WEEK 2 YOUR TRUE IMAGE

Objectives:

a. Describe what their true image is.

b. State the reason why they are aesthetic, moral and relational.

In the Image of God

A lot of people do not have the right concept about themselves, that’s
why people copy others, those whom they idolized or admire their
tendency is to imitate them.

As we have learned in the previous lesson that in order to have the right
mindset or right perspective about ourselves we need to go back to our
creator. Go back to the Manual of Life. Manual means manufacturer’s
mind. So in the Manual of Life we can read how we were created. And it
was explain that we were created in God’s image, created like the
nature of our creator.

And to continue with that I want to consider implications of what the

Manual of Life says about the origins of mankind. Using the Manual of
Life to understand our beginnings is considered the height of folly in
many modern circles. However, at the very least, an open-minded
recognition of the bankruptcy of ‘scientific’ evolutionary theories
shown here, and the recently confirmed genetic fact of interbreeding
between homo sapiens and neanderthals – predicted from the Manual of
life narrative – should allow anyone, believer and unbeliever alike, to
have the freedom to consider what the Manual of Life says about our
beginnings, and to think about what it means.

So, in this spirit of considering, I want to chart an understanding of what

the Manual of Life teaches about us by looking at a passage from the
creation account.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…” So
God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27)
 Your True Image

“Every human being is created in God’s

Image.“
Now what does it mean that mankind was created ‘in the image of
God’? It does not mean that God is a physical being with two arms, a
head, etc. Rather at a deeper level it is saying that basic characteristics
of people are derived from similar characteristics of God, the nature of
God. So for example, both God (in the Manual of Life) and people (from
observation) have intellect, emotions and will. In the Manual of Life God
is sometimes portrayed as sad, hurt, angry or joyful – the same range of
emotions that we humans experience. We make choices and decisions
on a daily basis. God similarly in the Manual of Life is described as
making choices and coming to decisions. Our ability to reason and think
abstractly comes from God. We have the capacities of intellect, emotion
and will because God has them and we are made in his image.

At a more fundamental level when we consider these aspects of

ourselves we see that we are sentient beings, self-aware and conscious
of ‘I’ and ‘you’. We are not impersonal ‘its’. We are like this because
God is this way. In this fundamental perspective, the God of the Manual
of Life is not portrayed as a pantheistic impersonality as understood in
Eastern religions, or like the ‘Force’ in Star Wars. And because we are
made in His image, neither are we.

The image of God is displayed in the way we reason out or think

that’s intellect, with what we feel, that’s our emotion, and our ability to
make choices, that’s our will. It’s natural for us to reason out when we
think we are right, it’s natural for us feel sad or happy, to love and it’s
natural for us to choose what we want. We were not created to be like
Robot because we were given the will. We have the power to choose.

Why we are Aesthetic?

Aesthetic is a set of principles concerned with the nature and

appreciation of beauty, especially in art.
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the
nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art. It examines
aesthetic values, often expressed through judgments of taste. Aesthetics
covers both natural and artificial sources of aesthetic experience and
judgment. (Wikipedia)

We also appreciate art and drama. Consider how we so naturally

appreciate and even need beauty. This goes beyond just visual beauty
to include music and literature. Think about how important music is to us
– even how natural it is for us to dance. Music so enriches our lives.
We love good stories, whether in novels or plays, or more commonly
today, in movies. Stories have heroes, villains, drama, and the great
stories sear these heroes, villains and drama into our imaginations. It is
so natural for us to use and appreciate art in its many forms to entertain,
reinvigorate and rejuvenate ourselves because God is an Artist and we
are created in his image. It is a question worth asking. Why are we so
innately aesthetic, whether in art, drama, music, dance, or literature?
Daniel Dennett, an outspoken atheist and an authority on understanding
cognitive processes, answers from a materialistic perspective:

“But most of this research still takes music for granted. It seldom asks:
Why does music exist? There is a short answer, and it is true, so far as
it goes: it exists because we love it and hence we keep bringing more of
it into existence. But why do we love it? Because we find that it is
beautiful. But why is it beautiful to us? Because that is our nature and it
is inherent in us.

Why indeed if everything about us as humans must be explained based

solely on survival fitness and differential reproductive rates is art, in all its
forms, so important to us? Dennett, probably the world’s leading thinker
on this question from the materialistic evolutionary perspective, tells us
that we just do not know. From the Manual of Life perspective God is
artistic and aesthetic. He made things beautiful and enjoys beauty. We,
made in His image, are the same.

Why we are Moral?

In addition, being ‘made in God’s image’ explains the innate moral.

Because we are made in God’s image and morality is intrinsic to His
nature, like a compass aligned to magnetic North, our alignment to ‘fair’,
‘good’, ‘right’ is because this is the way He is. Everyone is made in this
way .Not recognizing this can give rise to misunderstandings. Take for
example this challenge from Sam Harris.

“If you are right to believe that religious faith offers the only real basis for
morality, then atheists should be less moral than believers.”

Harris is dead wrong here. If we base from the Manual of Life, our
sense of morality comes from being made in God’s image, not from
being religious. And that is why atheists, like all the rest of us, have this
moral sense and can act morally. The difficulty with atheism is
to account for this objective basis of our morality – but all of us have it
hard-wired into us (as Dawkins says) because we are in His image.
Dawkins’ speculations about the cause of our innate morality from a
materialistic perspective are less than compelling. Being made in God’s
moral image is a far simpler and straightforward explanation.

Why are we so Relational?

The starting point to understanding ourselves is to recognize that we are

made in God’s image. Because of this, as we gain insight into either
God (through what is revealed about him in the Manual of Life) or people
(through observation and reflection) we can also gain insight into the
other. So, for example, it is not hard to notice the prominence we place
on relationships. It is OK to see a good movie, but it is a much better
experience to see it with a friend. We naturally seek out friends to share
experiences with. Meaningful friendships and family relationships are
key to our sense of well-being. That is our nature. Conversely, loneliness
and/or fractured family relationships and breakdowns in friendships
stress us. We are not neutral and unmoved by the state of relationships
we have with others. Now, if we are in God’s image, then we would
expect to find this same relational tilt with God, and in fact we do. The
Manual of Life says that “God is Love…” (1 John 4:8). Much is written in
the Manual of Life about the importance that God places on our love for
him and for others – they are in fact called by Jesus the two most
important commands in the Manual of Life. When you think about it,
Love must be relational since to function it requires a person who loves
(the lover) and a person who is the object of this love – the beloved.

So here is the foundation we have laid so far. People are made in

God’s image comprised of mind, emotions and will. We are sentient and
self-aware. We are moral beings with our ‘Moral grammar’ giving us an
innate orientation of ‘right’ and ‘fair’, and what is not. We have instinctive
capacity to develop and appreciate beauty, drama, art and story in all its
forms. And we will innately and naturally seek out and develop
relationships and friendships with others. We are all this because God is
all this and we are made in God’s image. All these deductions are at
least consistent with what we observe about ourselves as we laid this
foundation. (Source: Google- by Ragnar 27/08/2012)

If you have a right concept about yourself that you were created in God’s
image then you will be able to do things more than you can imagine.
That will lead to our next topic.

Questions to ponder:

a. Can you describe what your true image is according to our lesson?

b. State the reasons why you are aesthetic, moral and relational?

c. Do you have now a clear concept about yourself? Can you explain
now what your concept about yourself is?