Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
I disagree, jeager. Here's why: An image is the representation of something's physical attributes. When you look in a mirror, you see an image of yourself. Identical twins are often said to be the exact image of each other. A photograph captures the image of what someone or something looks like. If someone appears healthy, we say he is the image of good health. I challenge you to use the word "image" in any way other than that. The first time this phrase is used is when the Bible speaks of the creation. It talks of the creation of each kind of animal and says that they will all reproduce after their own kind. Immediately after this statement is the statement that man is to be created after God's image. When seen in the context of where the statement appears, I don't think we ought to be trying to explain it away as meaning anything other than what it quite simply and straightforwardly says.
Have you ever wondered why both the terms "image" and "likeness" are used? If these two words mean exactly the same thing, why would both have been used? We are created "in God's image" but we are also created "in God's likeness." In other words, we have a form resembling God's (i.e. we are in His image), but we are like him in that we share at least some of His other attributes (i.e. we are in His likeness). You say that God is spirit and I agree, but I can't even count the number of times I have heard a Jehovah's Witness correct people when they say, "Human beings have a spirit." The standard JW response (at least that I've heard) is that "We human beings don't have a spirit; rather, we are a spirit." To some extent I would agree with that statement. Our spirit is the essence of who we are. We are not just a physical body, hard-wired to do certain things. We are spirits, and a spirit is a life force. Likewise, God is spirit. He's not some "thing" lacking in self-awareness but a life force from which all other life has its source. If each of us can be a spirit which inhabits a body, it is entirely possible for God to do the same.
The Apostle Peter seemed to agree that God has a body. Here's what he said on the subject in the Clementine Homilies:
"For He has shape, and He has every limb primarily and solely for beauty's sake, and not for use. For He has not eyes that He may see with them; for He sees on every side, since He is incomparably more brilliant in His body than the visual spirit which is in us, and He is more splendid than everything, so that in comparison with Him the light of the sun may be reckoned as darkness. Nor has He ears that He may hear; for He hears, perceives, moves, energizes, acts on every side. But He has the most beautiful shape on account of man, that the pure in heart, may be able to see Him, that they may rejoice because they suffered. For He moulded man in His own shape as in the greatest seal, in order that he may be the ruler and lord of all, and that all may be subject to him."
That's why I believe we were created in God's image and in His likeness.
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