Recherche – Detailansicht

Ausgabe:

Dezember/2018

Spalte:

1322–1323

Kategorie:

Systematische Theologie: Dogmatik

Autor/Hrsg.:

Welz, Claudia

Titel/Untertitel:

Humanity in God’s Image. An Interdisciplinary Exploration.

Verlag:

Oxford u. a.: Oxford University Press 2016. 256 S. Geb. US$ 105,00. ISBN 978-0-19-878498-2.

Rezensent:

Deidre Nicole Green

In her multifaceted and wide-ranging study, Claudia Welz addresses the question of how to understand the idea that the human being is created in the image of God who remains invisible. Her three aims are to: clarify the meaning of the biblical notion of imago Dei, including the imago Christi; trace various interpretations of humanity in God’s image and reformulate them in terms of a contemporary debate on epistemological status of images, signs, and metaphorical language visualizing the invisible; and discuss theological and ethical questions regarding human dignity in a post-Holocaust context. Conceived as problem-oriented, the book ex-plores different models of the imago Dei, the process of divine self-disclosure through revelation, redemption against the backdrop of suffering, and ethics with an »eschatological proviso« (15). Themes and traditions used to engage these issues include mimesis and anti-mimesis, relational ontology, the embodiment of the image of God, and human dignity in the context of an ethics of invisibility. Although the range of sources and angles seems far-reaching for a single text, W. manages a very productive conversation on the issue, unpacking the ways in which human beings image God the ways in which they ought to do so.
W. examines the imago Dei as a matter of mimesis in which the individual imitates its original, looking to Augustine, Luther, and Bonhoeffer in her analysis. She then discusses a dynamic model, of which Kierkegaard is representative, that emphasizes conformity to the divine, setting ethical striving as the means to collapsing the distance between humanity and God. The struggle to become submissive and transparent to God results in »reciprocal reflection,« but not a mirror image (40). W. claims that the imago Dei is the only sign in the world capable of both understanding itself and recog-nizing the limits of its self-understanding. W. views the image of God as a complex sign that is at once iconic, indexical, and sym-bolic – coming to the fore in the way it refers to the invisible, in signifying through deixis, a mode of pointing beyond itself. Characterizing human self-understanding of the image of God as a matter of autodeixis, W. explains that the pointing subject actively points to its own image, which in turn points to another. »In giving itself to be seen, the seeing image presents itself and represents the other, which then enables the imago Dei to make visible the invi-sible« (44). For W., the imago Dei can become visible through a dialogical encounter with God, when both the divine and human beings are »looking for each other« (74).
Citing Levinas, W. asserts that »God’s revelation consists not of passing on knowledge or wisdom, but in one person awakening the other, in an ethical relationship that is better than possessions, contentedness, or any pre-existing answers« (110). Human beings are able to image God by not overshadowing their likeness to the di-vine; this includes allowing God to be part of human deeds. For W., the similarities between human beings and the divine become manifest »only in certain attitudes and actions« (133). Kierkegaard s tates that the attitudes and actions that are most required are submissiveness and stillness, allowing God to manifest Godself through an assumed transparency on the part of the human being. Significantly, W. emphasizes the importance of right relation: the imago Dei only becomes apparent when God and humanity are viewed in relation to one another.
W. addresses the issue of embodiment, engaging thinkers like Jean-Luc Nancy and Melissa Raphael, observing that it is because God’s image and Christ are embodied that they cannot be reduced to metaphors. In discussing dignity, W. holds that the dignity of the human person is implied in her likeness to God. »Human likeness to God acquires an ethical gravitas insofar as it depends on acts of imitation through which human beings commit themselves to others« (210). W. agrees with Irving Greenberg that »without a practice of living a humane life together with others, there is no dignity« (228). She employs Arendt’s notion of natality to understand the means of recovering the imago Dei after violations of human dig-nity, and referencing Jean-Paul Sartre and Martha Nussbaum, she queries whether shame can protect both love and dignity. For W., dignity is anchored in its being owed in all circumstances. Echoing Ingolf Dalferth, she argues that the source of human dignity is to be found in what God does for human beings because human beings are what they are by virtue of their relationship to God – the imago Dei is found in the locus of divine co-presence. W. makes the concluding observations that the spiritual becomes visible through embodiment, that the exchange of glances is central to interpreting self and others as visible images of God, and the imago Dei requires imagination because it is not directly perceptible.
W.’s project is admirable in terms of its breadth of issues relevant to imago Dei and the sources she draws upon to address it; she includes Continental philosophy, theology, and the Jewish tradi-tion to illuminate the discussion from multiple directions. She also does well to emphasize the ethical imperatives for human beings in terms of the imago Dei impelling persons to an intentional conformation to the divine, specifically in relationship to the human other. Thus, the practical implications of this theological concept for human life are made explicit in a manner befitting the reli-gious and philosophical traditions she cites. W. rightly affirms that, when seeking to answer the question of what has happened to the imago Dei in the face of crimes against humanity’s and what needs to be done to restore the ability to encounter God’s image in human beings, »the crucial test does not take place in theory« (14). More-over, her readings of Kierkegaard, on which the book relies heavily, prove to be accurate, nuanced, and insightful.
Some of the book’s strengths may also be weaknesses. Covering so much ground, both in terms of topic and sources, can leave the book feeling a bit disjointed and too far-reaching. At the same time, her discussion of the imago Dei in a post-Holocaust context perhaps proves too narrow – W. claims that, when confronting geno-cide, one must ask what has happened to the imago and what must happen in order to help those affected rediscover God’s counte-nance in other human beings’ faces. She further asserts that the Shoah makes this question inevitable, provoking a radical re-vision of Christian theology. W. is certainly right to make these points and does well to draw on the vast literature addressing the issue. How-ever, focusing too narrowly on one particular genocide limits the scope of the imago Dei, which remains present in human beings of all colors, ethnicities, genders, and social locations. By expanding the discussion to include atrocities perpetrated against non-Europeans, W. could push her audience to consider the universality of the imago Dei, as well as what it demands ethically in terms of contemporary social issues centered in the global South. This would extend her study, yielding a less ethnocentric analysis of the imago Dei that would facilitate her crucial objective of centering theo-logical anthropology around normative issues.