Re-Imaging the Divine Image: Humans and Other Animals, by Celia Deane-Drummond
2014. 134 pp. ISBN 978-1-926599-42-7
Then God said, “Let us make humans in our own image, after our likeness ….”
If we take these words from Genesis seriously, as we know we must, we realize that they are more challenging than many other passages in the Bible. If we accept that we have in some way been created apart from the other animals we must seriously seek an understanding of what that may mean. And trying to understand requires that we look very closely at our relationship to the other animals on the earth as well as their role as part of the creation. We cannot ask the question of what it means to be human in isolation.
As the topic for the 12th annual Goshen Conference on Religion and Science Celia Deane-Drummond chose Re-Imaging the Divine Image: Humans and Other Animals. And she explored what it is to be human and what it is to be a nonhuman animal. She divided her presentation of these questions into lectures on freedom, virtue, and cooperation. In these she explored human freedom and the agency of other animals. And here she spoke of theo-drama as a way of describing history in alignment with the future intentions of God. Those intentions are not only for humans in isolation.
This book contains Deane-Drummond’s lectures, the discussions that resulted from those lectures, and the meditations of Ben Clausen.
Celia Deane-Drummond is a Senior Research Fellow in Theology in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford.