Public Forum with Joshua Moritz on "Chosen from Among the Animals: The End of Human Uniqueness and the Election of the Image of God"
Graduate Theological Union Library, Dinner Board Room
What does it mean for human beings to be created in the ‘image and likeness of God’? In both popular opinion and the minds of many scientists and academics, the idea of human uniqueness and human superiority has been linked to the Christian doctrine of the imago Dei. Among Christian philosophers and theologians the connection between the unique nature of humans and the divine likeness has similarly been assumed and even systematically argued for. Pursuing what is called the comparative approach to theological anthropology these philosophers and theologians have asked, in what ways is human nature different from the nature of animals and, therefore, like the nature of God? In contrast to these scholars, Moritz questions any concept of the image of God that equates the imago Dei with some characteristic or capacity which presumably makes humans unique—in a non-trivial way—from other animals. He concludes that the image of God is—exegetically and theologically—best understood in light of the Hebrew theological framework of historical election. Viewing the imago Dei as election incorporates the findings of contemporary biblical studies and takes seriously scientific understandings of both evolutionary continuity and the psychosomatic unity of the human person.