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Religious Studies and Theology

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Mary Day
Religious Studies and Theology

The image of God is a critical concept in bioethics, human significance, Christian thinking concerning God, and other Christian theological topics. Many theories advanced by persons attempt to explain what image of God implies. This paper looks at different meanings of the image of God notion and other theological concepts including incarnation, docetism, adoptionism, monophysitism, nestorianism, and total depravity.

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Many theologians see the image of God idea as human’s abilities and the qualities that make people human such as high reasoning skills, possession of a soul, and self-consciousness. This point seems to bear some weight concerning the image of God concept. Only God created human beings in His image and likeness, and these qualities cannot center on the physical appearance since humans are physically different. Another view is that the image of God refers to the people’s ability to establish a relationship with Him.

The Genesis community understood the image of God as their commission. Insights from Old Testament put the image in the context of idol worship. In the ancient Canaan and Egypt, people created images of their gods out of wood and metal. The idols were found in the local temples to worship, and they were perceived as the god’s manifestation among the believers.

Total depravity states that every person (except Jesus) sins in all of their dealings and actions whether it is soul, body, mind, heart, thought, or deed. It is one of the Calvinism’s five points and initialized by T in the TULIP1 acronym. However, it does not mean that people are bad or that they are equally wicked. Not everyone is a murderer, adulterer, or a liar.

Incarnation is the dogma and the mystery of the Word that was made Flesh. The man still struggles to understand the mystery of Jesus and the nature of God. The Bible acknowledges Jesus as having the power and nature of God, and that He existed before the creation of the universe. Efforts to reconcile the human nature and the divine resulted in various historic and classic interpretations.

Adoptionism refers to the denial of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ and His Divinity. The heresy teaches that Jesus was a man whom God put under test, and after passing it, He was given supernatural abilities and adopted as God’s son. He then got rewarded for His resurrection due to His perfect character and the good things He did.

Docetism originates from the Greek word d?k?sis meaning “to seem.” It teaches that Jesus Christ was not incarnate but just appeared to have a body. Docetists considered the issue as evil rejecting the understanding that God could assume a bodily form. They deny that Jesus suffered on the cross and resurrected, neither He did have a body.

Monophysitism is a Christological heresy that states that the divinity of Jesus absorbed His humanity nature. It is a monophysite heresy derived from the Greek words monos and physis meaning “one” and “nature” respectively. Monophysitism claimed that Jesus had one nature which was a blend of divine and human.

Nestorianism teaches that Mary gave birth to the human nature of Jesus. The originator of the knowledge never wanted Mary to bear the name “Mother of God”. Instead, she should be referred to as the mother of Christ. In essence, Jesus was two distinct people of which Mary carried the Human Jesus in her womb. If the heresy was real, then Marry never carried God incarnate in her womb.

The mystery of Jesus, his deity, and all the Christological heresies will continue to exist. The notion will persist so long as human beings struggle to know the truth about the existence of the supernatural beings in control of the universe. Although all the theories explain some facts about Jesus, the Bible plays a central role as far as the knowledge of Jesus and God is concerned.

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