Introduction

Human equality in Western thought can be said to begin with Genesis. After creating the light and dark, heavens and earth, the sun, moon, stars, plants, and animals, God finally comes to man, which the narrative suggests is the culmination of all God’s work. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” God says on the sixth day. And after proposing to give man dominion over all living things, he does just that:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

Genesis gives us every indication that something is special about man. When God ends his work for the sixth day, he famously concludes “it was very good” after having assessed all the previous days of creation as simply “good.” God not only saves the best for last, he appoints men and women as his viceroys on earth. In Genesis’ second creation account (Gen. 2:19), God appoints them as “co-creators” when he brings the animals before Adam to name them.

Over centuries, Jews and Christians have reflected on and developed the implications of Genesis’ account of man’s origins. In Psalm 8, for instance, the Psalmist expresses wonder at the exalted status that God has given man:

“What is man, Lord, that though art mindful of him? and the son of Man that though visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels and have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, and you have put all things under his feet.”

The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation—that God took on human nature and became man—deepens the profound mystery of the imago Dei (image of God). The Apostle Paul makes clear some of the social implications when he proclaims that, in Christ, “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free” (Col. 3:11). God became man, and so in some sense all men are equal before God.

Another Creation Story

Overfamiliarity with the story can obscure Genesis’ remarkable message about the dignity of man. Contrasting Genesis’ account with other creation stories of the ancient world can help us see what makes the Judeo-Christian story so extraordinary.

In the Babylonian creation myth, for instance, the god Marduk fights an epic battle against his great-great grandmother, Tiamat, the dragon goddess of the oceans. After killing her, Marduk rips apart her body and uses it to create the heavens and the earth. He then enslaves Tiamat’s vanquished followers, lesser gods who complain and refuse to work. Marduk then kills their leader and has his father, the river god Ea, create humans from blood and spit. Humans are then given the jobs that the lesser gods won’t do.

Contrasting this story with Genesis is a fascinating exercise in comparative literature. For instance, Genesis locates the primeval creative act in God’s orderly speech, whereas the Babylonians find it in war and the spoils of battle. More relevant to this essay’s topic, God puts man at the pinnacle of creation, giving him authority over it. Man’s work (“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it”) is first a gift from God. Only after the Fall does it suggest drudgery.

The original image of man and woman that Genesis gives us is royal. God appoints them as rulers over his creation. Whatever separation from God man incurs later through the fall—and whatever consequences come from that sin—the story makes clear that God prizes men and women above everything else he has made. In the Babylonian story, by contrast, men are placed at the bottom of the created order. Babylonian man is a slave of slaves, created from murder and destined for bondage.

The Babylonian view of man, as expressed in its creation myth, is not necessarily the default for non-Christian cultures and worldviews. Echoes of its brutality and its view of power, however, are discernible in the totalitarian movements and materialist philosophies of the 20th and 21st centuries, which have tended to treat men as cogs in a machine, disposable parts of a mass movement, or mere manifestations of class interest. The Judeo-Christian view—that God orders the world in reason and love, that every person has dignity and worth—is exceptional in history, not the rule. As evidenced in efforts to abolish slavery and other social reform movements, the biblical and Christian vision of the person stands as a witness against any Christian culture (or Christian-influenced culture) that fails to live up to the high standard this vision sets for what is owed any man or woman who bears the image of God.

Conclusion

Modern notions of human rights and equality before the law are just a few of the fruits of the Genesis account of creation. The bold claim that man was made in God’s image—combined with the later, even bolder claim that God became man—has had profound social consequences. Like a seed that has in time sprouted and grown into a flourishing tree, these ideas have developed and manifested themselves in incalculable ways wherever Christianity has spread. In efforts to solve social problems, including the fight against poverty, it is imperative that Christians not only feel as Christians are supposed to do, looking at the poor with empathy and compassion, but also think like Christians. As C.S. Lewis wrote in “The Weight of Glory”:

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

The image of God in our fellow man creates an imperative to help people in need. It should also inform how we help. Bearing the image of God implies that every human person possesses dignity, creative capacity, and an eternal destiny; each person made in God’s image is the protagonist of his or her own story of development. What can be done to help such a person without suppressing his dignity? What can be done to empower his creative capacity and affirm his autonomy in accord with the high standard set by the Christian vision of the human person? These are challenging questions. But every Christian concerned for the poor must grapple with them.

Helping others—”immortal horrors or everlasting splendors” all—must begin here: “God created man in his own image.”