The Imago Dei in Counseling Theory and Practice

Preamble:  This is a paper I wrote in 1999 for a course I took at ACTS at Trinity Western University in a Masters of Counseling program (Theology 648).  The notion of people having been made in the image of God as taking pre-eminence over the theology of total depravity was a turning point for me.  It has made a big difference in the way I view people and deal with them.

 Thesis Statement

The Imago Dei is central to a Christian theory of personality; because of it the Christian counselor is obligated to treat all clients with respect, and the mandate of the counselor is to guide her clients towards the restoration of their Imago Dei.

Index

1. On a Christian Humanism
2. What Do We Have in Common With God?
3. Man and Woman are Both in God’s Image
4. A Reason not to Kill
5. Jesus, the Perfect Imago Dei
6. The Importance of the Gospel to Counseling Clients
7. On Freedom of Choice
8. Sanctification
9. Human Relationships
10. Depravity
11. Hope in the Future
12. The Path to Healing

 

1  On a Christian Humanism

The Imago Dei, the image of God in the human being, is a mysterious concept.  The Bible tells us that God created us in His image (Genesis 1:26-28).  Yet apparently God is three persons in one, according to the doctrine of the Trinity.  He said, “Let us create man in our image.”  If we are indeed created in the image of God, then this must be of central importance t counseling theory and practice.  It would be integral to a theory of personality, and to the way we as counselors treat our clients.  According to J. I. Packer, “It is part of the glory of the gospel to be the one genuine humanism that the world has seen” (Knowing Man, p.11).

Packer sees humanism as (P. 11-12):

A quest for full realization of the possibilities of our humanity.  we see ourselves as less satisfied, less fulfilled less developed, less fully expressed, than we might be; we have not yet tasted all that could enrich us, nor yet made the most of relationships with others, nor yet enjoyed all that is there to be enjoyed, nor yet fully harnessed the powers of the physical world as instruments of our freedom; and we long to enter further into what we see as our human heritage.  In this sense we are all humanists; our natural self-love, which God implanted in us, makes us so.  You would have to say of anyone who had ceased to look for personal enrichment in any of these ways ( as alas, broken folk sometimes do) that he or she was hereby lapsing from one dimension of humanness, as if to contract out of the human race.

He thinks of non-Christian humanism as “brutism or animalism” (p. 13).  That is because they (p. 13):

tell us to turn our backs on God as Christians know him, to give up that ideal of the good life which the Bible and the Christian past bequeath to us, and to start ‘doing our own thing’ without regard for any authority save the imperious promptings of our own hearts.  …I conceive that anyone who turns his back on God and God’s revealed will for us forfeits a dimension of human dignity and settles for a way of life which in this respect befits the lower animals, but does not match the nature and potential of man at all.

2  What do We Have in Common with God?

There is so much that we don’t know about God, even those religious people who have studied about Him for many many years.  And likewise psychologists who have studied personality for many many years still disagree about the basics.  However those of us who have put our trust in God, and in the Bible as His Holy Word to us, can see some basic premises in this regard.

First, we have in common with God the responsibility of dominion.  God is the Creator and ultimate Sustainer of the earth.  However human beings have been given charge of it.

Second, we have a social nature.  We need each other.  If people are alone all the time we think something is wrong.  As God has fellowship within the Trinity, we have fellowship within our families, and with our friends.  There is a sense in which we are part of each other.  We can feel this when someone who means a lot to us moves away or dies, and is removed from our lives.  We long for a time when we will be reunited.  Thankfully we have the hope of heaven, where all barriers between people will be removed.

Third, we have personhood, which carries with it responsibility.  God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus each have their own roles in the Godhead.  Just so, we have our own personality gifts and roles to play in the human race.

Fourth, God told us to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Genesis 1:28).  In other words He blessed our sexuality, which He created.  This tells us something about God.  He obviously has a sensuous nature as well.

And fifth, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).  He took pleasure in HIs work, and so must we.  After working hard to accomplish our goals, it is very satisfying to look back on our accomplishments with pleasure and pride.  Not a bragging, puffed up pride that puts a chasm between ourselves and others, but a good feeling that we have done something well, and a gladness for a dream fulfilled.

3  Man and Woman are both in God’s Image

Man and woman together are the image of God.  …human’s having been created male and female is an essential aspect of the image of God.  Karl Barth lays great stress on this point: man’s existence as male and female is not something secondary to the image, but is at the very heart of the image of God.  This is so not just because of the difference in sex between man and woman–since this distinction is found also among the animals–but because of far-reaching differences in personality between the two.  Man’s existence as male and female means that man as a masculine being has been created for partnership with another being who is essentially like him but yet mysteriously unlike him.  It means that woman is the completion of man’s own humanity, and that man is wholly himself only in his relationship with woman (Hoekema, P. 97).

So, as counselors, we must never allow our clients to belittle the other sex, but remind them that God made both in His image, and that although male and female are so different in many ways, we do need each other, and our differences were meant to complement each other.

4  A Reason not to Kill

The reason we are not to kill one another is because we are made in the image of God (Genesis 9:6).  Think of the implications of this in regards to abortion, or euthanasia, or even simply hatred.  How many times have we wished someone we dislike would just die.  And yet these people bear the image of God.  What a mandate for Christian counselors, to help people see this, and to help people be restored to greater God-likeness.  To help people redirect the energy from their hatred into restoring the image of God in each other.  Not that we can manipulate each other into being better Christians, but we can put time and energy into praying for each other, and doing good to each other, and considering the best paths to take for each other’s sakes.

James 3:9-10 says, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.  Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.  My brothers, this should not be.”  And yet we see that God also in a sense curses people.  Think of the great flood.  And of the destruction predicted in the book of Revelation.  And in many other prophecies in the Bible.  Some of them have been fulfilled already.  Many innocent die along with the wicked.  What can we say?  Is there a time for cursing?  But our general principle should be to remember God’s image in one another, and respect everyone for that reason.

5  Jesus, the Perfect Imago Dei

The clearest, most perfect image of God can be seen in the man Christ Jesus (II Corinthians 4:4-6).  This is very interesting, especially since Jesus was born into a poor family, and lived a very humble life.  As Isaiah 53 prophesied about Him:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering…  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

This is not the kingly image that we would expect of God.  And considering the fierce God of the Old Testament, it seems to be the opposite.  However, even in the Old Testament God exercised extreme patience with people.  Also His goodness is evident to all who open their eyes and look around at creation and the laws of nature.

What must therefore be at the centre of the image of God is not characteristics like the ability to reason or the ability to make decisions (important as such abilities may be for the proper functioning of the Image of God), but rather that which was central in the life of Christ: love for God and love for man.  If it is true that Christ perfectly images God, then the heart of the image of God must be love, for no man ever loved as Christ loved (Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, p. 22).

That Jesus is one with the Father is evident from Colossians 1:15-20:

He is the image of the invisible God… by Him all things were created…  God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.

6  The Importance of the Gospel to Counseling Clients

If this is true, then it must be central to counseling theory and practice.  Although the various schools of psychology such as behaviourism, cognitive therapy, gestalt etc., have contributed a lot to helping people, compared to the healing power of the gospel, they are Band-Aid solutions.  I don’t discount them at all, but I think that the most important general principle behind Christian psychology is to use whatever methods one chooses with the goal in mind of restoring people to the image of God.  I am not saying that we should shove the gospel down our clients’ throats.  We don’t need to see their salvation, but we ought to help them along the way.  It doesn’t mean we must mention God to every client, but we do need to remember that we all as Christians are entrusted with the mandate of sharing the gospel (Matthew 28:19-20).  As Christian counselors we do also need to bear in mind the place of sin in our clients’ problems.  As Anderson says (On Being Human: Essays in Theological Anthropology, p. 99):

Karl Menninger, another practicing psychotherapist, echoes Mowrer’s opinion, sin is the only hopeful view.  The present world miasma and depression are partly the result of our self-induced conviction that since sin has ceased to be, only the neurotics need to be treated and criminals punished.

The concept of sin as a “hopeful’ perspective in treating people who suffer personality disturbances is significant.  Certainly accounting for personality disturbances as expressions of sin must be done with great caution.  But the point both Mowrer and Menninger make is that the nature of the disorder may be such that a more radical confrontation with the very being of the person is required before true “order” can be restored.  The possibility of this confrontation actually occurring and resulting in a restoration of personal existence under a proper order emerges only out of a theological anthropology.  And such a possibility is implied by the actuality of personal being existing in a true order determined by the divine Word of God, experienced as the image and likeness of God in co-humanity.

7  On Freedom of Choice

Hoekema stresses the capability of people to make choices (p. 229):

Needless to say, the ability to make choices is a most important capacity.  It is basic to human existence.  Apart from it, there can be no education, no religion, and no worship…  Unfortunately, however, certain scientific understandings of human nature in our day deny that man has the ability to choose.  An example of this is modern psychological behaviorisms, especially as exemplified by B. P. Skinner.  In his books, Beyond Freedom and Dignity and About Behaviorism, Skinner defends the position of environmental determinism.  All human behavior, he claims, is completely controlled by genetic and environmental factors.  All human “choices” are determined by previous physical causes.  To say that the human being is “free” to act as he “wills” is a myth, says Skinner; mans conduct is totally determined by his environment.  This view implies, however, that human beings have no responsibility for the decisions they make, and that man really has neither freedom nor dignity.

We may not be so totally a product of our environment as Skinner said, but before salvation, we are in essence slaves to sin.  Minirth and Meier (Counseling and the Nature of Man, p. 10) say that:

The counselor who recognizes that man is by nature depraved knows that attempts at “self-actualization” will ultimately fail.  That is, man in himself has neither the capability nor the goodness necessary to solve his own problems and overcome the evil within him.  The Christian counselor agrees with Jeremiah’s assessment that “the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).  The mind is dishonest and tricky.  Man employs various defense mechanisms in efforts to avoid taking an honest look at himself.

8  Sanctification

Sanctification is the process of rediscovery of God’s image in us.  It involves an effort on our part.  Ephesians 5 tells us to, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”  It gives us a list: to live moral lives, not to be greedy, not to be deceived, to find out what pleases the Lord, to expose unrighteousness, not to be foolish, not to get drunk, instead to be filled with the Spirit, to sing and make music, to always give thanks, an to submit to one another.  If we all lived this way, I think we would have very few psychological problems in the world.  But we are all sinners, falling far short of these ideals.  We need to constantly make an effort to be imitators of Christ, and keep reading our Bibles to remind ourselves of the way God wants life to be.

Colossians 3:9-10 says, “…you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”  Ephesians 4:22-23 expands on this, telling us to be made new in the attitude of our minds, putting on our new selves, created to be like God in resolving our anger quickly, not stealing, being careful what we say, getting rid of bitterness rage and anger, slander and malice, being kind and compassionate and forgiving.  In western culture we take for granted that we should live in these ways (even though we don’t completely), but in many cultures these things are not even expected at all.  Cross-cultural counselors must bear this in mind.

God is rational, righteous, has perfect fellowship within the Trinity, has sovereignty, loves beauty, is expressive, and loving.  Human beings have rationality, moral sensitivity, capacity for worship, volitional power, aesthetic sense, are communicative, and have the capacity to love.  However we have not developed these fully.  Sin is in our way of doing so.  The functional aspects of these things are imperfect.  Our abilities to think and create, act morally, worship, set goals and take action, create, speak and write, and to act in love are all hampered.

As Packer says (p.20), the image of God in the human:

Is more or less achieved according to how I use my God-given capacities.  The given capacities (the image viewed formally) are powers of thought, of construction, of management of moral discernment and of relating responsively to other rational beings.  The fulfillment of the image (the image viewed substantially) consists of actual rationality, creativity, mastery of environment, righteousness and community.

Jesus shows us the only perfect Imago Dei.  His love is perfect.  His life was sinless, lived in prayerful dependence on the Father.  He was not selfish, but wholly directed towards God and towards His neighbour.  He exhibited dominion over nature, creativity, and sovereignty.

Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

9  Human Relationships

Human Beings are relationship oriented.  Our primary relationship is with God.  As Jesus said, the greatest commandment is to love God with all our strength.  Then, we have human relationships.  The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.  We also have a relationship and responsibility to nature.  We have been given the mandate to guard, watch over, and preserve it (Genesis 1:27-28 & 2:15).  Although we seldom think about it much, we also have a relationship with the angels.  Too often we take for granted their protection over us.  And then, we have relationships with ourselves.

In secular theories these relationships are often not considered, or they are only partially considered.  As Christian counselors, part of restoring the Imago Dei in our clients is to help them work on these relationships.  Some of the Neil Anderson material is helpful in this regard.  Regarding self-image, Hoekema refers to Augustine, and Carl Rogers (p. 105).  Some people have too high a self-image:

Augustine said it long ago: pride is the root sin of man.  Apart from the grace of God, human beings tend to think of themselves as autonomous, or as a law to themselves.  Refusing to bow before God and his commandments, they wish to live as they please.  In man by nature there is no sense of dependence on God, but rather pride in his or her own achievements and exaggerated sense of self-importance.

And some people’s self-image is too low, as Carl Rogers, the well-known proponent of client-centred therapy, puts it:

The central core of difficulty in people as I have come to know them… is that in the great majority of cases they despise themselves, regard themselves as worthless and unlovable.

There is a need for “an honest awareness of both our strengths and weaknesses, so as to give us a realistic image of ourselves” (p.106).

Historically the church has emphasized the vertical relationship of the human being to God.  It is only relatively recently that the human to human relationship has been more emphasized.

10  Depravity

At the beginning of creation, when Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden, before partaking of the forbidden fruit, they had integrity in all of these relationships.  Their Imago Dei was pure, but not fully developed.  God cannot sin, but Adam and Eve were able to choose to sin.  Adam and Eve had been given a probationary command.  They chose to disobey.  Had they resisted the temptation, perhaps the fullness of Imago Dei would have been eventually developed into a sinless humanity.

Instead, what happened was that people’s hearts were darkened.  Romans 1:19-32 tells us that we are without excuse for our godlessness and wickedness.  But those who do not seek God, and refuse to honour and thank Him are given over to depravity.  Hoekema quotes from Herman Bavinck (p. 83):

Man through the fall… has not become a devil who, incapable of redemption, can no longer reveal the features of the image of God.  But while he has remained really and substantially man and has still preserved all his human faculties, capacities, and powers, the form, nature, disposition, and direction of all these powers have been so changed that now instead of doing the will of God they fulfill the law of the flesh.

As Christian counselors, how can we deal with this?  First of all, the fact that the client has come to see us shows that he or she is at least seeking some form of help.  For someone to realize and admit their need for help is the first step.  The client may not realize her need for God.  Here is where the Christian counselor must work out his own policy about how much is appropriate to say about that, and when.  This would partly depend on the agency you are working for.  If it is a government agency, it may be inappropriate to discuss spiritual matters.  However, one could always ask his client about his/her spiritual life, and refer him/her to a church for further help.

Some of the results of depravity are: the raping of nature, perverted love, vulnerability to sin, alienation from self, and misunderstanding our true identity in the Lord, and the fact that creativity is often used to promote sin.  Part of redemption is the freeing and enlightening of humanity to change from this deadly course to head in the right direction again.

11  Hope in the Future

Our hope is in the future, when our Imago Dei will become perfected.  The Bible tells us we are destined to become like Jesus (Romans 8:29), and will be presented to God without stain or blemish (Ephesians 5:27).  Hebrews 12:24 says we will join the spirits of righteous people made perfect.  And Revelation 21:3 says there will be no more death or mourning.  All of this perfection won’t happen, though before death or the rapture.  At that time our blinders will be removed, and we will no longer be enslaved to evil.  All types of relationships will be healed.  We will be made right with God.  The barriers between our human relationships will be  gone, and we will relate to one another in righteousness and love.  Our dominion will be exalted and we will reign with Him.  God will be glorified in culture.  And our broken-ness will be healed, and we will be made whole.

Regarding dominion, Hoekema say (p. 94):

Only on the new earth will that mandate be perfectly and sinlessly fulfilled.

One of the promises given to believers is that they shall some day reign with Christ (IITimothy 2:12).  In Revelation 22:5 we are even told that glorified believers will reign forever.  An in the song of redemption in the same book the point is specifically made that this reigning will take place on the earth (Revelation 5:10).

Hoekema is also of the opinion that our bodies will be restored in perfection (p. 218):

Man, then, exists in a state of psychosomatic unity.  So we were created, so we are now, and so we shall be after the resurrection of the body.  For full redemption must include the redemption of the body (Romans 8:23; I Corinthians 15:12-57), since man is not complete without the body.  The glorious future of human beings in Christ includes both the resurrection of the body and a purified, perfected new earth.

12  The Path to Healing

Meanwhile we need to continually strive toward righteousness and holiness and praise and thankfulness.  As we guide our clients in these directions, we will be guiding them on the path to healing.

At the point of conversion, justification and regeneration take place.  But sanctification is the work we need to become involved in from that point on.  It is the process of the restoration of the Imago Dei.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (II Corinthians 3:18).

It involves the Holy Spirit in us, filling us with joy, and giving us wisdom and power to do God’s will.  But it takes a conscious effort on our part, because holiness is not our natural bent.  It is more natural for us to despair, or take things into our own hands, than to rest in God.  Here is where, as Christian counselors, we must be faithful to remind our clients to pray about things, and to be patient for Gods answers, rather than impulsively trying to solve their problems in ways that are not God’s ways.  On the other hand, some clients are too slow to do anything, and do need to be urged on a little.  We need to remind them that the Holy Spirit will give them the wisdom and power to change as they rely on Him.

Hoekema stresses that (p. 225-6):

Counselors must also remember the fact that man is a whole person.  They should be trained to recognize problems that require the expertise of others besides themselves, and should be willing to refer their counselees, when necessary, to physicians or psychiatrists.  Mental problems should not be thought of as totally distinct from physical problems, because neither type of problem is ever separate from the other.  Since antidepressant drugs can cure certain types of depression, a wise counselor will make use of these means.  Patients who have deep-seated problems, in fact, can most effectively be healed through the combined efforts of a therapeutic team, consisting, perhaps, of a psychologist, a social worker, a physician, and a psychiatrist.

The counselor ought not to think of spiritual and mental health as somehow totally separable.  Since man is a whole person, the spiritual and the mental are aspects of a totality, so that each aspect influences and is influenced by the other.  Howard Clinebell puts it this way:

Spiritual health is an indispensable aspect of mental health.  The two can be separated only on a theoretical basis.  In live human beings, spiritual and mental health are inextricably interwoven.

Minirth and Meier agree:

Man, then, is physical, and yet man is far more than physical.  He also has psychological and spiritual dimensions, and all of these dimensions are intertwined.  Man has a comprehensive nature.  Physical disease can result in psychological symptoms, psychological stress can produce physical disease, and spiritual problems in many cases lie at the core of or are caused by physical and/or emotional conditions.

Sanctification is a lifelong process.  We strive to be the best we can be, yet, knowing that during this life on earth we will never be perfect, we must accept that, and rest In God’s grace and forgiveness.  Otherwise we would become perfectionistic nervous wrecks.  We may need to remind some clients of their justified status before God.

As Hoekema says (p. 46):

The renewal of the image of God is accomplished by faith.  [quoting from Calvin:]

Faith is the motion of man’s response to the Word by which he becomes conformable to God, that is, has Imago Dei.

That is, faith is our response to the Word of God–a response that we can make only through the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

As we increase our faith and help our clients to increase theirs, we can truly help them on the road to health.

 

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