Are we humans destined to be like God?
I realize this is a religious subject, but I wish to look at it with a scientific approach. I intend no disrespect of any religion. These are only my thoughts, which I hope instills thought in the reader.
The Bible (Book of Genesis) tells us that we are made in the image and likeness of God. What the heck does that mean?
The consensus is that this is consistent with the idea of being sentient. We are aware of our own existence, which makes us different than the animals. Another aspect of this idea is the fact that we have free will to believe or not believe and to do good and not do good. So, that would suggest that our likeness to God is related to our ability to freely choose and thus be like God in a spiritual and moral sense, not a physical sense. I’m assuming here that the author of Genesis was not referring to Jesus, whom we do resemble in a physical sense.
So, how does this make us like God? God is an omnipotent super being that has unlimited powers; although, there is debate about God being unlimited, but no matter what, God is still powerful beyond our comprehension. How in the heck could we be like that?
Maybe we can’t be like God because there can be no gods before Him according to the First Commandment. How we might be like God is in the fact that our souls are immortal. Perhaps in the afterlife we will be able to go anywhere we wish and not have to suffer jet lag. That’s a joke!
Seriously, when we are with God in the afterlife, our intellect and awareness could be opened up to an infinite degree and we will be free of whatever physical failings we had. We will see God for what He really is in a way that we could never imagine. To me, that’s what makes spiritual things so marvelous and uplifting.
A possible link to God’s image is that of creator. We are also creative, surely not in the same degree, but it does represent what God is. We talk about being judged by God. We judge others, but God’s justice system is whole lot better than ours. We talk about God’s wrath, but we are often full of wrath. As you can see there are many ways that we are like God.
Another way to look at this is to go back to the idea that we are children of God and thus are made in his image. His image is one of love and compassion. That’s how we must be in order to be like God. I believe that this was the main message from Jesus. Jesus constantly preached the idea of forgiveness to even one’s enemies and love for the downtrodden and disadvantaged. Now that is God’ image and it should be ours.
Thanks for reading.