"made in God's image"

[aliantha]

Aliantha,

Not exactly. There is nothing wrong with the pleasures of the flesh in their proper context. For example food should be enjoyed but not to the level of gluttony. Rest is important but not to the level of slothfulness. Sex is fine but lust for the sake of lust is not. In other words the pleasures, in their proper context, are fine. Othodoxy is not all asceticism.

I will take your word for that, SerScot. But the point I was trying to make was about Brokenness -- the part about being separated from God when we became human. I sorta got off-track with the stuff about the lusts of the flesh, but I think the rest of what I said -- about Christianity in general, if not about Orthodoxy in particular -- is pretty much accurate.

[Vraith]

Mixing a bit of response and incorporating Menolly, Ali, SS.
Ali, not quite the web...more like a cell in a human. It lives, connects, exchanges, but is bounded, it is part of the whole, the whole part of it...but it isn't the body entire, and neither ignorant of its place, nor fully aware of it...if/when it is, it isn't a cell anymore. [What Menolly said about merging back]. Other versions say after merging, a nebulous part, kind of a hive mind I remains [sort of an evolved "cell" in a bigger body]. Some, the whole cycle is more like CO2 in water...it moves in and out of solution, sometimes a definite bubble, sometime just part of the liquid. [also similar to Menolly's comment].
And SS [veering out of Hinduism alone, into Buddhism], that's interesting. The rough outline of the dominant Buddha story is from ordinary, to purely ascetic and a quasi-enlightenment, then is corrupted and uses his abilities for extreme wealth/hedonism, then eventually falls and overcomes, attains true enlightenment...then stays among the unenlightened to teach...and much of that teaching resembles what you said, as long as one is aware, eyes open, and seeking.
The conundrum: most versions say the lesson is to follow the 8-fold path...it isn't easy, enlightenment never is, but it avoids the nastier extremeties of error/suffering. Rarer version, in practice, but most visible [monestary monks, used in more or less accurate stories/media all over the place] lesson is pure asceticism, deny as much flesh as physically possible to become enlightened, leave the cycle...the Buddha's example teaches he should never have given in. Rarest version says the lesson is to intentionally, with full awareness, immerse yourself in the extremes, this will shorten the time you are trapped in the cycle. Bhudda did it unintentionally, he was the first. These ones say the whole point isn't to transcend by limiting or ignoring demands of the flesh, but to transcend through the flesh by experiencing everything it is capable of, we are meant to live flesh fully, that's why it exists, what "God" wants. [btw, this "path" doesn't condone murder/rape and such...those are not considered to be experiences of flesh, but evil/illness]
Funny thing is, in a way, for all the views, even the most ecstatic/joyous flesh experiences happen in a sort of atmosphere of suffering...sort of. And also all pain/suffering in an atmosphere of joy/ecstacy...sort of.

[rusmeister]

Rus,

If you really want to blow peoples minds youy should link to a tretis on theosis.

I think a treatise starting with the Transfiguration (what we could become - what the image of God means) and proceeding to the uncreated energies of God would be even more mind-blowing. Most people can wrap their minds around theosis - at least on its basic levels.

If I answer any post, it'll be Fist's (to whom I usually have to give a lot of time). I don't think it worth answering dogmas to the contrary. It's only worth answering the question from a Christian perspective.
(I try to avoid insisting on "Orthodox" when I can because there ARE things that are common to most traditional Christians, or at least, not disputed. It's only when there is conflict that I have to insist on the Orthodox position.)

[rusmeister]

I figured this should be done here, rather than continue it in the Tank.

2) God made humanity is His image

I've never understood this one. In what way are we in God's image? Adam and Eve heard God walking through the Garden of Eden, and they hid. They heard God walking. God is humanoid, and made us humanoid.

I'm sure every Christian will disagree with that, though. So in what way are we in God's image?

To this, I'd add that most versions of Christianity believe we did not know right and wrong when we were created, only gaining that attribute after eating the apple. So we weren't created in God's image physically, nor in matters of thought and understanding.


But even though this all started because of DW's comments after listening to an OC podcast, lots of you might have ideas about how we're created in God's image. Or Goddess' image. Or whatever you believe. (That is, if you believe we are created in any creator's image.) I'm just curious about it. In what way are we in God's image?

This is actually a good question.

Sometimes I get lucky.

Here is a good answer:
www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=15

I don't see the answer. "Created in the image and likeness of God" seems to require specifics of some sort, and I don't see them. I assume I'm just not understanding, so maybe you can explain. It looks like it's says we're in God's image because we have dominion over all that God created. I don't think of that as an "image and likeness" attribute, but is that the answer?

Having no limits to our growth is also mentioned a few times. We can "become by divine grace all that God Himself is by nature." But we aren't already all that God is. We are not infinite in any way. Also, if God is infinite in all ways, God has no potential for growth. So it isn't the potential for growth in which we're in God's image.

Or is it this: "If God Himself is love, mercy, compassion and care in all things, so must His creatures, made to be like Him, also be the same." This seems pretty good. But if we are created in God's image, and the angels are not, then the angels are not loving, merciful, and compassionate? I'd be surprised to learn that.

Really, I'm not arguing any of this. I'm just curious about the answer, and wondering if I'm understanding any of it so far.

If you want, "God is 6'2", light-brown hair, eyes and skin, etc", you're out of luck.

Seriously, my response to the first is that babies are 'created in our image' - even though they don't look like us or understand anything that we understand, and have a lot of growing to do. (This is a special problem in abortion - people proceed from the fact that the unborn baby looks so completely unlike us.)

Since the claim is specifically a Judeo-Christian one, I think that the answers of religions other than those three are non-sequitur to the question.

Dominion over Creation is a serious point, because we can see it with our own eyes. We DO have dominion over Creation - power over the flora, fauna, and even nature. We also have something else - a conscience - that enables us to see misuse and lament it. (I've said that people can squelch that, or have it squelched for them.) Thus we can see the ill effects of Fallen domination, and so, Greenpeace is born - a secular effort to stop certain kinds of abuse. Amnesty International appears because we even dominate fellow humans (again, this is in a Fallen world). But the point about conscience is even more directly descriptive of God and us as being in His image - because God is GOOD, and we ought to love goodness. If we love goodness - for its own sake - we can come to love God, for He is the very essence of it. That was how we were created. We have deformed that image - something people deny again and again, but it is true. We OUGHT to be good. But we are not. We choose self over other.

I'd be surprised to learn that about angels myself.
Seriously, we know little about angels, other than that they exist, they interact between God and humans as messengers, that at one time there was a point of temptation for angels and that some of them fell even before we did. They are bodiless, and so do not have physical limitation (or presumably, ability). But some of them chose to submit to God despite the temptation we can barely grasp, and so we have a few names - Gabriel and Michael being the most prominent. Since demons were able to choose to be bad, we can infer that the other angels chose to be good, and therefore have those capacities.

(And for the feminists, don't forget that the most perfected man in our Tradition is a woman )
So we look to the Theotokos, and to the saints. They achieved better than most something incredibly difficult, but not completely impossible, and give us the best idea we can have on us as the image of God.

[Avatar]

I tell you, and it is written in your own law, that you are gods.

--A

[Krazy Kat]

My own outlook is more that at all times we *are* G-d and there is no break, but we have to relearn to find our way as the material overlays and hides our own g-dliness from us. But I do believe individual awareness is not retained upon merging back. We are here and elsewhere we manifest to experience and learn and return to The All with the experience innate to us.

I've often found this idea compelling, although highlighted I ask myself, Why?
To what end do we have to return then leave to return, Menolly?

[rusmeister]

I tell you, and it is written in your own law, that you are gods.

--A

A fine example of applying Sola Scriptura, Av. You've quoted the Scripture. Now to what authority are you appealing to understand it? Your own? If so, on what basis do you think you could have the correct understanding - including authorial intent and context - of this passage? Even I don't know the answer offhand and would have to inquire. But it's a sure bet that there's an answer in Orthodox Tradition that is not the same as you might come up with on your own from a context-and-tradition-free reading of a passage.

[rusmeister]

My own outlook is more that at all times we *are* G-d and there is no break, but we have to relearn to find our way as the material overlays and hides our own g-dliness from us. But I do believe individual awareness is not retained upon merging back. We are here and elsewhere we manifest to experience and learn and return to The All with the experience innate to us.

I'm mostly staying out of what other traditions teach, but I guess I have to comment on this one. This view looks awfully un-Judaic to me and quite pantheistic - which is something that Judaism is definitely not (or at least, has never been). Probably all I can ask is when and where did this idea appear in your tradition, Menolly?

[Fist and Faith]

If you want, "God is 6'2", light-brown hair, eyes and skin, etc", you're out of luck.

No, I don't want it. Just wondering how it doesn't come down to that, since the words are "likeness" and "image", and they heard God's footsteps as he walked in the Garden of Eden.

Dominion over Creation is a serious point, because we can see it with our own eyes. We DO have dominion over Creation - power over the flora, fauna, and even nature. We also have something else - a conscience - that enables us to see misuse and lament it.

Can we have a conscience if we don't know good and evil? If Adam and Eve did not know good and evil until they ate the apple, then were they created with a conscience?

(And for the feminists, don't forget that the most perfected man in our Tradition is a woman )

But don't forget, the most perfected woman in the Bene Gesserit tradition was a man.

I tell you, and it is written in your own law, that you are gods.

--A

A fine example of applying Sola Scriptura, Av. You've quoted the Scripture. Now to what authority are you appealing to understand it? Your own? If so, on what basis do you think you could have the correct understanding - including authorial intent and context - of this passage? Even I don't know the answer offhand and would have to inquire. But it's a sure bet that there's an answer in Orthodox Tradition that is not the same as you might come up with on your own from a context-and-tradition-free reading of a passage.

Thing is, nobody is required to accept any specific interpretation of the Bible. You have no authority to insist on it. Sola Scriptura is one of many interpretations. And, of course, Sola Scriptura probably means as many interpretations as there are people applying it. That sounds like madness to you, but not to everyone.

[Krazy Kat]

2) God made humanity is His image

I've never understood this one. In what way are we in God's image? Adam and Eve heard God walking through the Garden of Eden, and they hid. They heard God walking. God is humanoid, and made us humanoid.

Another way to look at this is that it may not have been God. It could've been the trickery of the serpent.

When Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidding fruit and God punished them, he also punished the serpent saying that it shall henceforth crawl on it's belly.
Could this mean that originally it was upright and could walk? It certainly had the ability of speech!

[rusmeister]

Dominion over Creation is a serious point, because we can see it with our own eyes. We DO have dominion over Creation - power over the flora, fauna, and even nature. We also have something else - a conscience - that enables us to see misuse and lament it.

Can we have a conscience if we don't know good and evil? If Adam and Eve did not know good and evil until they ate the apple, then were they created with a conscience?

Probably the work I have found most helpful in grasping that is CS Lewis's fictional "Perelandra" from his "Space Trilogy". The Green Woman, as a type of Eve on a different planet, - kind of like "The Fall (or not) - Redux" displays exactly the kind of naivety that cannot imagine anything but good - and so is imperiled when a tempter (a human agent who is ultimately possessed due to his own foolishness of thought) comes to corrupt her. So I would say that is a misinterpretation to take ancient readings too literally - this is part of the peril of not referring to an authority that does know and can explain what was originally intended by such-and-such a text and the literary devices used in it. I would say it more correct for us today to say that they knew good - and had no conception of evil - they could not recognize a dividing line because the very concept had not been conceived.

(And for the feminists, don't forget that the most perfected man in our Tradition is a woman )

But don't forget, the most perfected woman in the Bene Gesserit tradition was a man.

Of course.
Although the latter is admittedly fictional...

--A

A fine example of applying Sola Scriptura, Av. You've quoted the Scripture. Now to what authority are you appealing to understand it? Your own? If so, on what basis do you think you could have the correct understanding - including authorial intent and context - of this passage? Even I don't know the answer offhand and would have to inquire. But it's a sure bet that there's an answer in Orthodox Tradition that is not the same as you might come up with on your own from a context-and-tradition-free reading of a passage.

Thing is, nobody is required to accept any specific interpretation of the Bible. You have no authority to insist on it. Sola Scriptura is one of many interpretations. And, of course, Sola Scriptura probably means as many interpretations as there are people applying it. That sounds like madness to you, but not to everyone.

