In His Image

by Richard Dieterle

The Bible says that man is a self-portrait of the artist, shaped in "the image and likeness of God." This is an idea that many unreflective people take quite literally: over the centuries Westerners have portrayed their god with all the features of a middle aged man. Odd to relate, God, the creator of the whole universe, extant from the beginning of time, just happens to have a beard, a feature peculiar to orangutans and a few genera of monkeys. Why? And exactly what is God doing with his appendix, his bladder, his penis, and his asshole? I can't wait to take a functional anatomy class from a serious Creation Scientist, where all these questions will be answered by the exciting Special Creation Theory. In the meantime there lurks a sinister suspicion that the true inspiration for our shared image and likeness is the mirror. God must look like us or be ugly, and since he preceded us, it follows that he created us to look like him. As Xenophanes observed long ago in the time of Cyrus and Darius,

The Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black; the Thracians that theirs have light blue eyes and red hair. (fr. 171 K&R) But if cattle and horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the works that man can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves. (fr. 172 K&R)

Yet even we are sometimes caught admiring other creatures more than ourselves. Are we really better looking than butterflies or birds-of-paradise? We are attracted to color, yet humans of any race are rather bland compared to birds, or even the particolored faces of some species of monkeys. When have we ever been particularly taken with baldness? Yet there are few places on the human body where the sun couldn't shine. As far as pelts are concerned, we are a serious æsthetic disappointment. Nor do we have anything remotely like the elaborate and ornate horns sported by many varieties of antelope. Our most striking feature is our lack of striking features.

Xenophanes remarked furthermore that "mortals consider that the gods have bodies like their own" (fr. 170 K&R). Yet many features of our bodies are structured by their function. Because God does not eat, he could have neither teeth nor anus. We can all hope to be spared the argument that he has these features because they look good: just how attractive is an asshole, anyway? Does God need hair? Does he have to protect his head from the sun? Is it cold at night in heaven? On the other hand, does God lack sense organs that a mere snake possesses? He must have an infrared sensing "third eye," and a cheek like a shark's that senses electronic fields, otherwise he would be inferior to these animals and therefore imperfect. Surely he can see ultraviolet as well as any honeybee. This would mean that God is a being with all kinds of strange sense organs, but lacking all his teeth, his anus, penis, and hair. Based on looks alone, he would be a sight to behold.

But some devotees are bound to point out that the "image and likeness" theory is not meant in a literal corporeal sense: we are made spiritually like God. Sure, mankind has done many noble and beneficial things, and these should not be overlooked in any account of our nature; but this nature includes many of the basest impulses and vilest actions that can be conceived by a powerful intellect. And even the Good Book acknowledges man's inherently sinful nature. It is rather lame to ascribe this to the "knowledge of good and evil," as if what is good and noble in us comes from God, and everything base comes from knowledge. There is more to loss of innocence than enlightenment.

What is God like that we should think ourselves spiritually akin to him? God too has anger: he sulks and pouts, and "turns his back" upon his chosen people. He has a vicious streak that expressed itself in wholesale massacres of supposedly iniquitous peoples. He freely admits to the basest emotions, declaring almost proudly: "I am a jealous god." He demands a constant diet of praise; he is vain and egotistical. Here again we see a reflection, but distorted by a self-indulgent imagination. Here indeed, unfortunately, we have found in ourselves a good spiritual image and likeness of God - how could we not when God is a self-portrait of the artist?

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