I was watching the biographical movie Karol: A Man Who Became Pope for the 100th time recently. If you have not watched or heard of this movie, even if you are not Catholic, you should take some time to watch it. I promise that you will not be disappointed.
The movie is about Karol Wojtyla who eventually became Pope John Paul II.
In the movie there is a scene where Karol and his life-long friend Hanna have met at an abandoned castle in the country side; presumbly to speak in private away from the Nazi Police. Hanna is recounting the horror that she just witnessed of her Jewish friends being rounded up like cattle and hurded into train boxes. I can’t do the scene of them getting rounded up any justice here by describing it, suffice it to say that it is a real tear jerker.
At one point in the conversation that Karol and Hanna are having Hanna asks a very touch question. She says (I am going to paraphrase here) "… who are these human beings that have mothers, and sisters, and children? Who have husbands and wives they hug at night? Are these creatures made in God’s image?"
She is refering to the Nazis who just rounded up her friends of course. However she asks a very, very, important question. Are these evil people who do hanouse, almost unimaginable things, made in God’s image?
The answer is yes. However the answer is not complete. To understand why and what is going on here one has to turn to the book of Genesis 1:26-27, to start to find the answer.
Genesis 1:26:
And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:27:
And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.
God did indeed make man in His own image; however the story is not complete there.
God made paradise for man. As you read through the text you see this. God gave Adam everything. Not only that but He gave him dominion over it. Adam was top of the heap and had it better than any of us could imagine.
From the description givin in the Creation story one could easily imagine how good it was. Perfect 80 degree weather. Food was abundant and did not need to be tended to. Pure water springs. No disease. No ageing. It was as the book calls it, paradise.
We all know the next part of the story. Even most Athiest can synopsize it. Eve is tempted by the snake to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Life and Knowledge. She then temps Adam to eat from it.
And now it is here that we get to the real answer. God visits them in the garden and crys out for them; only for Adam & Eve to hide from God.
God says to Adam in Genesis 17-19:
Genesis 3:17:
And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. Genesis 3:18: Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. Genesis 3:19: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.
Wow! Go back and read that again if you need to and comprehend what God did there.
God took perfection away from Adam and from all of mankind unil the End!
It was at this moment that man who was once made in The Image of God was made a mortal, frail humanbeing. It was at that moment that man was transformed into the embodiment of God to a creature that was capable of great and unspeakble inhumanity.
You see it is not that in our present state we are the image of God. Our present state is the curse that God let down on Adam and all of mankind from that point forward.
Had Adam not sinned against God there would be no suffering. Suffering became the default state of man.