Human Person As An Imago Dei Analysis

C. Human Person as an Imago Dei “The image theory that Plato had related to the forms and that Augustine related to the divine ideas was transposed by Aquinas into a doctrine of participation whereby creatures have an intrinsic, limited sharing of “existence” with all the perfection that existence brings with it.”
Augustine sees man as bearer of God’s resemblance- an image that does not attain its original identity by equality but approaches it in likeness. St. Thomas would have it the way man participates in the creator. God as the supreme reality shares his attributes in different degrees. By the virtue of participation, man receives a certain degree of perfection insofar as God is the ultimate cause of all things. Thus, there are degrees of perfection and this perfection varies depending on the principles that a being has in the order of providence.
“man is a mortal being,” “man is a being who can laugh,” or “man is a being who decides for himself” and so on. In this way, one can see that understanding man is concentrated on the predicate of the proposition. This means that whatever is predicated to the subject matter becomes an affirmation to the latter. When seen in this way, seeing the person will be limited or extended to the many predicates that could be attached thereto. Hence, this would give vague understanding of the person with different characteristics. When a person is predicated with happiness, questions such as whether the personhood will be limited to the persons who are happy. When a person is understood as a person capable of self-decision making then the questions regarding the personhood of those who cannot decide for themselves will be raised. Thus, this would unveil several points of discussions and ambiguities. This means that “the ontological dignity of the human person, his personal existence, does not depend on a specific capacity or