_4_The Relation of the Divine Image to the Nature of Man

The divine image, that is, the true knowledge of God and the conformity of the human will to the will of God, was not subsequently and externally added to man at the creation, as the Papists contend, who regard the divine image (holiness and righteousness) as a donum superadditum, a superadded gift.7 Rather was man created with the divine image, as Gen. 1:26 shows: “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” The divine image was a donum concreatum, donum naturale, donum intrinsecum. It follows that now, after the Fall, the human nature is no longer perfect (natura integra or in puris naturalibus), as the Papists and modern theologians and philosophers teach, but thoroughly and in its innermost parts corrupt (natura corrupta, natura sauciata).8 It is true, the iustitia originalis did not constitute the nature of man. Even after the Fall, man is still (Rom. 5:12), inasmuch as the original righteousness was not the substance, but a non-essential attribute, an accident.9 But the iustitia originalis belonged to the nature of uncorrupted man, of man as he should be, as God created him, and as he is to become through Christ. According to Scripture it is certainly an abnormal thing that man, created for God and conscious of the existence of God (Rom. 1:19 ff.), does not and cannot serve God (Rom. 8:7: “The carnal mind … is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be”), but lives his life on earth as a practical atheist. Eph. 2:12 says of all heathen: “Having no god and without God () in the world.” And the worship of the heathen is described in the words: “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20).

The real seat of the divine image is not the body, but the soul of man, since the knowledge of God and holiness inhere in the soul. But, naturally, the divine image was manifested also in the body, since the body is the organ of the soul and an essential part of man. Apology: “Therefore original righteousness was to embrace … an even temperament of the bodily qualities [perfect health and, in all respects, pure blood, unimpaired powers of the body]” (Trigl. 109, 17).