Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) on "Image" and "Likeness" in Genesis 1

  

It follows that we consider the form which is the third cause. Now truly, the lowlier the matter is from which man was made, so much more precious and excellent is the form which was given to him. I pass over the exterior form of the body, i.e. the figure of the human body, which is more excellent than the figures of all animals. This form is not substantial, but accidental. Thus, the substantial form of man, namely what makes him man, is what distinguishes him from other living creatures. This is his immortal soul, endowed with reason and free will, which is God’s Image made to his own likeness.

 

We read that God said when he made man, “Let us make man to our image and likeness; and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moves upon the earth.” Thus, man is God’s image, not because of his body, but of his soul, for God is a spirit, not a body, and as St. Basil says “Wherever there is one with command over other living creatures there is the image of God.” Now, man does not command the beasts by the members of the body, which are stronger in many beasts than in man, but by his mind endowed with reason and freewill. For not by that which he has in common with them does he rule them, but by that whereby he is distinguished from them and made like unto God. (Robert Bellarmine, The Ascent of The Mind To God: By the Ladder of Creation [trans. Ryan Grant; Port Falls, ID.: Mediatrix Press, 2022], First Step, Chapter 4, pp. 7-8)


Further Reading:


Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment