I ask because He made us in his own image...
2007-11-06 16:02:19 · 9 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Well you are confusing the phrase “he made us in his own image” as being akin to pantheism. This is not what the phrase means. In a pantheistic belief system, such as Hinduism, God and the universe are inseparable entities. God is not a distinct creature standing out of time and space; he is, according to the pantheistic worldview, synonymous with time and space. You are part of God, the chair you are sitting on is a part of God, and air you breath is part of God.
In a pantheistic worldview, one cannot technically sin against God, because any action you think of, or any action that you perform is part of the broader framework of the universe and therefore cannot be against God. Hence, good and evil, as we define it, in a pantheistic outlook are both part of God. As a result you can never fall from God, or be separated from him. As many Christians have rightly noted, pantheistic belief systems, such as Hinduism, due to making God the equivalent of everything, has rendered talk of morality in reference to a transcendental standard meaningless.
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, do not construe God in this fashion. They see God as a super intelligence, that exists outside of space and time, but who occasional intervenes in it, through the prophets, Jesus, inspiring written works, answering prayers and working miracles. This formulation of the God means that he can condemn you to hell, and yet not consign a part of himself to eternal suffering. God, according to the theistic definition, and not the pantheistic definition, sees God the same way that one would see a relationship between an inventor and an invention. An inventor creates something, and though he fashions that invention after what is important to him (i.e. after his own image so to speak), sometimes that invention doesn’t function the way it supposed to (i.e. sins). As a result, the inventor can destroy or discard his invention (i.e. condemned to hell).
This theistic understanding of God in relation to his creations also has a fundamental flaw, in that if God is the first cause of everything, then he is also the cause of our predilection towards immorality and sin. Let me use the inventor/invention analogy to demonstrate the fallacy. If an inventor creates something, and that invention fails to perform up to the inventor’s standards, then obviously the invention had defects engineered into it by the inventor, whether intentionally or unintentionally, which caused the invention to perform below par. The same holds true for humanity.
The free will argument, which in someway seeks to absolve God of his responsibility for evil, isn’t very convincing when scrutinized. If God is the first cause of all existence, then he obviously is culpable for why our “free wills” are so easily susceptible to failure and temptation. Here again the design and cosmological arguments that attribute our existence to God, have fundamentally undermined God in terms of his moral legitimacy, and has also called into question how just the whole doctrine of sin really is.
2007-11-07 03:21:18 · answer #1 · answered by Lawrence Louis 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Is a mirror image of myself actually me?
No.
And please check your Bible.
God made Adam in His own image.
Adam's son Seth was made in Adam's image, which had fallen into sin by the time Seth was born.
So, don't worry, you are not made in God's image.
2007-11-07 00:10:36 · answer #2 · answered by Bobby Jim 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In his own image.........means we are spirit beings
just as God is a spirit.
The Almighty God does not have a material body like we do.
2007-11-07 00:08:03 · answer #3 · answered by repent 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Image as in "a mirror". It produces an image but if I toss it into the fire, it does not mean I am tossing part of myself into the fire.
2007-11-07 00:10:59 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
People send themselves to hell. God has provided the way to avoid it.
2007-11-07 00:06:05 · answer #5 · answered by Sweet Suzy 777! 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
We send ourselves to Hell. He gives us the way to Heaven. We just have to take it.
2007-11-07 00:09:22 · answer #6 · answered by paula r 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If thy left eye offend thee,pluck it out.We were created by God.We are not physically part of him.
2007-11-07 00:21:59 · answer #7 · answered by Impact 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
What happens when we separate ourselves from God!
2007-11-07 00:10:16 · answer #8 · answered by God is love. 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
actually that is the whole point of reincarnation.....
you are in "hell" until you self actualize and become one with the Maker..... That would be heaven.........
2007-11-07 00:13:10 · answer #9 · answered by tammy p 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