What It Means To Be Made In The Image Of God By John Calvin

Improved Essays
The image of God has been a highly debated topic throughout the history of the church. Several theologians debate what it means to be made in the image of God while others debate if the image was destroyed at the fall. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” This verse and other verses pertaining to this topic have been studied by theologians throughout centuries. One theologian who discussed this issue is John Calvin. Calvin believed that to be made in the image of God meant we can reflect Him and His attributes. In his Commentary on Colossians he states, “We learn…we may be made like God, and that his glory may shine forth in us; and… so that man reflects,

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Introduction Five-Point Calvinism has earned great attention amongst theologically minded individuals. The text under review, Whosoever Will: A Biblical-Theological Critique of Five-Point Calvinism is a collection of essays resulting from the Southern Baptist Convention conducted in November 2008. As Pastor Mac Brunson explains, “Here are the clarion voices that are crystalline clear about one of the most important issues of our day. This scholarly work with pastoral practicality gives great guidance through a thorny issue”. This review will summarize the text’s content and survey its major strengths and weaknesses, providing researchers information by which the work can be evaluated.…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Calvinism, named for John Calvin and also called the Reformed christainty, is a theological system and an approach to the Christian life that emphasizes the God's sovereignty or control over all things. ( Calvinism believed that 3 three tests could determine your salvation: open profession of faith, a decent and godly life, and participation in the sacraments…

    • 57 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    John Calvin's Theodicy

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Calvin stated this in his own words by saying, “It were cold and lifeless to represent God as a momentary Creator, who completed his work once for all, and then left it”(pg. 126). Calvin believed God was in the…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Calvin's Reformation Dbq

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Next, “justification by faith alone" is surely the most important contribution of the Reformation. The second most important, arguably, is the "doctrine of vocation. " In the same way, Calvin’s reformation of the Roman Catholic Church was not limited to soteriology, but extended to an entire world and life view, including vocation. The dogma of dualism that was once held by Gnostic heretics was not fully extinguished in the early days of the church; its influences can still be seen in the medieval Catholic doctrine of vocation. For the Roman Catholic Church, the word vocation was to be exclusively used to indicate the work of a church officer such as a priest or nun; so central was this idea of Holy Orders that it was elevated to the status…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Calvinism is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice of John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians. Calvinists broke with the Roman Catholic Church but differed with Lutherans on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, theories of worship, and the use of God's law for believers, among other things. Calvinism can be a misleading term because the religious tradition it denotes is and has always been diverse, with a wide range of influences rather than a single founder. The movement was first called Calvinism by Lutherans who opposed it, and many within the tradition would prefer to use the word Reformed. Since the Arminian controversy, the Reformed tradition — as a branch of Protestantism distinguished from Lutheranism — divided into separate groups, Arminians and Calvinists.…

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Metanarrative Summary Act 1 God and Creation: God created us in his image to spread the love and message of Jesus Christ, this topic relates to christian worldview because we have grown up knowing that we were created by God loved by God and chosen by God to be his hands and feet in a dying world. God created Adam in eve in the Garden of Eden as Act 2 sin enters the world: Sin enters the world when Adam and Eve disobey God by listening to Satan in the form of a snake and eat from the tree of good and evil. This relates to christian worldview because ass christians we tend to want to know why and are curious to the unknown and because of this curiosity we may sin even though God has commanded us not to because he knows it 's for…

    • 2192 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life by John Calvin, there are five ways of giving glory to God, which simplifies down to the Five Solas: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus, and Soli Deo Gloria. Glory, in this case, is defined as high renown or honor won by notable achievements; those general achievements, which happen to also be summarizations of the Reformations’ theological convictions, are through the individual Solas. Out of the Five Solas that emerged, Sola Scriptura, where the Bible contains the highest authority, is the most relevant in today’s culture for it is the foundation of Christianity, it contains life-changing messages, and it is a way of knowing God and His powers of influence. The Bible…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    But what seems to irritate him is how the church perceives God. He says, “My own mind is my church…it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself.” The church follows the rules of a book. A book that was somehow sent to man…

    • 758 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    John Calvin: Theological Determinist John Calvin belived in theological determinism, that all events that happen are pre-ordained, or predestined to happen by a monotheistic deity; specifically God. There are two types of theological determinism. The first is based on the concept that God dictates all events in human history. It is centered around the notion that we do not have the choice to accept God's gift of salvation, but rather God has choosen those who would receive salvation.…

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Here’s another quote from the same man in which he articulated his idea of what God is — and is not: He is not “the Big Guy upstairs,” nor the loud booming…

    • 1056 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The reason I “agree” with Feuerbach is because we have not seen God, therefore like he stated, we create our own image. One source that makes me support that statement is through the movie/book: Heaven is for real. This movie/book at the end gave an image of what God could really look like, all because of a kid that went to heaven and came back to Earth and shared his visions. After watching this movie, I realized that we are used to the stereotypical image of God; which is an individual with brown beard and long brown hair. The reason that this occurs, is due to the reason that we have not seen God, therefore, we go along with other visual images that we see of him on the internet and picture frames.…

    • 368 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Calvin is the reformer that started Calvinism. Calvin was a man who was highly influenced by Luther but then ended up making his own modified version of Luther’s beliefs. The core beliefs of calvinism are predestination, Justification by faith alone and T.U.L.I.P.This paper will outline John Calvin’s thoughts on free will along with other’s thoughts on Calvin’s theory. John Calvin believes in predestination. Calvinism teaches that God alone decides who will be saved and humans have no way to get into heaven unless they are chosen.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In terms of maintaining order and conformity, Calvin specifies the crimes and faults that are to be avoided by authority figures and members of the congregation as a key feature of his ordinances. It is clear that Calvin holds high standards as to the way in which a Christian is to conduct his or herself both publicly and privately. Calvin associates certain wrong doings with different suiting punishments. Calvin identifies many offenses but the most striking include blasphemies, contradiction of the word, songs and dances. One type of punishment that Calvin uses in response to these sins involves paying a sum of money.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Portrait Of Jesus Essay

    • 1345 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The stories of Jesus are represented through the four New Testament Gospels: Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Each Gospel emphasizes on particular principles that represent Jesus differently. Jesus is seen as the suffering Messiah in all four Gospels, but each Evangelist puts in his own intake, hence expanding on the original Markan portrait of Jesus. The writers of the Gospels give their own theological assertions, and understandings, which in effect creates a new portrait of Jesus for each Gospel. The Gospel portraits vary and represent a different and evolving view of Jesus’, stories, and traditions over time.…

    • 1345 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Being made in the image of God is such an important concept that humans need to comprehend. Our full understanding and identity of who we are as human being relies on man being able to grasp and analyze this idea. According to Gerald Bay, being able to study and evaluate being made in the image of God will lead to understanding how the fall of Adam affected the image of God. 2. Philosophical Foundations or Presuppositions…

    • 1743 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays