The Divine Image: Envisioning the Invisible God

Theologian Ian McFarland claims that Christians havemainly misappropriated the "image of God" languagefor 2000 years and thereby missed a rich resource for ourknowledge of God.

Rather than referring to some germinal divine element inhumans, such as reason, McFarland claims that the image ofGod in us tells us something about God and how we knowGod. It tells us that God, though not identical with us,communicates Godself to us in creative love, in a way thatoffers precious clues about God's transcendence,immanence, triune life, self-disclosure, incarnation, andintentions for human life. McFarland's careful and exacting work builds from this kernel a powerful Christian vision of God's life and ourown destiny in Christ.

Ian A.McFarland is Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology, University of Aberdeen, Scotland. His previous publications include Difference and Identity: A Theological Anthropology (2001) and Listening to the Least: Doing Theology from the Outside In (1998).