God didn’t create humans in the image of animals, He created humans in His image- with a soul- something animals lack A soul that is capable of communion with our Creator. While humans and animals share physical characteristics, it is the souls of mankind that separate us from the animal kingdom having been created in the image of
God- animalkind was not created in the image of God
Speaking of the broader image, Abraham Kuyper, Jr., writes:
This image of God cannot be lost since, if man can lose it, he would at the moment of losing it, cease to be a human being. The image of God in the wider sense . . . has reference to the human in man, to that whereby man, in distinction from all other creatures, is man and not an angel or an animal or a plant.24
I freely admit that I haven't the foggiest notion of who Abraham Kuyper, Jr. is.
(Google, google, google....)
Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905, an influential neo-Calvinist theologian and also a journalist.
Huh.
Enough for a fairly long Wikipedia article. On to the quote:
This image of God cannot be lost since, if man can lose it, he would at the moment of losing it, cease to be a human being. The image of God in the wider sense . . . has reference to the human in man, to that whereby man, in distinction from all other creatures, is man and not an angel or an animal or a plant.
Theological issues aside, the simple fact is that the set of creatures called "animals" includes humans by definition. Mammals are a kind of animal. Humans are mammals. Therefore, humans are animals, Q.E.D.