The point behind the image of God

In the introduction to his translation of Homer's Odyssey, E.V. Rieu said this (the underline is added by me):

He (Homer) does believe in his gods ... but whereas the Christian conception of godhead is based on our creation by God in his image and likeness, with imperfections introduced by Satan, Homer regards his gods, though immortal, as made in the image and likeness of man. Mixed with his deep respect of their almost unlimited powers and his aesthetic appreciation of their beauty, he betrays a very tolerant understanding of their motives and frailties ... These powerful beings, who were so intimately connected with men's passions and desires, were there to administer, not necessarily obey, man's moral code. Christian apologists of a later age made a mistake when they suggested that the pagans had invented the gods and their iniquities as an excuse for themselves. Homer never censures a god nor lets a mortal use a god's misdeeds as a pretext for his own ...

And so this is Rieu's appreciation of Homer's virtuous character. Never would Homer countenance misdeeds among men -- just because the gods he (Homer) admires indulge their misdeeds and iniquities!

So on the strength of Homer's example, according to Rieu, Christian apologists "make a mistake" when they claim that a weakness in the theory that the gods are created in the image of men is none other than that it provides a license to sin. (e.g.: After all, the gods do it! etc).

No No No, says Rieu. Homer would never stoop so low!

But I think this misses the point.

The point is this: Where does the very meaning of "iniquity" or "misdeed" come from?

Put another way, Rieu seems to think of iniquities and misdeeds as a moral consideration quite separate from the logical consideration of whether men are created in the image of God (the Christian view) or gods in the image of men (the Greek view).

Thus, in Rieu's thinking, Homer's moral uprightness in the face of his god's misdemeanors is used as a kind of independent evidence that the Christian critique of the Greek view is wrong.

But this leaves the independent nature of the moral category in question. Where does morality come from? Who regulates it? Rieu uncritically says that, in the Greek view, it is men who came up with the moral code; that the gods' job was to administer this moral code that men set up, but not necessarily to obey it.

But this is a logical nightmare. If indeed men -- who are frail and inquitous; this is not in question (it is precisely why Homer's virtuous character is viewed by Rieu as so extraordinary) -- if indeed it is men who came up with the moral code, and gods are created in the image of men, and so the gods engage in iniquity (because they are created in the image of men), but Homer rises above it all and does not accept the gods' immoral conduct as a license for such conduct himself, then Homer -- himself a man -- is basing his moral virtue on neither human nature (which is iniquitous) nor the nature of the gods (which is also iniquitous).

So where does Homer's virtue come from? What is it referencing? This is left unexplained.

If, however, men are created in the image of God, then the seat of moral virtue is in Him. And so this conforms with the logical argument that His image is what we humans reflect: His moral character is what determines good and bad deeds (misdeeds) among men.

The Christian theory is so much more simpler, with no contradictions.

Indeed, Rieu is actually using Christian measures in his admiration of Homer's virtuous character.

Logos2Go

E.V. Rieu, "Introduction" to Homer: The Odyssey (Penguin, 1971), 15.

Genesis 1.26-27 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.