On being like God

The central part of the Christian view of the human person is human beings have been created in God’s image, so that in important respects human beings resemble God. Not, of course, in terms of being omnipotent or omniscient or … but human beings still are like God in important respects. And you can argue about what the important respects are, but certainly among them would be knowledge – knowledge of ourselves and of our world and of God himself. And maybe even more important than that, love.

God – from a Christian perspective, God is said to be love. God is love. I take that to mean not that God really just is this property ‘love’ but rather, the most important characteristic God has is that of love, God being loving. He loves his creatures, he loves himself and so on. So a Christian way of looking at human beings, then, would involve their having knowledge, but also their having this kind of love – their ability to relate to each other and to God by way of love.