The Redeemed Image of God: Embodied Relations to the Unknown Divine

The Redeemed Image of God examines the classical development of imago Dei, the image of God, in Christian theology, and reconstructs the doctrine in order to recover the role of the image in redemption and the importance of human embodiment in salvific relationships. The author argues that the imago Dei is the point of contact that enables a rich web of relationships to others, but most importantly the redemptive relationship to the Other, God. From this perspective, not only can the imago Dei be saved, but the imago Dei is essential in saving us. Windley-Daoust retrieves the deep classical meaning of the Image of God as redemptive point of contact and addresses the wholistic worldview of our century through dialogue with existential phenomenologists Gabriel Marcel and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This contemporary reconstruction of the image of God theology fully values the Incarnation as enabling redemption, and the human body as touchstone to the transcendent. This is a new vision of the imago Dei, and a theologically suggestive understanding of the human as embodied spirit.

Susan Windley-Daoust is Assistant Professor of Theology, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.