In the Image of God: thoughts on the Death of Rosalynn Carter

What is the Image of God?

In the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, we read “God created Man in His image.” What can this verse possibly mean to us? Hardly anyone today believes that God has a physical body that looks like our bodies. Even people who profess to take the Bible literally balk at that. Most religious people today do not take any of the biblical creation story literally, much less this apparently absurd claim that we and our neighbors resemble God physically. So, what can this verse mean to us?

We can start to answer this question by asking another one. What do we mean when we speak of “the image of God?” The only image of God that we can know is the image that we have in our minds. We have an “image” of God in our minds although it is not a corporeal image. Our image of God is made up of the qualities that we attribute to him/her. What do we say of God? We say that he/she is just. We say that he/she is merciful. We say that he/she loves us and cares what happens to us. We say that God is a “person” who hears our prayers.

We Can Try to Be as We Imagine God to Be

If our image of God is composed of qualities like justice, mercy, love, caring and listening, then our statement that we are created in his/her image can only mean that we also are just and merciful, that we also care and listen. Unfortunately, we know that often, we lack these qualities. We are frequently unjust and unmerciful. We often do not care about our fellows, and rarely do we really listen to what they say. Nevertheless, we aspire to act according to principles like justice and mercy, and we aspire to care about each other and to listen to each other.

In that aspiration, we can find the meaning of the biblical verse for us. We can take it to mean that we have the potential to live up to our image of God. We can work to realize our potential. We can move ourselves closer to resembling the image that we have of him/her. Our aspiration can be both personal and social. As an individual, I can try to act justly and mercifully as much as I can. I can think about the sufferings of others and do what I can to alleviate them. I can focus on listening to what they say and even to what they do not say openly. We can also work together to make our society as just and merciful as we can. We can make our institutions responsive to people’s needs. We can build institutions that hear the cries of our people. We can make a society that resembles our image of God.

Believers and Non-Believers Alike

From this point of view, the biblical verse can mean the same thing to those who do not believe in a personal God as it does to those who do believe. Believers and non-believers alike can strive to live up to an ideal of humane conduct. We can all strive to be the people that we aspire to be and to build the society that we aspire to live in. This is not a task that we can complete. We can never be perfect people or create a perfect society, but we can aspire to go forward in that direction.

Rosalynn Carter Worked to Realize the Image of God in Her Life

Rosalynn Carter built her life around that aspiration. She and her husband worked to bring themselves and our society as close as possible to the image of God, and they achieved more than most of us. Let remember her for her heroic struggle, and may we, too, strive to realize the image of God in our lives.