Note: This is the second part of a series focused on Imago Dei and how it affects our view of humanity. This is not intended to be a theological exposition. It’s just some thoughts I’ve had as I learn and grow as a Christian.
It’s been quite some time since I posted the first part of this series, which means you might need to reread it to refresh your memory. As a quick summary, part one laid out that Imago Dei, the image of God, means everything that makes us who we are comes from God, and it is all good. Therefore, the fallen nature of humanity is not something added when sin entered the world but a corruption of who we already are.
So how exactly does sin affect Imago Dei? Does it erase it? Does it mean that the image of God within us is now meaningless? This is where we arrive at Total Depravity.
Total Depravity is the doctrine that says human nature is thoroughly corrupted and sinful. The curse of sin has infected every part of us. In my understanding, this means that every human is capable of the worst possible evil, and on their own cannot enter heaven. I agree with this.
The problem is many people accept this is all that’s left in humanity, and no one can do any good apart from God. Which means, no one can do good except Christians.
(Yes, this theology comes from verses such as Romans 3:23 and Mark 10:18. Believe me, I could have researched definitions/uses of the word “good” in context and in the original Greek, plus cross examining all the places this theology shows up in the Bible and compare it to other points of theology, but this isn’t that kind of blog.)
Even then, the impression I always took away from church is that humanity is evil and it’s only because God is working through us that we can do good. As in, God is the good part, not us. More than that, I remember being afraid that even when I did “good things” that it might be because I was selfish, and then it isn’t really a good thing.
In this branch of theology especially, we’ve thrown out Imago Dei and settled solely on corrupted human nature. Not to say that it isn’t fully sinful, but Imago Dei isn’t suddenly a non-factor. It is literally our entire identity.
This is the nature of most theology, the paradox of two seemingly contradictory ideas that somehow work together. A comparable explanation might be calling it an oxymoron. The two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive, even when everything you understand tells you they should be.
In this case, Imago Dei and the goodness of people lives in tension with the sin that has corrupted it into total depravity.
This doesn’t just apply to Christians either. The image of God and the infection of sin co-exist within every human being. It is confusing, but that is part of the complexity of people. Nothing about them is straight forward.
This means that Christians and non-Christians alike are capable of great good and great evil. After all, it was Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). This is not an action reserved for Christians.
Of course, this discussion is not about who deserves to go to heaven. It’s an examination of our complex human nature from a theological perspective.
But the presence of Imago Dei, even in our sinful nature, has far reaching and even extremely personal implications, at least for myself.
Although, you’ll have to wait for part three for that.