3.1.1 Introduction
The Creation Story contains an incredible faith-statement: Mankind was created in God-likeness. The Imago Dei is the turning- and anchor-point of Christian anthropology and ethics.Â
myiihla mlc zelem Elohim: God’s Image explained through Twmd humility: similarityÂ
von Rad: proxy of God, similar to a vassal of the high king (Theol.d.AT, I, 158) (mainstream of catholic ethics!)
Thielicke: not an ontological but a teleological term:
“It is a relational not an existential state.” (1,269)
(mainstream of evangelical ethics)
It applies to all people regardless of faith, sex, etc (different, Islam).Â
A nice rabbinic legend states that, after the creation of Adam, the Angel inadvertently worshipped him, because that is how similar he was to God prior to the Fall. The Bible does not view God anthropomorphically (Feuerbach’s criticism of religion), it sees humans theomorphically. (von Rad, Theol.d.AT, 1,159).
The faith dogma of humanity’s God-likeness is the axiom of the foundational values of the German constitution. Whoever denies the Judeo-Christian roots of the German state out of a misplaced desire for tolerance, topples the entire value system of the German constitution. The ethics of the German constitution crashes like a house of cards when it is no longer supported by faith. Every ethic has a religious foundation!