of relationships with others, that is, he is a being who:
  • has a fundamental orientation towards other persons;
  • is called to form a community with them.
• “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” (CTI, 42).
• Marriage constitutes an elevated form of communion between human persons and is one of the best analogies for the Trinitarian life. In fact, “the prime instance of this communion is the procreative union of man and woman which mirrors the creative communion of Trinitarian love” (CTI, 56). When a man and a woman unite their body and their soul in an act of total openness and giving of themselves, they form a new image of God. Their union in one flesh is not simply a response to a biological necessity, but to the Creator’s intention which leads them to share in the happiness of being made in his image (cf. CCC, 2331).
• Humanity itself, in its original unity (of which Adam is a symbol), is made in the image of the divine Trinity.
  “All people form the unity of the human race by reason of the common origin which they have from God. God has made «from one ancestor all the nations of men» (Acts 17:26). All have but one Savior and are called to share in the eternal happiness of God” (Compendium of the CCC, 68).

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How does being in the image of God also involve our relationship with created things?

• Being created in the image of God is the foundation for:
  • our relationship with other created things;
  • our superiority over the visible world: man is the summit of the visible creation, in so far as he is the only creature to be made in the image and likeness of God;
  • our sharing in the divine government of the creation.

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In what way does man share in God’s sovereignty over the world?

• To share in God’s sovereignty over the world means that man:
  • exercises this sovereignty over the visible creation only by virtue of a privilege conferred on him by God;
  • recognises God as the creator of all, renders him praise and thanks for the gift of creation, and glorifies the name of God;
  • is not the principal master over the world. God, the creator of the world, is the Lord par excellence over the world. Man is a subordinate master (ministerial and subordinate sovereignty);
  • is appointed by God to be his collaborator and administrator. Man is called by God to exercise, in God’s own name, a responsible stewardship over the created world. Such a stewardship “is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbour, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation” (CCC, 2415).
  • since he is a steward, has to render an account of his stewardship, and God will judge his actions.
• Such sovereignty is exercised with respect for the creation: man, as an image of God, is not a dominator over the world. The human stewardship of the created world is really a service carried out through a sharing in the divine government. “Human beings exercise this stewardship by gaining scientific understanding of the universe, by caring responsibly for the natural world (including animals and the environment), and by guarding their own biological integrity” (CTI, 61).
• The same human work “proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another” (CCC, 2427), collaborating with God the Creator.

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What is the relationship between being in the image of God and the natural law?Creating man in his own image, God placed in the depths of human conscience a law, which “the tradition calls the “natural law.” This law is of divine origin, and man’s awareness of it is itself a participation in the divine law” (CTI, 60).
The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church also affirms in this regard: “The natural law which is inscribed by the Creator on the heart of every person consists in a participation in the wisdom and the goodness of God. It expresses that original moral sense which enables one to discern by reason the good and the bad. It is universal and immutable and determines the basis of the duties and fundamental rights of the person as well as those of the human community and civil law” (416).

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Is this law perceived by everyone? “Because of sin the natural law is not always perceived nor is it recognized by everyone with equal clarity and immediacy” (op.cit. 417).
For this reason God “wrote on the tables of the Law what men did not read in their hearts.” (Saint Augustine).

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What consequences for man’s being in the image of God were and are provoked by sin?

• Sin does not destroy or nullify the image of God in man. Man is the image of God in so far as he is human. And since he is man, he is a human being in the image of God. The divine image is connected with human essence of itself, and therefore it is not in man’s power to destroy it completely.
• Sin, according to its objective gravity and to the subjective responsibility of man, disfigures the image of God in man, wounds it and obscures it. Precisely because sin is like a wound in the image of God in man, it also wounds and obscures man himself:
  • in his dignity, thereby provoking an internal division between body and spirit, knowledge and will, reason and emotions;
  • in his relationship with God, with himself, with others, and with the creation.
• Wounded by sin, man is in need of salvation. The infinitely good God offers him such salvation no less than in his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who liberates and heals man’s wound through his Death and Resurrection.
• The disfigurement of the Imago Dei by sin, with its inevitable negative consequences for personal and interpersonal life, is therefore vanquished by the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ.

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What model does man have in actualising his being in the image of God?

• Above all, man fully understands himself and his being in the image of God only in light of Christ. “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, 22).
• The mystery of man is therefore made clear only in the light of Christ, who is the perfect image “of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation” (Col 1:15) and who leads us, through the Holy Spirit, to a sharing in the mystery of the One and Triune God. “Thus, what it means to be created in the imago Dei is only fully revealed to us in the imago Christi” (CTI, 53).
• “The Father destined us “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29), through the work of the Holy Spirit who 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” (CTI, 54).
• Thanks to the Holy Spirit, “the saving grace of participation in the paschal mystery reconfigures the Imago Dei according to the pattern of the Imago Christi (...) 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” (CTI, 56). Thus we become fully the image of God by means of our sharing in the divine life in Christ.

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In what way is Christ the model for every man in living in the image of God? Christ is the model for man in living in the image of God in the sense that:

• the original image of man which by his will represents the image of God, is Christ, and man is created out of the image of Christ and in his image. The human creature is at the same time a preliminary project in view of Christ, or rather, Christ is the perfect and fundamental image of the Creator, and God makes man really in view of Him, of His Son;
• the possibilities that Christ opens to man do not mean the suppression of the reality of man as a creature, but his transformation and realisation according to the perfect image of the Son;
• at the same time there exists a tension between the hiddenness and future manifestation of the image of God: we can apply here the words of the first Letter of John: “we are already God’s children, but what we shall be in the future has not yet been revealed” (1 Jn 3:2).
  Every human being is already now in the image of God – in the image of Christ, even if it is not yet clear what they will become above all at the end of time, when the Lord Jesus will come on the clouds of heaven that God “may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). The Imago Dei can thus be considered in a real sense still in development (its dynamic character);
• Our conformity to the image of Christ is to be fulfilled perfectly only in our resurrection at the end of time, in which Christ has preceded us and associated with himself his Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Primicerio
of the Basilica of Saints Ambrose and Charles Borromeo
Monsignor Raffaello Martinelli

[Salvation]

Advent Series Ping!

[Just mythoughts]

What about the accepted theory of evolution? Is the Creator still in the process of evolving?

[Salvation]

Fragments of Catholic Truth: I am made in the image of God: What does it mean and what does it involve?
Fragments of Catholic Truth: The Catholic Church and non-Christian religions
Fragments of Catholic Truth: Ecumenism: What is the relationship of the Catholic Church to the Orthodox Churches, and the non-Catholic Christian communities?
Fragments of Catholic Truth: The primacy of Peter: When and how did Christ entrust it to him?
Fragments of Catholic Truth: Yes to Christ, No to the Church?
Fragments of Catholic Truth: The Resurrection of Christ: Why is it the high point of the Christian Faith?
Fragments of Catholic Truth: Jesus Christ: How is he true God and true man?
Fragments of Catholic Truth: Why are the Four Gospels the heart of Christian Faith?
Fragments of Catholic Truth: Evangelisation: why and how?
Fragments of Catholic Truth: Why is it necessary to announce Jesus Christ?

[Salvation]

The article doesn’t even mention the E word. This is about being created in the image of God. You did read it, right?

Accepted by whom?

[Psycho_Bunny]

I’ve always taken ‘in His image’ to mean “self-aware intelligence”.

That’s the only way it ever made sense to me.

[Just mythoughts]

The article doesn’t even mention the E word. This is about being created in the image of God. You did read it, right? Accepted by whom?

My Catholic in-laws have told me for years that Genesis and the Old Testament are considered 'stories' for the purposes of allegorical interpretation. And they tell me according to this allegory, that the Scripture allows for the probability of evolution. Now made in the image of God is not a process evolving over eons of time.

Sometimes I get the idea that the right hand of the church has no clue what the left hand teaches.

[UCANSEE2]

Many will probably reject this, but sometimes the simplest of things elude the most brilliant of mind. (Another concept in the Bible)

‘image’ is not the original word. It is the English word. The original ‘translators’ could have used many words.

Perhaps their understanding of ‘image’ was different from our modern day vernacular.

What if the original ‘word’ was not ‘image’, but ‘imagination’ ?

God made us in his own ‘mind, his own ‘view’, his ‘imagination’. That is where he created us. It is where we create that which we manifest. Everything we have ‘created’ here on Earth was originally an idea, a thought, a picture, AN IMAGE.... in someone’s mind.

As above so below. A statement from the Bible that many often miss the full implications of.

[Salvation]

That’s not what I believe — and I have taught a Bible Study on Genesis.

[Salvation]

I like your explanation.

[UCANSEE2]

Now made in the image of God is not a process evolving over eons of time.

Because we weren't made in the XEROX IMAGE of God. We cannot photograph God, and everyone had a different 'drawing' of what he looks like. Even in the Bible he has been a column of lightning, of smoke, of light. He is described as unseeable, unviewable. Those who 'look' at God directly are vaporized from the intense 'glow' or radiation. Dozens of different descriptions in the Bible, and yet there are none in the Bible that describe him as a white male, 6'2", blue eyes, etc. Neither are there any descriptions of God as a nubian warrior, at least in the Bible.

How can we assume that 'image' means what we want it to mean? Especially when God is the creator and must be (logically, if nothing else) way beyond the understanding of that which he creates.

We even admit God works in mysterious ways, but we insist he looks like Santa Claus without the red outfit. Maybe he even 'appears' to us as what we want to see. But the point is that I just don't believe that the authors of that section of the Bible intended us to believe that the God of our entire Universe was limited to the physical form of an Earth dwelling creature who depends on water, earth, and a combination of gases to exist, and for only very, very short periods of time.

Think of the word 'image' and 'mind', or 'view', and see how much more sense that entire paragraph makes. And it changes not a thing about the word of God, it only changes our INTERPRETATION (or the one GIVEN to us by others).

[UCANSEE2]

That’s the only way it ever made sense to me.

Use the word 'mind', or 'imagination' , instead of image. See if the whole thing not only makes sense, but is obvious, and quite simple.

[Just mythoughts]

That’s not what I believe — and I have taught a Bible Study on Genesis.

It might well surprise you then what is taught in some Catholic schools from the youngest to the well noted halls of prestigious Catholic universities. I know personally an undergraduate of Notre Dame that rejects Genesis as anything more than an allegory. This person graduated the year that President Reagan spoke to the graduating class. I know by the language used in rejecting the Words used in Genesis this person was taught differently in childhood than what they now accept as truth.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,424942,00.html

Evolution is the total and complete opposite doctrine of I am made in the image of God. Because the philosophy of evolution means God is ever evolving.

[Just mythoughts]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,424942,00.html

[Just mythoughts]

Christ said IF you have seen me you have seen the Father.

John 14:8 Phillip saith unto Him, “Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”

9 Jesus saith unto him, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Phillip? he that hast seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, ‘Shew us the Father’?

[Condor51]

~~What about the accepted theory of evolution?~~

*** Accepted by whom? ***

Ah, good ole evolution. Well here's one thing about that, to wit; .i/e.: When I see something as beautiful as this: Cheetahs on the Edge — Director's Cut [YouTube 7:07], I have a hard time believing they came from ('evolved') some 'salamander that crawled out of the sea x^? millions of years ago.

Genesis: The Beginning, 24-25:
And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

When I watch that I see God's work in every part of that beautiful animal, not Darwin's theory. Oh, and Man came next:

Genesis 26-28:
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Note: I'm not some Luddite. I believe in 'Science', it was and is my career. I also believe that the 'Big Bang' happened. It's just that 'someone' (God) had to do the initial 'banging', even with String, or Membrane Theory. And that Big Bang doesn't contradict with Genesis either - 'Let There Be Light'. ('Science' and God are not mutually exclusive)

[Daffy]

Image of God. A phrase used in Genesis (1:26-27) to designate the special superiority of man over the other works of God’s visible creation: “Let us make man to our own image and likeness.” This “image of God” is in the spiritual part of man’s nature, in his soul and its faculties of intellect and free will,. In these natural perfections man reflects, in a limited and imperfect way, God, the Infinite Spirit, whose intelligence and freedom are supremely perfect. In a supernatural, way, too, man is made to the image of God. Through sanctifying grace and the infused virtues his nature is elevated to a supernatural plane of being and acting.
(Catholic Dictionary, 1951)

[NYer]

And they tell me according to this allegory, that the Scripture allows for the probability of evolution. Now made in the image of God is not a process evolving over eons of time. Sometimes I get the idea that the right hand of the church has no clue what the left hand teaches.

The Archdiocese of Washington is also running a series, based on the Catechism, for this Year of Faith. They too have posted a tract on this topic, that might assist in viewing it through a different set of lenses.

The book of Genesis is a fruitful place to start our reflection. It recounts God’s creation of man in two stages. It says that, “then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). This account portrays man as having two essential principles. He is formed from “the dust of the ground,” made of stuff like all animals are. But there’s more– he also has the breath of life blown into his nostrils. There is something higher in man than mere matter. Man also has a soul.

It is finally here that we see our likeness to God. Because of our soul we have the power to know and to love. Rocks and stones, trees and plants are only things. But because of our soul, “the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something but someone” (CCC 357). For, “of all visible creatures only man is “able to know and love his creator”” (CCC 356). This grounds all of the awesome abilities which human beings have– of entering into communion with other persons, of responding to God in grace, and responding to God in faith and love (CCC 357). No other animal tells jokes, prays, gets married or writes poems. No other animal searches for happiness and meaning in life.

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[UCANSEE2]

Do you think Jesus was trying to say God LOOKED like him, or that he meant Phillip should regard Jesus as the conveyor of the ‘word’ of God?

[Just mythoughts]

Do you think Jesus was trying to say God LOOKED like him, or that he meant Phillip should regard Jesus as the conveyor of the ‘word’ of God?

God had Isaiah to write a prophecy, long time before the event took place. Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the LORD Himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

This name/word Immanuel means 'God with us'. So I take Christ at His word in telling Phillip that to have seen Him, Jesus, was to have seen the Father. These flesh bodies house the soul/spirit intellect, and upon that Mount of Transfiguration Moses and Elijah looked the same in a transfigured body. Christ still looked the same after the Resurrection and yet His Spirit body could pass though a literal wall.

It is also Written that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;... even the children of Israel knew that much when they Exodus 20:19 And they said unto Moses, "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die."