Did God create man to be gods themselves?
Upvote:0
In Chapter 2 of A.W. Tozer's "Knowledge of the Holy" he puts it this way:
"When the Scripture states that man was made in the image of God, we dare not add to that statement an idea from our own head and make it mean "in the exact image." To do so is to make man a replica of God, and that is to lose the unicity of God and end with no God at all. It is to break down the wall, infinitely high, that separates That-which-is-God from that-which-is-not-God. To think of creature and Creator as alike in essential being is to rob God of most of His attributes and reduce Him to the status of a creature. It is, for instance, to rob Him of His infinitude: there cannot be two unlimited substances in the universe. It is to take away His sovereignty: there cannot be two absolutely free beings in the universe, for sooner or later two completely free wills must collide. These attributes, to mention no more, require that there be but one to whom they belong."
Upvote:4
To discover the answer, you must define your terms.
As suggested by Francis Schaeffer, when Christians use the term "God," they mean personal infinite. If we dissect this definition, therein lies your answer. While people are obviously personal, they are obviously not infinite, so they cannot be a "God."
However, the term "god" can refer to a personal non-infinite, in which case, men are "gods." Obviously, men are personal and finite - this is indisputable.
It all depends on how you defend your terms. If you're trying to say man is a personal infinite you're in trouble theologically and rationally, but if you simply assert man as personal, this is acceptable - you simply must be careful in clarification.
When God made man in His likeness, He gave man the "personal" part of his nature. How can you know he did not also endow man with the "infinite" part of his nature? Think for a moment - can there really by two infinites? What if they fought? Who would win? This is impossible. There can be only one infinite, but many personal beings. So in our personhood, we are like God, and we are "gods." Our lack of infinite perfection, wisdom, and power contributed to our fall into sin. Because God is infinite, He, unlike us, cannot fall into sin.
Upvote:7
The answer to this depends very much on the concept of who God is in the first place. If God is, as evangelical Christians believe, pre-existent, self-existent, omnipotent, omniscient, infinite and eternal, then it would be impossible for there to ever be multiple gods that share all those attributes.
A created being cannot become uncreated. A mortal being, or even an immortal being (that had a beginning but will live forever), cannot become eternal (without a beginning).
So, to whatever level of authority and power God would ever endow to mankind, we could never attain equality with God Himself.
In theology, we understand that there are communicable attributes and incommnicable attributes. The likeness of God within us contains His communicable atrributes. We are moral beings, intellectual beings, spiritual beings, etc. Yet, we are not uncreated, eternal, self-existent beings.
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