Created in His Image: The Soul’s Longing for God

Fr. Scott Haynes

What does it mean that man is made in the image of God?

Every human being eventually encounters the same mysterious experience: nothing in this world completely satisfies the heart. Even in moments of joy, something within us still longs for more. We hunger for a love that cannot die, for truth without error, for beauty untouched by time. The Christian tradition teaches that this longing is not an accident. It is the echo of eternity within the soul, for man was created in the image and likeness of God.

The opening chapter of Genesis says:

“And God said: Let us make man to our image and likeness… And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him.” (Genesis 1:26–27)

From the earliest centuries, the Fathers of the Church asked what this “image” means. Surely it cannot refer merely to bodily form, because God is pure spirit. The image of God must therefore be something spiritual within man.

Saint John Damascene writes:

“The expression ‘according to the image’ indicates the intellectual and free nature of man, while ‘according to the likeness’ means likeness in virtue so far as that is possible.”¹

This distinction became enormously important in Christian theology. The image refers to what man is by creation; the likeness refers to what man becomes through grace.

Thus even fallen man still bears the image of God. A sinner, a saint, a king, a beggar, an unborn child, and an elderly man approaching death all possess intellect and free will. Yet the likeness can grow dim through sin or radiant through holiness.

Saint Irenaeus expresses this beautifully:

“Man received the image of God in his creation, but the likeness through the Spirit.”²

The image of God is not merely intelligence in a cold or abstract sense. It is the soul’s spiritual capacity for God Himself. Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that the image of God exists in man chiefly because man can know and love God:

“Since man is said to be the image of God by reason of his intellectual nature, he is the most perfectly like God according as he can best imitate God in his intellectual nature.”³

Aquinas then says something even more profound:

“The image of God is found in man according as man is capable of God, and can attain Him by his own operation of knowledge and love.”⁴

This is one of the most beautiful ideas in all Christian theology. The soul was not merely created to exist forever. It was created for communion.

The intellect stretches toward truth because it was made for Infinite Truth. The will reaches toward goodness because it was made for Infinite Goodness. The human heart aches because it was created for a Love without limit.

Saint Augustine captured this mystery in one of the most beloved lines in Christian history:

“Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.”⁵

Why is the heart restless? Because finite things cannot satisfy a being created for the Infinite. Every earthly joy contains a strange incompleteness. Even the happiest moments seem touched by a hidden longing, as though the soul remembers a homeland it has never fully seen.

The Fathers often describe man as standing between two worlds. Through the body, man belongs to the material creation. Through the soul, he belongs to the spiritual order. Saint Gregory of Nyssa marvels at this mystery:

“Man is a creature ordered to become God.”⁶

He does not mean that man becomes divine by nature. Rather, man is called to participation in the divine life. The Eastern Fathers often speak of this as theosis or deification.

Saint Athanasius famously writes:

“For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”⁷

Again, not by nature, but by grace and participation.

This helps explain why the soul is unlike anything material. Bodies occupy space. They can be measured, divided, weighed, and seen. But the soul is spiritual. It has no color, shape, or dimension. It does not occupy space the way matter does. Yet it is more enduring than the body because it is the principle of life itself.

Saint Thomas Aquinas explains:

“The intellectual principle which we call the mind or the intellect has an operation per se apart from the body.”⁸

Because the intellect can grasp universal truths such as justice, goodness, beauty, eternity, and God Himself, it cannot be merely material. Matter is always particular and limited. But the human intellect transcends particular things and reaches toward universal truth. This reveals the soul’s spiritual nature.

For this reason, the Church teaches that the soul is immortal. Bodies die because material things decay and decompose. But the soul does not decompose because it is not composed of material parts.

And yet Christianity never despises the body. Man is not a soul trapped inside flesh. The body also shares in human dignity because it is united to a rational soul and destined for resurrection. The Incarnation forever sanctified human nature. The Son of God did not merely appear human. He became man truly and completely.

Now we come to an especially subtle point. Is the image of God identical with love itself, or with the activity of loving?

The tradition generally distinguishes between the image itself and the soul’s exercise of that image.

The image is the capacity for God.

The activity is the movement toward God.

A candle possesses the capacity to burn even before it is lit.

Likewise, the soul possesses intellect and will even when turned away from God through sin. Sin wounds the soul’s orientation, but it does not erase the image entirely.

Saint Augustine explains that the image of God is reflected especially in the powers of memory, understanding, and will.⁹ These remain even in sinners, though often disordered and darkened.

But when grace heals and elevates the soul, these powers begin to function rightly. The intellect knows God more clearly. The will loves Him more faithfully. The memory becomes filled with divine things. The likeness to God increases.

Saint Basil compares the soul to an icon darkened by smoke:

“If you restore the image to its ancient beauty through careful living, you will draw near to God.”¹⁰

The image remains, but it must be purified and illuminated.

This is why holiness is not the destruction of human personality but its fulfillment. Grace does not annihilate nature; it perfects it. Sin fragments the soul, while grace restores harmony and order.

All of this ultimately leads to Christ.

Saint Paul calls Christ:

“the image of the invisible God.” (Colossians 1:15)

The Fathers loved this verse because it reveals something astonishing. We are images by participation; Christ is the Image by nature.

The eternal Son is the perfect Image of the Father. Therefore man becomes most truly himself not merely by becoming “spiritual” in a vague sense, but by becoming conformed to Jesus Christ.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria writes:

“Christ forms us anew according to God’s image.”¹¹

This is the meaning of sanctification. Christ restores the damaged icon within the soul.

And heaven is the completion of this restoration.

Saint John writes:

“We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)

The soul was created for the Beatific Vision: direct knowledge and love of God forever.

Thus the image of God cannot be separated entirely from love because the soul itself was created for communion. The soul is structured for God the way the eye is structured for light.

The image is the capacity.

Love is the movement.

Union with God is the fulfillment.

The entire spiritual life is the gradual polishing of the divine image within the soul until it shines with the likeness of Christ Himself.

Footnotes

¹ Saint John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, II.12.

² Saint Irenaeus, Against Heresies, V.6.1.

³ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 93, a. 4.

⁴ Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 93, a. 4.

⁵ Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, I.1.

⁶ Gregory of Nyssa, On the Beatitudes.

⁷ Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation, 54.

⁸ Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 75, a. 2.

⁹ Augustine, De Trinitate, X.11–12.

¹⁰ Basil the Great, Homily on Psalm 32.

¹¹ Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John.