Nobody is "required", but if we want to know what a text is really meant to mean, then it would be silly not to try to find out what that meaning is. I claim no authority of my own in any event. I claim the authority of the Church to declare what I do - even though you don't recognize that authority, you at least ought to recognize that I am not claiming it on my own authority - for I agree with you that as an individual, I have no authority.
And yes, I do think that SS does mean as many interpretations as people applying it - which is why I can't accept it as a way of determining true theology. SS is illogical when you realize that it is the individual that is interpreting - but a person who does not realize that is not insane - they merely have not thought that question through, and do not see that they have, as GKC put it, 'made everyone their own Pope'. It is only as long as you can imagine that it is the document itself that interprets itself that SS makes any sense. I just don't think that a thinking person can say that theology is self-evident from a compilation of texts as broadly varied as the Bible. Certainly they have right interpretations in places - some meanings really haven't changed and the translations do correctly reflect the original. But without enormous erudition, more than any individual could hope to attain, you can't tell with any certainty where that is so. I've already cited examples regarding the doctrine of the ever-Virgin Mary and the Protestant denial of that, as well as the idea of Jesus' brothers, seemingly undeniable from a text itself with no footnotes, and no other resources, based on individual interpretation of a translation into English.

[Krazy Kat]

Rus, I honestly tried to read your post, but when you say it's foolish to take ancient text - the Holy Bible - too literally, then I stop right there. The Bible is the Word of God. How else are we supposed to take it?

[rusmeister]

Rus, I honestly tried to read your post, but when you say it's foolish to take ancient text - the Holy Bible - too literally, then I stop right there. The Bible is the Word of God. How else are we supposed to take it?

Well, in my faith tradition, "the Word of God" - the Logos - is Jesus Christ Himself. (See the gospel of John ch 1). We don't normally speak of the Bible as "the Word of God" for that reason, but instead as "Holy Scripture".

It is not a dictated text by God. It is a collection of books written by humans of limited perspective - who could not know that the solar system is heliocentric, for example - that was inspired by God. It is still the foundation of true (Holy) Tradition - as opposed to the infamous "traditions of men".

I've already said that if you don't know the meaning - in modern translation - of the original Greek "eos", then your English based understanding of the preposition "until" in Matt 1:24-25 will probably assume that Mary began sexual relations with her husband Joseph (and of course, leaving out all the rest of Tradition that tells us that Joseph was more than 30 years older than Mary, and did not marry her for the reasons we usually think of marriage) after the birth of Christ. A realization that its correct translation corresponds to the English "while" (as in "during") would reveal that the impression of the English-only speaker is false, and that such a person is already on the path of development of false theology, based on his own lack of knowledge. In Russian, by comparison, the word translates as "poka" /pah-KAH/ - which confirms the original Greek and denies the English translation as being in error.

[Krazy Kat]

Jesus Christ never said he was God. So you must be misinterpreting the Gospel of John.

[aliantha]

In an attempt to wrest this thread back on course, before it becomes yet another thesis on Orthodox Christianity....

Ali, not quite the web...more like a cell in a human. It lives, connects, exchanges, but is bounded, it is part of the whole, the whole part of it...but it isn't the body entire, and neither ignorant of its place, nor fully aware of it...if/when it is, it isn't a cell anymore. [What Menolly said about merging back]. Other versions say after merging, a nebulous part, kind of a hive mind I remains [sort of an evolved "cell" in a bigger body]. Some, the whole cycle is more like CO2 in water...it moves in and out of solution, sometimes a definite bubble, sometime just part of the liquid. [also similar to Menolly's comment]

I understand your analogy about the cell, Vraith, and it works for me, to a degree. But a single cell isn't sentient. One cell can only do what it's biologically programmed to do. If that's true of humans as well, hmm, it kind of answers the question about free will, huh?

I think what you're trying to reconcile is what happens to Spirit after the body dies -- yes? If reincarnation exists (like I said before, I'm on the fence ), then I would have to disagree with Menolly -- we would, in fact, retain what we've learned in this lifetime after we go on to the Great Beyond. If reincarnation doesn't exist, then it hardly matters whether we retain what we've experienced here or not. Unless there's an opportunity to for Spirit to keep growing on the next level. Hmm.

