Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 62:3 (Sep 2019)
Article: The Doctrine Of The "Imago Dei:" The Biblical Data For An Abductive Argument For The Christian Faith
Author: Jonathan Threlfall

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JETS 62:3 (September 2019) p. 543

The Doctrine Of The Imago Dei:
The Biblical Data For An Abductive Argument For The Christian Faith

Jonathan Threlfall*

* Jonathan Threlfall is the senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, 80 Clinton Street, Concord, NH 03301. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: Broad agreement among interpreters about the meaning of the imago Dei reveals that this doctrine portrays fallen human nature as paradoxical. That is, although human beings are immutably image-bearers, their fallenness conspires with this imagedness to render them existentially self-opposing. Drawing upon exegetical and theological considerations, this article presents six propositions about the doctrine of the imago Dei. In the hands of Christian apologists, these propositions serve as necessary biblical data for an abductive argument that presents Christian anthropology as the best explanation for the existential paradoxes of the human condition.

Key words: imago Dei, apologetics, paradox, fallenness, anthropology, theological anthropology

In their perverted way all humanity imitates you. Yet they put themselves at a distance from you and exalt themselves against you. But even by thus imitating you they acknowledge that you are the creator of all nature and so concede that there is no place where one can entirely escape from you.

Augustine, Confessions

Students of Christian theology would affirm with confidence that the doctrine of the imago Dei is fundamental to theological anthropology. But when pressed with the question, “What does it mean that humans were created in the image of God?” their answers are less than confident. In fact, a survey of the history of interpretation of Gen 1:26–27—the locus classicus of the doctrine of the imago Dei—leaves us bewildered at the variety of views on this keystone of Christian anthropology. Martin Luther himself declares that “there is here agitated a whole sea of questions … as to what that ‘image’ of God was in which Moses here says that man was formed.”1

The differences among these interpreters, however, should not obscure the important ways in which their views agree. Two points of agreement stand out as especially important. First, all the views agree that the imago Dei means that humans

JETS 62:3 (September 2019) p. 544

are somehow fundamentally oriented toward God.2 Second, most of the views attempt to address the apparent tension betwee...

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