Introduction

In a pastoral letter on ecology dating back to the late 1980s, the Catholic bishops of the Philippines asked what was happening to their beautiful land. The last strands of forest being logged and burned, they asked: “What about the birds? They used to greet us each morning and lift our spirits beyond the horizons of this world. Now they are silenced” (Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines 1988). Apparently, the daily arrival of the birds who “greeted” them was significant to their spiritual wellbeing. Indeed, apart from the fact that nonhuman species have an independent and inherent value, which already by itself makes them worthy of our protection, the world’s biodiversity also carries a spiritual value for many humans (see, e.g., Irvine et al. 2019, 213–47). Spiritual and religious traditions, therefore, should play a vital role in affirming the value of all life and providing arguments for nature conservation as part of a broad approach to counter today’s human-caused biodiversity loss (see, e.g., Irvine et al. 2019, 239). Now that a sixth mass extinction of species is starting to develop, this need is increasingly urgent, as human beings and other life forms are dependent on a healthy biodiversity for their own wellbeing and future existence (see, e.g., Cowie, Bouchet, and Fontaine 2022).

Unfortunately, however, Christian ecological theology has not yet sufficiently addressed the problem of the current human-caused mass extinction, unlike the more common theme of global climate change. Somehow, species extinction is much less on the theological radar (see, e.g., van Urk-Coster 2023, 121–23). Taking its cue from the need to change this situation, this article addresses the way a particular traditional religious view on the imago Dei (the biblical notion that human beings have been created in the image of God (e.g., Genesis 1:26–28) should be retrieved in order to develop a stimulating, contemporary theological perspective on the spiritual value of biodiversity.

In many ways, the so-called “structural” (or “substantial”) view of the imago Dei that was dominant in much of the Christian tradition up until the twentieth century has been discarded in recent theological anthropology. Whereas this structural approach sought to equate the imago Dei with some allegedly unique human quality or capacity so as to highlight humanity’s superiority over other creatures, the natural sciences have convincingly pointed out the biological commonalities between human and nonhuman animals. Thus, whereas human intelligence was always believed to be superior in that only human beings were supposed to be truly rational, nonhuman species turned out to be quite clever as well, navigating the world in their own specific and complex ways (see, e.g., Clough 2012, 26–30). However, I argue that where it concerns human intelligence, the classical structural view of the imago Dei is frequently being misunderstood by (eco-)theologians and, as a result, presented in a quite selective and limited manner. Instead of simply getting rid of the traditional historical connection between human intelligence and humanity’s having been created in God’s image, we need to better understand how this particular rationality was perceived. That is to say, significant theologians like Athanasius of Alexandria and Thomas Aquinas did not so much argue for a special human rational capacity in order to set human beings apart from the rest of creation but were much more interested in humanity’s spiritual capacity to contemplate God in the works of creation. In other words, the current mistake is to think of rationality in a bare modern way of “being able to think in a sophisticated manner” instead of putting it in the historical perspective of being able to receive and respond to God’s revelation in the world.

Considering (1) a classical Christian theological perspective on God’s (general) revelation, (2) the evolutionary development of religion in humanity, and (3) the role and importance of the imago Dei in this regard, I propose a retrieved understanding of using our special human intellect to keep creation’s biodiversity intact.

The World as God’s Theater: God’s Revelation in Creation

Nonhuman nature and biodiversity are commonly experienced as rich sources of psychological wellbeing and spirituality, leading, for example, to feelings of wonder, timelessness, and interrelatedness with nature. Empirical environmental psychology insightfully has mapped some of these experiences (taking place in locations ranging from the jungle to city parks) as they occur in various traditions and cultures, even among people who self-identify as secular (see, e.g., Irvine et al. 2019, 213–47).

From a classical Christian theological perspective on God’s so-called “general” revelation, which is God’s revelation in the created world, and on the life-giving presence of the Spirit, this is no surprise. Christianity classically espouses the view that “creation,” with its magnificent variety, is a source of spiritual insight. That is to say, within major strands of the tradition, there has been the shared vision that the natural world is not closed in on itself but shows forth “signs” of the Creator, particularly God’s eternal power, wisdom, and goodness (see, e.g., Schaefer 2022, 253). In this regard, John Calvin (1845, 64) famously described the world as it is displayed before our eyes as the theater of God’s glory.

In the Calvinian tradition, the twentieth-century theologian Herman Bavinck (2004, 109), for example, writes that “[b]ecause the universe is God’s creation, it is also his revelation and self-manifestation.” In his view, “[t]here is not an atom of the world that does not reflect his deity” (Bavinck 2004, 109). Bavinck continued, in this regard, the neo-Platonic metaphysics of participation, which he considered a natural part of the undivided Christian doctrinal heritage (Huttinga 2014, 81–125). To be sure, Bavinck (2004, 555) was also of the opinion that “[w]hile all creatures display vestiges of God, only a human being is the image of God.” This is indeed the traditional Christian view, which has only recently come under criticism (see, e.g., van Urk-Coster 2021). Importantly, however, this “restriction” concerning the image of God only strengthens the notion of God’s vestiges, for the capacity to render the world intelligible and to be open to God’s revelation in it has classically been attributed to the human being as the imago Dei. As Alister McGrath (2008, 190) notes:

One of the central themes of the Christian tradition is that humanity is made “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:26–7). During the course of its extended engagement with this seminal text, the Christian church has come to see this as indicating that there is something intrinsic to human nature which enables it to discern, however dimly, the character of God in the created order . . . Part of the Christian understanding of human nature is its innate capacity, in consequence of its created status, of being able to recognize traces of the creator within the creation.

Significantly, as will come further to the fore, this view on the image of God is mainly related to its traditional structural or substantial explanation, which has been particularly influential in church history. As will be argued, this view still has advantages in light of ecological theological reflection on the value of nonhuman nature and biodiversity, as it speaks of human intelligence as ultimately aimed at apprehending God’s wisdom in the world (see, e.g., McGrath 2008, 190).

Indeed, despite the noetic effects of sin that have diminished and distorted humanity’s knowledge of God, the general idea in classical theology was that, even after the fall, no one can “pause” with the world’s splendor and not be moved by a deeper divine reality. Hence, what may be discovered about God in creation is not primarily a function of aesthetic appreciation but underlines the necessity of giving thanks and praise to God for God’s wonderful works that reflect the divine glory (Psalm 19:1) and giving God due recognition. Thus, the traces of God as they are present in the natural world are traditionally considered in the context of worship and apologetics—no one is “without excuse” when it comes to true worship of the one Creator (Romans 1:18–32). In this way, the human capacity to contemplatively recognize God’s presence in the natural world is accompanied by a moral duty, which is accountability to God—and both of these, in tandem, are essential aspects of the imago Dei. Since we did not live up to this duty, however, we need God’s “special” revelation through scripture in order to come to a fuller and “saving” knowledge of God (see, e.g., Haines 2021, 16, 35–37, 188).

On the one hand, these noetic effects of sin and the necessity of scripture for a full spiritual understanding have, of course, stimulated ongoing critical theological debates over the precise extent to which creation still reveals something of God and on the (distorting) influence of our historical, political, and personal contexts on our perception (see, e.g., McGrath 2016, 128–53). On the other hand, however, scripture itself, from its own particular authority, keeps referring believers “back” to creation as they should closely observe and study the world’s wonders so as to mature spiritually. The biblical genre of Hebrew “wisdom literature” (e.g., Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes) is especially rich in the valuable lessons nonhuman creation may provide to humans (see, e.g., Schaefer 2022, 253). This is found in the New Testament as well. For example, Jesus refers to our dealings with sparrows in order to teach about trust in God’s provisional care (Matthew 10:29–31). This demonstrates that there is a close dynamic between God’s “two books” of revelation (nature and scripture). Even without fully resolving valid questions about natural theology, nature’s wide diversity is a means through which God communicates Godself to humans in multiple and surprising ways. Moreover, the notion that humans have fallen into sin so that their capacity to sense God in nature has been damaged cannot serve as an excuse, for according to the New Testament, we are to be transformed and renewed in the wisdom of Christ, the true image of God (e.g., Colossians 3:10).

But can we, by any means, conceive of this human capacity to “sense” the divine through creation from a contemporary scientific perspective? In the following section, I discuss how theological anthropology reflects on the notion of imago Dei from the view that “religion” (and, thus, an openness to the divine) has evolutionarily developed in the human species, suggesting that at some point in history, “modern” humans emerged that could be addressed by God.

Being Addressed by God: The Evolutionary Development of Religion in Humanity

Critically relevant to our examination (and retrieval) of the structural view of the imago Dei as a uniquely human spiritual capacity and the corresponding accountability to God, scholars like Joshua Moritz have rightly pointed out that any biological comparison between modern humans (i.e., Homo sapiens) and other now-extinct hominins like Neanderthals does not need to guide or tire us concerning the creaturely “inclusivity” of the theological category of the imago Dei. Since the imago Dei should, first of all, be located in God’s calling and election, we need not create fixed boundary lines demarcating who is in from who is out. As Moritz (2015, 57) aptly points out, “it is not human uniqueness that makes homo sapiens the image of God, but rather it is the image of God [understood in terms of God’s calling and election] that makes humans unique.” Yet, this is not to suggest that any mental capacities, for example, like mirroring and mental simulation, are irrelevant to how humans came to bear God’s image on the basis of God’s address. On the contrary, it is a legitimate and also vital question to ask, as I do in this section, how humans may have become evolutionarily “prepared” for God’s address and invitation to enter into communion and fulfill a moral responsibility. After all, humanity’s spiritual and graced capacity to discern something of God in creation depends on this trajectory.

In what follows, therefore, I describe the connections made in theological anthropology between scientific perspectives on the development of religion in humans and the notion of imago Dei. In this respect, I follow the suggestion of Celia Deane-Drummond (2014a, 70) that “[i]f . . . human image-bearing is about the religious as much as it is about the rational capacity, then one might expect that a focus on the particular ways in which human beings have evolved would shed some light on that image-bearing.” In particular, of course, it is relevant here how, in the course of their evolutionary development, humans eventually became religious.

Indeed, in present-day perspectives on the image of God, which draw on evolutionary anthropology and paleontology, the bestowal of the divine image is commonly attached to the first signs of religious awareness in the human species (see, e.g., Burdett 2018, 27–31). Gijsbert van den Brink, for example, draws on J. Wentzel van Huyssteen and situates the modern first humans (exemplified by the biblical figures of Adam and Eve) around the time of the Upper Paleolithic revolution, which saw an “explosive growth of human creativity” some 45,000 years ago (van den Brink 2020, 189; see also van Huyssteen 2006, 66). As van den Brink (2020, 175–76) indicates, referring to interpretations of Paleolithic cave art in French and Spanish regions, it is at this stage “that an artistic and religious awareness can be demonstrated that corresponds to people experiencing themselves as being addressed by God, or the transcendent.” Hence, he suggests that it was such “Homo sapiens who came to bear the image of God . . . [and] became personally addressable and accountable” (van den Brink 2020, 189). In such a theistic-evolutionist scenario, Adam and Eve are the “representatives of this first group of human beings that could be addressed by God in personal communication” (van den Brink 2020, 189–90). On the basis of their enlarged consciousness and more strongly developed relational and moral capacities, the Fall became a possibility, as humans were then free and capable of either responding to God in obedient ways or deliberately continuing on the track of their inherited aggressive inclinations. Unfortunately, “they took the wrong track” (van den Brink 2020, 192–93; see also Ward 1998, 133; Polkinghorne 2009, 166; Smith 2017, 63).

Notably, van den Brink reflects on the development and deep-seated presence of religion in humanity by discussing the burgeoning field of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) in light of a theological notion of God’s self-revelation. Pushing back against the widespread perception that scientific enterprises like CSR have “explained religion away,” he argues that there is no real conflict between a theological doctrine of revelation and cognitive theories like a “hyperactive agency detection device,” which causes humans to postulate “actors” behind sudden sensory experiences like hearing a cracking branch (van den Brink 2020, 241–64). Pointing to Romans 1:19–20—“God has shown his eternal power and divine majesty through the things he has made in creation”—and the theology of John Calvin, who spoke of a “universal awareness of God (sensus divinitatis) implanted in the human mind,” van den Brink (2020, 257–58) suggests that “[w]e may actually feel inclined to thank God for them [i.e., such cognitive and evolutionary mechanisms] since God sovereignly used them to serve as channels of his revelation.” In other words, God may be seen to have prepared the human species through evolutionary processes for a conscious and “open” response to God’s transcendent reality and calling. It is precisely in this respect that we may refer to the imago Dei as starting with God’s calling of humans to fulfill a special role and responsibility in creation (nonhuman creatures being valued by God as well, having their own occupations in evolutionary development and the flourishing of creation). As van den Brink (2020, 157) tellingly indicates: “It is God who endowed us with a stunningly unique assemblage of personal, aesthetic, moral, and religious characteristics. God, as it were, evoked them in us in order to call us into his image.”

Others, like Niels Henrik Gregersen, have pointed in the same direction. Drawing on cognitive anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer, Gregersen (2006, 323) postulates that “[t]here are . . . a spontaneity and effortlessness about religious imagination [that are] fully in accordance with the Judeo-Christian assumption that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, and thus designated to engage in communication with God.” Although the biological sciences have pointed out the commonalities between humans and other animals, and (as mentioned earlier) much theological talk on human uniqueness has thus vanished or become unreliable, there is still ground to posit a way humans are significantly “different” from other creatures. That is to say, whereas other species have their own relations to God—think, for example, of biblical language about nonhuman worship of God—Deane-Drummond (2014a, 66) is correct to observe: “Among animals, only humans are capable of worrying about their own animality and its significance in relation to human self-identity; only humans discuss the fine points of what it means to express freedom; only humans are knowingly religious beings.” Regarding the presence of religion in nonhuman animals, she states that “[s]cientists do not seem to be suggesting that other animals are religious, although some ethologists do seem to permit the idea that this cannot be ruled out of court” (Deane-Drummond 2014a, 70).

Without wishing to define the imago Dei as humanity’s religious capacity, which would amount to a narrowing of its meaning, it does refer to the unfathomable way in which God continuously addresses human beings with the intention of “opening them up” to God’s presence in creation. As indicated, even when the imago Dei—and human uniqueness—is “located” in God’s calling and election of the human species, there is no need to deny the insights from the natural sciences into our developmental history, which can even lend depth and credibility to it. From a theistic-evolutionary perspective, the human species went through a “graced” trajectory as it (through interspecies processes) developed its religious endowments. This is by no means a downplaying of God’s sovereign initiative towards humans to state that these natural “structures” needed to be in place.

A Graced Capacity to Recognize Traces of God in Creation

In the previous section, I explored how the development of religion in humanity has been formative in humans’ consciously relating to God and becoming a morally responsible species with the possibility of “sin.” How does insight into this trajectory, also given the ecological havoc humans cause, make it relevant to retrieve the strand of the traditional structural theory of the imago Dei that postulates the graced capacity of humans to contemplate God in the works of creation?

In this section, I argue, by drawing on Emil Brunner and Alister McGrath, that God’s revelation to humans indeed presupposes a certain preparation or “tailored” reflective human perception. This preparedness for divine disclosure gives credit to our retrieval of the classical structural view of human intelligence. The way Athanasius of Alexandria and Aquinas, for example, understood this quality as ultimately aimed at apprehending God’s wisdom in the world is capable of speaking to the contemporary need for ecological wisdom.

According to Brunner (1946, 31), humanity received the unique possibility and capacity to both be addressed by God (Ansprechbarkeit) and to respond to God’s address (Verantwortlichkeit). Given this (creaturely) specialness of humanity, which aligns closely with what I argued for earlier, Brunner—in his famous exchange about natural theology with Karl Barth in 1934—was right to point out that “any approach to natural theology ultimately rests upon a prior theological understanding of human nature” (McGrath 2016, 39). As McGrath (2016, 39; see also 2014, 90–148) argues:

It is not enough to suggest that God is disclosed through nature; human beings must have the capacity to recognize this disclosure as such, whether through their natural capacities, or through the healing of those capacities through grace. The doctrine of the imago Dei represents a theological formulation of the “preparedness” of humanity for divine disclosure.

Leaving aside the valid concerns of Barth regarding any political and societal misuses of such a natural theological perspective, as he theologized in the context of the rise of Nazi ideology, it is important to accept that God’s revelation to humans presupposes a “tailored” human perception. Present-day biodiversity destruction asks for this acceptance, as we need to make better sense of the value of nonhuman creation in displaying the traces of God. As McGrath (2008, 161) points out: “One of Brunner’s most fundamental criticisms of Barth is that he allows no conceptual space for the active involvement of humanity in the process of the interpretation of nature.”

It is here that we are instructively reminded of the imago Dei’s traditional connotation of allowing humans, through their unique form of intelligence, to comprehend creation as referring to God. For indeed, this connotation of the imago Dei (i.e., as the capacity to recognize traces of God in creation) resonates with the “long-standing view that the imago Dei designates the human capacity to reason—or, more accurately, to conform mentally to the patterns established by the divine Logos within creation—and hence to discern God, albeit partially and imperfectly” (McGrath 2008, 190). In this connection, Deane-Drummond (2014a, 70) explains that Aquinas did not so much connect the imago Dei to our “intellectual capacity” but to “the intelligence of human beings as directed toward the capacity for revealed knowledge.” Formulating what Aquinas had in mind, she speaks of humanity’s “graced nature” in the context of God’s nearness to all creatures. According to Deane-Drummond, Aquinas was especially concerned with the “higher” human abilities to know and love God. In this regard, one should also think of recognizing how all of creation reflects something of God the Trinity (see, e.g., Deane-Drummond 2014b, 307).

Another characteristic example of the imago Dei as related to humanity’s gift of spiritual discernment is brought forward by Denis Edwards as he draws on Athanasius of Alexandria. In Athanasius, he finds an ecologically relevant perspective in which humans are enabled through God’s Wisdom (i.e., Christ) to contemplate God’s presence to all creatures. As Edwards (2016, 19; see also Athanasius 1891, 981–82) sets out:

[F]or Athanasius, all creatures are in their own way made according to the Image of Wisdom. Each of them is a creaturely reflection of uncreated Wisdom . . . In human beings, according to Athanasius, the imprint and reflection of divine Wisdom is found in their human wisdom . . . Because humans possess this gift of wisdom, they have the capacity to recognize the image of Wisdom in other creatures . . . The imprint of divine Wisdom in humans enables them, in their encounters with other creatures, to come to know the Wisdom who made them. And in knowing this Wisdom, they can also know the Source of All, the Father. They can come to know the triune God through the imprint of Wisdom found in the creatures around them.

What this vision of Athanasius signifies to Edwards in light of contemporary ecological theological reflection is that our human experiences of nature may genuinely testify to God. However, what about our experiences of and confrontation with creaturely suffering, that of ourselves and other species? In this regard, Edwards suggests that an element of ambiguity remains as we are struck by “pain, loss, death, and extinction” as part of evolution. Considering whether we can experience God in all our different encounters with nonhuman creation, Edwards (2016, 14) stresses that “we need to think of God as radically present, even in the loss and pain evident in biological life and in the costs of evolutionary emergence.” Crucial here is the larger perspective of “the good news of Jesus,” as Athanasius also presented us with a God who is revealed (more fully through “special” revelation in the scriptures) as love and promises liberation and fulfillment. Hence, Edwards (2016, 22–23) states, “the glimpses we have of the presence of the God of love in the natural world can be trusted.”

In the movement of the contemporary field of theology away from structural towards relational approaches of the imago Dei, it seems to have overlooked this very specific way in which theologians like Athanasius and Aquinas spoke about the role of human intelligence and wisdom. As Aku Visala (2018, 65; a rare exception to this general movement) rightly points out, the structural theory of the imago Dei, in its traditional form, is concerned with the presence of intellectual capacities (that were thought to be located in the soul) that “not only make rational action possible but also make it possible for humans to . . . respond to the revelation of God . . . [and] relate to God in a special way.”

In his well-received theological anthropology, Marc Cortez, for example, does not refer to these particularities. He only engages the bare notion that the structural approach of the imago Dei (with its considerable “historical influence”) focuses on “some capacity or a set of capacities constitutive of being human that reflects the divine being in some way” (Cortez 2010, 18). Although this is, of course, not mistaken, he thus glances over the revelatory element of the imago Dei (which is, in itself, deeply relational) to critically consider the structural view’s arguments from human uniqueness and the assumed “parallels in the divine being,” like that God also “clearly has the capacity for rational thought” (Cortez 2010, 18). Next to its lack of exegetical support, Cortez (2010, 19–20)—like many critics—finds the structural approach unsatisfactory because of “the growing [scientific] realization that many of the things we once thought distinguished humans from the rest of creation are, in fact, shared with other creatures as well.”

However, because, as I have argued, we need a theological account of the “preparedness” of humans for divine disclosure, and the notion of imago Dei historically relates to such a graced capacity for revelation and spiritual discernment, we cannot just discard the age-old relation between intelligence and the imago Dei because evolutionary science has now proved that we are not unique in being intelligent (other creatures being surprisingly smart as well). From a more careful theological perspective, we can still say that humans are specially gifted with a keen eye to see nonhuman creation’s great sophistication. Thus, it is presumably only humans who can learn to joyfully contemplate God’s mysterious ways with creation, for example, to go to the ants, consider their ways, and be wise (Proverbs 6:6). From this attitude, humans are to fulfill their God-given calling to care responsibly for the world.

Unfortunately, of course, traditional structural perspectives on the image of God have been embedded in overtly hierarchical and anthropocentric worldviews. Think, for example, of the influential ancient worldview of the Great Chain of Being (the scala naturæ) that was dominant from Greco-Roman antiquity until well into the nineteenth century. This view presented a fixed hierarchy of being in which God was at the top of the ladder, followed by angels, humans, animals, plants, and, all the way at the bottom, stones and minerals. Humanity was located somewhere in the middle, below the angels, with whom it shared mental capacities of ratio and intellect, but above the animals, with whom it shared corporeality and mortality. In this regard, the human was a “microcosm” that uniquely united spiritual and material assets. The full “macrocosm” (i.e., the universe) was reflected in the human being. Not surprisingly, in relation to the notion of imago Dei, the worldview of the ladder reflected the idea that humans—with their immortal and rational souls—were more spiritual and therefore closer to the being of God than other animals, which were irrational and governed by instinct. From this perspective, animals were often denied a place in salvation and eternal life (see, e.g., Lovejoy 1936; cf. for this paragraph van Urk-Coster 2020, 80–81).

However, while such “outdated” perspectives should rightfully be criticized, as they deny other creatures an independent status and place before God and are out of touch with both scientific and biblical notions of humanity’s more “horizontal” embeddedness in creation, there still is a need to posit the value of the human capacities for intellectual wisdom and spiritual discernment. Precisely because the world reflects God’s glory, this glory needs to be recognized and responded to by humans in light of keeping and cherishing its diversity and integrity. The notion of God’s revelation in nonhuman creation becomes distorted if it is suggested that nonhuman creation merely exists for humans’ material and spiritual needs. Augustine (2002, book 1, chapter 16, §26), for example, believed God created ferocious animals to punish wayward people and instill fear in them so that they would not become attached to earthly life but focus on God’s promises. But criticizing such anthropocentric views is not to deny that humanity possesses a unique intellectual and practical power capable of influencing every sphere of the created world—for better or worse (think also of the concept of the Anthropocene).

In recent cognitive psychology research, the concept of “spiritual intelligence” has been coined—and this exactly pinpoints what I have in mind here. Fraser Watts and Marius Dorobantu (2023b, 1–2; cf. Dorobantu and Watts 2023a) insightfully posit that this is not a special type of intelligence but the way our “normal” human intelligence functions within the spiritual life in various and related ways. They distinguish six main characteristics that play a role here. The first is “ineffability,” which they describe as “a powerful sense of reaching a deeper understanding of things, but one . . . not able to articulate” (Watts and Dorobantu 2023b, 6). The second characteristic is “embodiment,” understood as “religious cognition . . . mediated through the particular way in which human persons are embodied” (Watts and Dorobantu 2023b, 8). The third is “open-minded attention,” as in “[being] open to unexpected experiences of spiritual significance” (Watts and Dorobantu 2023b, 8). The fourth is “pattern-seeking meaning-making,” which they understand as “making sense of things, . . . in ways that characteristically make use of intuitive and conceptual intelligence” (Watts and Dorobantu 2023b, 8). The fifth is “participation,” having in mind “participating in the spiritual world rather than studying it in a detached way” (Watts and Dorobantu 2023b, 9). The sixth and last is “relationality,” because “spiritual experiences always arise in the context of a cultural tradition” (Watts and Dorobantu 2023b, 9). Clearly, spiritual intelligence is complex and multifaceted. From this broad understanding, highlighting the importance of humanity’s “intelligent” religious endowment—as key to the imago Dei—might be seen as a recognition of what God desires from humans as they contemplate reality in all its facets. The natural sciences, as we have seen, only reinforce the intuition that there is a way in which humans are religious that other animals are not (at least, not as sophisticatedly).¹ We do not need to posit a “rational soul” or, in a detailed way, engage in describing human faculties or dispositions that would render us unique or even analogical to God in order to do justice to that point. Rather, more holistically, we need to recognize that we are called to serve God and cherish God’s creation with our entire existence.

But does not such a view imply that mentally disabled people, for example, are excluded from the imago Dei? That is by no means the case. As Visala (2018, 68) argues through a common response to such a critique as it relates to structural elements, “people lacking fully developed intellects are images of God because they have the potential to develop such capacities . . . and belong to a community of humans.” In this fashion, also a sweet and tiny baby praises God when it crows with delight in response to the playful jumps of the house cat. In other words, the message nonhuman creation delivers to human beings is manifold and diverse—the notion of divine accommodation, according to which God adapts God-self in revelation to our level and limitations, applies. In Calvin, “[c]reation itself, the cosmological order, is one impressive way by which God, in his majesty, adapts himself to the measure of human beings” (van der Kooi 2016, 49). Thus, God’s revelation in the world already refers to an adaptation to the human measure. God is “skillful” and loving in reaching all creatures, and as the world is full of God’s wisdom, we need to urgently better protect it in the face of rampant biodiversity loss. Indeed, the notion of imago Dei has been firmly connected to ecological views on humanity’s role and responsibility as, for example, stewards, co-redeemers, and priests of creation. Causing a sixth mass extinction comes down to destroying God’s wisdom in the world, with detrimental consequences to the integrity of creation in its praise of God.

Conclusion

In this article, I have addressed the question of what a more accurate understanding and retrieval of (part of) the “structural” theory of the imago Dei has to contribute to valuing biodiversity. The main argument is that because of humanity’s calling as creatures in God’s image, we have been “graced” with the capacity to contemplate God in the works of creation. In this respect, the historical examples ranging from Athanasius and Aquinas via Calvin to Bavinck and Brunner direct our attention not so much to an allegedly unique human rationality but towards an apprehension of the divine wisdom as displayed in creation that is uniquely granted to human beings. Therefore, we need to interpret the imago Dei as, among other things, the relational ability to affirm the deep worth of all forms of life as reflecting their Creator. Humanity is not singled out to be complacent but to serve the integrity of creation as it exists for God’s glory.

Acknowledgments

This publication is part of the (completed) project “The Imago Dei in a Time of Mass Extinction: Rediscovering the Spiritual Value of Biodiversity,” with file number PGW.18.007, of the program PhDs in the Humanities, financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).