Catechesis · Inquirer
Man as Image
Catechesis · Inquirer
Man as Image
Genesis says: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." This is the most important thing the Bible says about human beings. Before it tells us what we are made of or wha…
Question
What is a human being?
Genesis says: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." This is the most important thing the Bible says about human beings. Before it tells us what we are made of or what we are for, it tells us whose image we bear. The human person is defined not by biology or capacity but by relation — by who made us and in whose image we exist.
The Fathers distinguish between image (*εἰκών*) and likeness (*ὁμοίωσις*). The image is what we are by creation — rational, free, spiritual, capable of communion with God. The likeness is what we are called to become — fully actualised in our participation in divine life. The image can be damaged by sin; it cannot be destroyed. The likeness is the goal of the spiritual life.
The teaching
Image and likeness — what we are, and what we are called to become
The human person is a unity of body and soul — not a soul trapped in a body, and not a body that happens to have consciousness. Orthodox theology insists on the unity: the body is not a prison or a burden; it is an integral part of what a human being is. The resurrection of the body is not a concession to matter; it is the affirmation that embodied human existence is what God made and what God intends to redeem.
The soul gives the body life and form. The soul is not created separately and inserted into the body; soul and body come to be together. Death is the separation of soul and body — the Orthodox tradition describes it as unnatural, the consequence of sin, not the original design. The resurrection will reunite them permanently and gloriously.
Man is a creature who has received a command to become God. The image is given; the likeness is the task.
This formula — attributed to Basil — captures the Orthodox view of the human person precisely. We are not finished products. We are beings with a vocation: to become, by grace, what God is by nature. The image is the beginning. The likeness is the destination. The spiritual life is the path between them.
After St. Basil the Great
Homily on the Beginning of Proverbs · c. 370 AD
Holy Scripture
"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
Genesis 1:27
"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness... so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature."
2 Peter 1:3–4
Theosis and the Image
What it means to become what you were made to be
The image of God is not a decorative feature of human nature. It is its defining characteristic and its ultimate destiny. We were made in the image of God so that we could grow into His likeness. The spiritual life — prayer, fasting, sacraments, ascetical struggle — is not self-improvement. It is the progressive actualisation of what we already are by creation.