For decades, my answer to "what are we here for?" has been: "To learn and grow." I guess I've been assuming all along that we're here to learn a specific lesson, or series of lessons, or just to learn about life in the physical plane. But all of that implies that there's another plane of existence "above" us, after this one, where we will learn more. Don't ask me how many levels there are!

Maybe the ultimate lesson we are all supposed to be learning is that we are indeed all connected somehow -- and what that ultimately means.

But of course, I have no way of knowing for sure.

[Krazy Kat]

Well Ali, if the Great Beyond is God, and we live on Earth to learn how to be with God, then maybe, given the choice, I'd pass on being with God. I don't really think there's much intelligence on Earth and if little intelligence can obtain the mind of God in death then as I said, I think I'd choose oblivion.

Personally, I believe we live on Earth simply to evolve. The ultimate goal is to reach a level of evolution that gives us the capability to know how to search for God.

I base this idea on how I think about Jesus Christ.
2000 years ago a man walked the Earth teaching simple people how to improve their lives. When they finally understood him, a large percentage of the world's population made a giant leap in their evolution.

[Menolly]

Since both KK and rus quoted the same bit from my post...

My own outlook is more that at all times we *are* G-d and there is no break, but we have to relearn to find our way as the material overlays and hides our own g-dliness from us. But I do believe individual awareness is not retained upon merging back. We are here and elsewhere we manifest to experience and learn and return to The All with the experience innate to us.

I've often found this idea compelling, although highlighted I ask myself, Why?
To what end do we have to return then leave to return, Menolly?

For me, since we are all parts of The All and The All is all knowing, this is my own limited interpretation of how The All is all knowing. Direct experience merged back in to The All.

I do believe The All is timeless, as are we all once merged back. But I see our experiencing; and the experience of everything else, animate and inanimate when unmerged, as the means The All uses to stay within Creation, since The All is all of Creation and more.

I'm mostly staying out of what other traditions teach, but I guess I have to comment on this one. This view looks awfully un-Judaic to me and quite pantheistic - which is something that Judaism is definitely not (or at least, has never been). Probably all I can ask is when and where did this idea appear in your tradition, Menolly?

Lurianic Kabbalah.
Not pantheistic.
Panentheistic.

As I stated above, I am putting my own interpretation on top of Luria's teachings. But is that not what we all do when we study and choose for ourselves what something means to us?

I think what you're trying to reconcile is what happens to Spirit after the body dies -- yes? If reincarnation exists (like I said before, I'm on the fence ), then I would have to disagree with Menolly -- we would, in fact, retain what we've learned in this lifetime after we go on to the Great Beyond. If reincarnation doesn't exist, then it hardly matters whether we retain what we've experienced here or not. Unless there's an opportunity to for Spirit to keep growing on the next level. Hmm.

You're not exactly disagreeing with me, ali. I do believe in reincarnation and "old souls" in a sense, but probably differently than the traditional view of reincarnation. I disagree that reincarnation is used to relearn and reconnect with The All. But I do see our spirit, and thus The All itself, manifesting within Creation over and over ad infinitum (and beyond). Not as a means to draw closer to The All. But as part of The All's means of being a living, viable force within Creation.

So, retaining what we have learned previously is part of our spirit, but not as an individual. I will not merge back with The All as "Piyah Frimah bas Nachman v'Chaya," but what I have experienced will. When my spirit manifests again, wherever and as whatever it does manifest as, it will start with a clean slate to experience things anew. But everything will still be within it, if again overlayed and hidden by the material.

[Vraith]

I understand your analogy about the cell, Vraith, and it works for me, to a degree. But a single cell isn't sentient. One cell can only do what it's biologically programmed to do. If that's true of humans as well, hmm, it kind of answers the question about free will, huh?

You might agree more than you think [though obviously no analogy is perfect, and certainly not mine].
To some extent, in these kinds of views, we don't have free will, or at best have a limited version [we can choose any kind of fruit we want, but not our meat and veggies], until we begin becoming/touching/experiencing some bit of what's outside our cell walls.

[Fist and Faith]

Probably the work I have found most helpful in grasping that is CS Lewis's fictional "Perelandra" from his "Space Trilogy".

I'm not finding it online yet, but I'll keep looking. My wife can find anything!

Nobody is "required", but if we want to know what a text is really meant to mean, then it would be silly not to try to find out what that meaning is.

Weeeeeeeelllllllllll... Not necessarily. I'm positive, beyond any doubt, that nothing and nobody will ever convince me of anything other than that the author of Genesis meant that God is humanoid, and that we are created in that image. "Let us make man in our image, in (after; according to) our likeness:" and "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden" meant just that. That's pretty clear language. That's not any sort of vague metaphor. The author meant what it says. He was writing to an audience of farmers and fishermen and such, thousands of years ago, and he wanted them to know that we look like God.

But then, somewhere down the line, people wanted God to be much more than a powerful humanoid. And the stuff they wrote made the God in Genesis look too small. He didn't fit in with the God of later parts of the Bible. So explanations had to be made in order for "image and likeness" to not mean "image and likeness." In comic books, it's called "retcon" - retroactive continuity.

Studying with anybody in the world isn't going to make me believe otherwise. Yes, I can come to understand how you interpret it, but it won't change "what [the] text is meant to mean."

(Really, I didn't start this thread in order to get to this discussion. I want to know what any Christians, as well as people of any other belief, who care to answer think the answer is. Just to get an idea of what our creator is believed to be.)

I claim no authority of my own in any event. I claim the authority of the Church to declare what I do - even though you don't recognize that authority, you at least ought to recognize that I am not claiming it on my own authority - for I agree with you that as an individual, I have no authority.

I understand. I just disagree that the guy who originally came up with the idea that "image and likeness" doesn't mean "image and likeness" is any better able to decide what it means than anybody else is. He did it through SS. The first person to say that had to have said it through SS.

And yes, I do think that SS does mean as many interpretations as people applying it - which is why I can't accept it as a way of determining true theology. SS is illogical when you realize that it is the individual that is interpreting - but a person who does not realize that is not insane - they merely have not thought that question through, and do not see that they have, as GKC put it, 'made everyone their own Pope'. It is only as long as you can imagine that it is the document itself that interprets itself that SS makes any sense. I just don't think that a thinking person can say that theology is self-evident from a compilation of texts as broadly varied as the Bible.

EXACTLY! That's why retcon is necessary. Broadly varied writings were put together, but they don't quite fit. At some point, someone said: "A and B don't work together. I'll explain it like this..." At another time, someone said: "C and D don't work together. I'll explain it like this..." And on and on, until we have what you call theology. But each time, it was someone deciding how to put elements that don't quite jibe together. Then someone collected them together, and you say that collection is theology, and anyone who wants to know what the texts really mean can only find out there.

Certainly they have right interpretations in places - some meanings really haven't changed and the translations do correctly reflect the original. But without enormous erudition, more than any individual could hope to attain, you can't tell with any certainty where that is so. I've already cited examples regarding the doctrine of the ever-Virgin Mary and the Protestant denial of that, as well as the idea of Jesus' brothers, seemingly undeniable from a text itself with no footnotes, and no other resources, based on individual interpretation of a translation into English.

I'm sure I would agree with your theology at times. Enough of the Bible is easy enough to understand. And I'm sure I'd go along with that theology in many cases where I don't have even a guess about what it means. But there's times, like the above, where I'm gonna disagree. And I don't think whatever Greek or Russian guy who came up with that particular interpretation is right. He just decided to say it meant that. Maybe he really thought it did. Maybe he changed it intentionally, because he wanted Genesis to be grouped with other books, but didn't want God to be humanoid.

[aliantha]

I understand your analogy about the cell, Vraith, and it works for me, to a degree. But a single cell isn't sentient. One cell can only do what it's biologically programmed to do. If that's true of humans as well, hmm, it kind of answers the question about free will, huh?

You might agree more than you think [though obviously no analogy is perfect, and certainly not mine].
To some extent, in these kinds of views, we don't have free will, or at best have a limited version [we can choose any kind of fruit we want, but not our meat and veggies], until we begin becoming/touching/experiencing some bit of what's outside our cell walls.

Hmm, yeah. I mean, we could have free will to operate within the limited sphere of physical, tangible life on this plane. But we wouldn't be able to do *anything* we wanted until we figure out how to transcend this plane.

So -- meditation? or magic mushrooms?