On the image of God (I)

Nicholas Wolterstorff wants us to be cautious about what we think it means.

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Summary

Nicholas Wolterstorff wants us to be cautious about what we think it means.

Transcript

So when it comes to the image of God, we’ve got to speak a bit cautiously. If it’s true that the problem with capacity accounts of human rights is that those who are in Alzheimer’s, permanent coma, don’t have the requisite capacities, then you can’t suddenly give a capacities account of image of God, or it’s going to fall prey to the same difficulty.

A lot of accounts of image of God are in fact, when you look at them with this question in mind, are capacity accounts. So image of God has to be understood in some such way that it’s just by virtue of the nature we have that we resemble or image God. So you have to understand image in the requisite way or you’re still not going to get an account of natural human rights.