The Collectivity is the Image

All the way back in the Bible is the notion (or at least the germ of the notion) of the true divine as "multi-personed".  I know my merest description of this idea might be unartful, but as any student of the content and history of Christianity can relate, the whole idea of the Persons of God has been the source both of ingenious, esoteric debate, and of appalling conflict.

An element of irony, then, must attend my attempt--as un-ironic as any I might make--to describe in this post what I think needs to be taken as a basic premise of the relationship of humanity to God.  I think it is both a true premise and a premise of simplicity, but also a premise that might engender ingenious, esoteric debate.

Here it is: The human race that is "in the image of God" is properly so described as a collectivity--a relational, multi-personed collectivity--and not as individuals.  As terms properly used, "God" is the multi-personed source of the image, and "Man" is the multi-personed bearer of that image.  The persons of God relate to each other and are understood by us as effective agents in their inestimable joint capacities; the persons of humanity relate to each other and are understood by ourselves as effective agents in our limited joint capacities.

The Bible describes God as making humankind "male and female" before it describes the creation of Adam.  "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:27, KJV).  Then the more particularized story of Adam and Eve has Adam created first.  As I have related in earlier posts, Adam is subsequently characterized by God as needing companionship (other, that is, than the companionship of God.)  It is--when compared to the prospect of eternal communion with God--rather a sad story.

And so the second part of the 1:27 verse is effectuated ("male and female created he them").  As with other parts of the Creation Story/Stories, fussing about over particular chronology is bound to be a frustrating endeavor.  It seems to come to this: Mankind is less than it ought to be, and mankind only reflects the image of God in aggregate.

God is an "existence" who "relates" (insofar as those terms can ever be thought to apply properly to the divine), and ultimately God is seen as existing or relating in the framework of the divine--in the interaction of multiple persons ("Let us make. . . .").  Indeed, the very idea of existence is relational; nothing can be said to exist other than in a context, and the evidence of existence by definition alters that context.

So it is with humanity.  The notion of the individually existing human being as "in the image of God" is--no matter how profuse the humility of the speaker--a gross impiety (if not offered as a provisional notion.)  The individually existing human being does not--within the grasp of human intellect--truly exist at all.  Such a being is an abstraction.  Paradoxically, the whole of humanity as being viewed properly as "in the image of God"--no matter how much we might want to call that collectivity an "abstraction"--is the only manifestation of humanity that we can honestly claim to observe and--to the extent of our abilities--to know.