What Bearing God's Image Does Not Mean

What it means to bear God's image is a theological issue of no minor significance, but very few investigations of the matter touch upon a related fact that is also of no small importance.  That the Bible teaches that all humans bear God's image in no way means that the Bible teaches that every human is of equal moral and metaphysical value.  While this statement is very jarring for many people, it is rather apparent from a rationalistic standpoint that any opposing claims could never be supported even if it was possible for them to be true.

To discriminate against someone on the basis of gender, ethnicity, nationality, or class is abominable by Biblical standards, especially when it comes to judging their metaphysical value on these grounds, as Mosaic Law and the New Testament books make clear.  There is no moral advantage to being a man, a woman, a Jew, a Gentile, a person of wealth, or a person of poverty; all humans bear God's image irrespective of these physical or social factors.

It would nonetheless be a severe mistake to conclude that all people must possess equal value.  While gender, race, and class are of no relevance to one's moral character, intelligence, talents, or standing before God, the same cannot be legitimately said of personal choices to align with or avoid reason and morality.  The person who ignores or does not pursue rationality and justice--not perceptions of justice, but justice itself--has lesser value than someone who actively does the contrary.  If moral obligations exist, intentional alignment with morality brings with it a metaphysical superiority to those who do not have this alignment.

The Bible never says that all beings that bear God's image are of completely, inflexibly equal value.  Instead, Mosaic Law merely teaches that all humans have the same baseline rights and obligations.  It does not follow from this that moral superiority does not entail metaphysical superiority.  The two are inseparably intertwined.  A person who lives without regard for reason and morality distances himself or herself from that which is meaningful on the Christian worldview, and thus cannot have as much value as someone who does the opposite.

Moral superiority is inevitably a kind of metaphysical superiority.  There are those who would resent or fear this fact, but no one needs to forfeit potential metaphysical value by failing to correct glaring moral errors.  Whether or not the ramifications of moral superiority are comfortable to a given person, it should not require monumental effort to admit that incorrigible moral differences between individuals mean that not all individuals can have equal value.  Any moral system entails such ramifications, and Biblical ethics is no exception.