ILLUMINATION, THE. See Enlightenment, the.

ILLUSTRATED BIBLES. See Bibles, Illustrated.

IMAGE OF GOD: The conception that man was created in the image of God is stated as a fact in Gen. i. 26, 27, v. 1 (cf. Eph. iv. 24; Col. iii. 10; I John iii. 2). It comes from God and is reproduced in the race (Gen. v. 3), a principle followed in the genealogy by which Jesus is made Son of God through Adam (Luke iii. 23-38). It is so unmistakable that Paul appealed even to ethnic testimony in favor of it (Acts xvii. 28). Obviously without this conception the thought of adoption as children would be impossible. It is the race made in the image of God which is destined for such adoption, and likeness to God is the blessing, the law, and the hope of adoption (I John iii. 1, 2). How much this thought of likeness to God is contained in that of adoption is suggested by the injunction to be holy and perfect, as God is holy and perfect, "that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. v. 45, 48; cf. Eph. v. 1, "be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children," R.V. "imitators of God"). To be like God is the gift, the task, and the purpose of the Christian (I John iii. 1-3). In the Church the conception was froth the beginning that the image of God consisted in the reason and freedom and free will with which man was endowed, and that this endowment rested on the activity of the Spirit in him. Some referred the image of God to the body also, in connection with the Christian hope of resurrection from the dead and with the doctrine of immortality. But these are unessential notions. The anima rationalis was the essential one, which was always emphasized. The differences in opinion which still exist arise from the mistake which makes the doctrine of the divine image of man the doctrine of the original state.

From the very beginning the view of the image of God in man has been that it was a good wholly or partially lost. Justin seems to be an exception. That man is endowed with reason and freedom, is to him a sign of likeness to God. But this endowment he regards neither as lost nor impaired by Adam's sin. Humanity indeed suffers under the predominance of the passions over reason. But this predominance is caused only indirectly by the sin of the first man and depends not on a degeneration of human nature brought about by him and continued in the race. By the influence of sin existing in the world since Adam's fall, every one repeats the fall, becomes like Adam in this respect, and falls into judgment and condemnation instead of receiving immortality in a God-like existence. Only the revelation of the whole Logos in Christ and the remission of sin connected herewith enable man successfully to apply to the realizing of his destiny his inherent ability, which does not differ from Adam's endowment.

A difference has been made between the expressions in Gen. i. "in the image" and "in the likeness," referring the former to the intellectual powers of reason and freedom, and the latter to moral righteousness, which was lost through the fall. This distinction was preserved by the;scholastics, with whom the question became one of justitia originalis. In the Roman Catholic Church the distinction was maintained, but the justitia originalis, "man's original righteousness," was declared to have been a superadded gift. The Protestant Church, ignoring this distinction, located the image of God in the religious and moral nature, and defined it as the original righteousness in which man was created. Socinianism and Arminianism defined it as man's dominion over the animal creation. Modern dogmatics distinguishes distinctly between the divine image in man and the original state, and Christianity favors such a distinction in harmony with Scripture and without contradiction to Col. iii. 10 and Eph. iv. 24. A difference of opinion, however, exists as to how far the present condition differs from that at the beginning, or how far the original state is still the present. The difference between Schleiermacher, Biedermann, Pfleiderer, Lipsius, Ritschl, on the one hand, and that of Nitzsch, Dorner, Kähler, Hofmann, Kahnis, Frank, on the other, is practically over the use of a historical anthropology. Some (Schleiermacher, Biedermann) refuse this, and require a dogmatic treatment (Ritschl, Wendt); others regard man's original condition as a state of innocence of which

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it can no more be said than that no law of sin ruled (Kaftan), whereas Nitzsch, Dorner, and Frank acknowledge "an essential relationship to the good and the rational, and consequently to God ... a natural tendency to the good, a natural love for God."

The preservation of man for redemption by the might of the divine will of love makes it conceivable that sinful man is still in the image of God, but in such a manner that he can accomplish his task and destiny only through the power of redemption. This affords him not only freedom of choice, but also the power to achieve liberty (cf. John i. 12). The teaching of II Cor. iv. 4; Col. i.15 (cf. Heb. i. 3) that Christ is "the image of the invisible God" means that there is in him what there is in none else, the evident realization of God (cf. John xvi. 9).

(H. Cremer†.)

Bibliography: The earlier literature in cited in Hauck-Herzog, RE, v. 113; E. W. Grinfield, The Image and Likeness of God in Man , London, 1837; G. Bull, State of Man before as Fall, in Works, vol. ii., Oxford, 1846; C. H. Zeller, Kurze Seelenlehre, Calw, 1850; F. C. W. K. Sell, Ueber die Gottbildlichkeit des Menschen, Friedberg, 1856; F. Delitzsch, System der biblischen Psychologie, Leipsic. 1861, Eng. transl., Edinburgh, 1867; P. F. Keerl, Der Mensch das Ebenbild Gottes, Basel, 1861; C. G. van Rudloff, Die Lehre vom Menschen auf dem Grunde der ... Offenbarung, Gotha, 1863; C. Wittichen, Die Idee des Menschen, Göttingen, 1868; O. Zöckler, Die Lehre vom Urstand des Menschen, Gütersloh, 1879; H. H. Wendt, Die christliche Lehre von der menschlichen Vollkommenheit, Göttingen, 1880; J. H. Oswald, Religiöse Urgeschichte der Menschheit, Paderbom, 1881; R. Rüetschi, Geschichte und Kritik der kirchlichen Lehre von der ... Vollkommenheit und vom Sündenfall, Leyden, 1881; E. Wörner, Biblische Anthropologie, Stuttgart, 1887; S. R. Driver, Sermons on Subjects connected with the O. T., pp. 173-174, London, 1892; J. Laidlaw, Bible Doctrine of Man, ib., 1895; DB, ii. 452-453; the treatises on Theology of the Old Testament, and those on Dogmatics in the sections on Creation and Anthropology.