CHRISTIANITY
Islam
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Judaism
How is the relationship between God and humanity understood
in the religion?
by Kendra Hotz
Two
theological themes held in balance characterize the relationship
between God and humanity. The first is the idea that creation is
formed out of nothing; God did not draw on some pre-existent matter
when God made everything that exists. In sovereign power, God called
forth creatures from nothingness. Creatures exist, therefore, sheerly
by the gracious will of God. This means that God’s existence
is fundamentally different from creaturely existence. God is essentially
unknowable to humanity because God’s nature is beyond our
capacity to grasp.
The
second theological theme is that of revelation; in spite of God’s
essential unknowability, God makes certain divine truths accessible
to humanity. God is revealed
to humanity through nature, the grandeur of which points to its
creator, and through God’s mighty acts in history, which are
recorded in scripture. But God is revealed especially through the
Incarnation, through Jesus Christ. Human beings,
then, are related to God as creator and redeemer, but also as the
unknowable one who is made known in Christ.
In
the first place, then, the relationship between God and humanity
is understood as the relationship between creator and creature.
The first chapter of Genesis, the first book of the Christian canon,
offers an account of the creation of human beings. It explains that
God created humanity by speaking. God said “Let us make humankind
in our image, according to our likeness” (1:26), and God gave
them “dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds
of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth”
(1:28).
This
narrative sounds two important themes about what it means to be
human in relation to God. Human beings are, first and foremost,
creatures of God, called forth out of nothing at a word from God.
Human beings depend utterly upon God for having come into being,
and continue to rely on God to be sustained in existence. But, human
beings occupy a peculiar place in the created order. They are made
in the image of God and given a special role, that of dominion,
with respect to other creatures.
Human
beings are not God, are not of ultimate significance, but they are
exalted creatures, worthy of being called the image of God, and
entrusted with the care of other living things. Psalm 8 expresses
it this way: “when I look at your heavens, the work of your
fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what
are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you
care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and
crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion
over the works of you hands” (8:3-6a).
In
the second place, the relationship between God and humanity is understood
as the relationship between redeemer and redeemed.
Genesis goes on to explain that, in spite of their exalted place
in creation, human beings reject the limited place God provides
for them and sinfully seek to usurp the role of God. The condition
of sin means that the image of God has become distorted in humanity
and that human beings can no longer relate to God and one another
as God intends. In sin, humanity turns its dominion over other creatures
into domination. In Christ, therefore, God enters the human condition,
restoring the image of God and redeeming humanity from its sinful
condition.
Copyright
©2006 Kendra Hotz
Kendra
G. Hotz serves as Adjunct Professor of Theology at Memphis
Theological Seminary. She formerly taught at Calvin College. Hotz
is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and coauthor
(with Matthew T. Mathews) of Shaping
the Christian Life: Worship and the Religious Affections
(2006) and coauthor of Transforming
Care: A Christian Vision of Nursing Practice (2005).
Excerpts
from What Do Our Neighbors Believe?: Questions and Answers on
Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Howard Greenstein, Kendra
Hotz, and John Kaltner are used by permission from Westminster John
Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky. The book will be available for
purchase in December 2006.
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