I read a book recently that, in my opinion, rated high on the scale of ‘in’ things … insightful, informative, and interesting. It was entitled Sapiens. (Yuval Noah Harari; McClelland & Stewart, Canada, Signal Paperback Edition published 2016, ISBN 978-0-7710-3851-8) As the title implies, it was a thorough and objective study of the human species from when we ‘became’, the three ‘revolutions’ we have passed through on our way to becoming what we are … the Cognitive, (beginning approximately 70,000 years ago), the Agricultural (12,000 yrs. ago) and the Scientific (500 yrs. Ago), and then some cautious projections about where we might be headed.
As one might expect, the author comments upon our intellectual advantage over other animals, on our propensity to violence, and on other such characteristics that we commonly associate with ‘homo Sapiens’. To his credit he acknowledges our apparent interest in ‘spiritual’ things, but he cites a lack of evidence for his inability to elaborate on that aspect of us. As he explains:
Instead of erecting mountains of theory over a molehill of tomb relics, cave paintings and bone statuettes, it is better to be frank and admit that we have only the haziest notions about the religions of the ancient foragers … It’s one of the biggest holes in our understanding of human history. (p. 55)
I was a bit disappointed in him for that dismissal. If stone tools can be heralded as antedating the agricultural revolution, then surely tomb relics, cave paintings and bone statuettes are not to be written off as mere molehills just because they indicate religious awakenings among primitive people. But most of all, the author’s failure to pursue that line of thinking means he did not address the other thing that, along with our intelligence, may be one of the most defining features of homo sapiens. I refer to what Is known as the ‘Imago Dei’, the Image of God.
So God created human kind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. (Genesis 1: 27)
So what, exactly, is this ‘Imago Dei’?
Well admittedly, it is difficult to define ‘exactly’ because it does not appear to be a function of one of our bodily organs. Nor am I aware of it figuring in our DNA. Yet it is not difficulty to observe. The term refers to a noticeable ‘religious instinct’ that has been characteristic of homo sapiens apparently since time immemorial. It is evidenced by the ritualistic burial practises and the crude religious artifacts that anthropologists identify as common features in primitive societies, by more advanced indications like the elaborate pyramidal tombs of Egypt and the abhorrent fertility religion/agricultural science of the biblical Canaanites, and by the theologically sophisticated religions of today’s world.
The ‘Imago Dei’ phenomenon is what makes us unique among the living creatures on this planet. It is a capacity that enables us to experience the wonder of life on a higher plane. For instance:
Though creatures at all levels of the animal kingdom eat, we humans dine. Though animals copulate, we make love. Though animals communicate with grunts and squeaks and gestures, we speak in complex languages consisting of tens of thousands of words. Though animals hear sounds, we enjoy music in a wide variety of instrumental and vocal styles ranging from rhythmic drums to orchestral compositions, from solo voices to choirs, from earthy blues and country and western songs to folk music, from rockabilly all the way to operatic arias. Whereas animals can see their surroundings and have an uncanny ability to spot their prey, we are moved by the grandeur of a mountaintop vista, and we delight in the splendour of a sunset. We recreate pictures of landscapes and seascapes on canvas with the subtle tones of oils or watercolors, or we capture Kodak moments on film or in digital formats. Though animals use scents to mark territory, we write books, cook with recipes, enshrine law codes, record our financial transactions and even split atoms. In so many critical ways we possess the awesome ability to play God. And yes, to be sure, we have the ability to detect a ‘God-shaped blip’ on our personal radar screens, and to ponder the nature of it.
Theologians tend to rely upon a couple of metaphors to speak of the Imago Dei.
St. Augustine of Hippo spoke of it as an inner longing, a loneliness, a tenacious yearning. The quote for which he is probably most famous is, “Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you”. More colloquially, he is describing the Imago Dei as a persistent itch that demands our attention but that we can neither ignore nor reach to scratch.
I resemble that last remark! Indeed, I believe that every person who has ever wrestled with a divine ‘calling’ to a religious vocation has felt that annoying itch’s tenacity, as has everyone who has tried hard not to listen to the voice of a conscience.
There are other theologians who describe the Imago Dei as a large God-shaped hole at the very core of our being. It’s difficult to become much more colloquial than that, but I’ll try. What they have in mind, I think, is a jig-saw picture puzzle that is glaringly incomplete for lack of one, final, unique piece without which the entire picture is rendered unfinished and unsatisfying.
But with whatever metaphor one chooses to speak of the Imago Dei, two things must be said about it. First, that it is a precious gift of God, for by it our human nature is ennobled. And second, that it is not just a passive but interesting feature. It is an active one. With it we are not just Sapiens. We are Humans.
So that, as exactly as I can define it, is what the Imago Dei is.
But more compelling for me is where I see it. That capacity to know and to love God has manifested itself for me a few times over the years, most notably at the bedside of a dying person of faith. My mother was a case in point. Death did not happen to her. It did not seize her and drag her kicking and screaming to her grave. Dying was something she did willingly. As she said to me, “Eighty-five years is long enough”! For her it was, at long last, the fulfillment of a yearning to hold in her arms once again my four-year-old brother who died in her arms in 1949. She met her death, “in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ” (BCP burial office). And though her lips did not move, in her last conscious moments I am sure she was singing the words of an old, favorite hymn.
O love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul on thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
Dale