Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)

2012 / 3-4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Eberhard Busch: Az egyház értelmezése a Heidelbergi Káté tanítása szerint

God's Transcendence of Our Concepts

an ellipsis with two focal points. One points to the origin of human existence, our common past, and one to our destiny, our common future. In retrospect we can ask what makes up our humanity and in prospect we can ask to what that humanity is destined. The fact that these two questions together form an ellipsis means that they cannot be approached separately. Our destiny is given in our past and our past is focused upon our destiny. Every judgment of the value of what is humane will therefore always depends on the question what that humane is destined for and every view of that destiny is always more or less implied in the potentialities that are already given in the creation of humankind. Hence the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor can speak of the “given ontology of the human”, thus expressing both the given character of the human and the initially normative.10 11

God’s words “Let us make man in our own image” (Gen. 1:26) are quite the opposite of the religious projection theory, which always tends to make humans absolute and hence to deify them. A theological anthropology will always avoid that. ‘We are not God’, is its first adage. ‘Human destiny, our real identity, has to be revealed’, is its second adage. The concept of the image of God can be considered the main pointer to that destiny. In the reference to humans as image of God the real human person appears to be a theomorpbic person. Therefore, Christ is his full incarnation.11

In sum, we may say that in the biblical references to the image of God humans are given their place (their origin and their destination) by God. They are not God. That is the one side of the coin. The flip side is that the reference to humans as God’s image not only shows us our place in a restrictive sense, but also in a ‘glorifying’, aggrandizing sense. To be God’s image constantly reminds us not to think too little of ourselves. It is the guarantee of our inviolability. In Gen. 9:6 this inviolability is not argued from some human quality, but from the fact that humans are theomorpbic, i.e. created in God’s image (Psalm 8:5). This ‘ontologically given’ (Taylor) fact creates an enormous latitude ^responsibility) which is constantly explored with ups and downs in the Bible. Here again, our God-given past and future as image of God, eventually revealed in Christ, transcends all our ideas of human value.

Calling (vocatio)

The idea of humans as image of God lies at the basis of the biblical idea of calling (vocatio). I would be inclined to define this idea of calling as the preparedness to take our responsibility as images of God. Understanding our calling means then: responding to what our destination demands, behaving responsible, being accountable for our own acrs. Every reference to human responsibility is in the Bible always anchored in the awareness to be the image of God. It is from this awareness that every person is made to choose between righteousness and evil and that his attention is drawn to the consequences of a wrong choice. Biblical legislation, just like all forms of legislation, presupposes that human beings can make choices. The Bible, however, is thoroughly conscious of our penchant for evil and the concomitant inability to do

10 Taylor, Charles: Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. 5.

11 Brinkman, M.E.: The Tragedy of Human Freedom. The Failure and Promise of the Christian Concept of Freedom in Western Culture. Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2003. 27-36.

2012/3-4 Sárospataki füzetek 89