The Image of God as the Capacity for Holiness: A LUMEN Proposal
Dr. Peter A. Kerr
Abstract
This paper proposes the biblical image of God is best understood not as a static faculty or metaphysical property, but as humanity’s unique capacity and vocation for holiness. Drawing from Hebrew and Greek lexical theology, the study argues holiness in Scripture is fundamentally relational and purposive rather than merely moralistic or separative. Within the LUMEN framework, holiness names humanity’s God-given ability to be claimed by God, aligned with God’s character, and drawn into participatory communion through grace. This proposal offers a unifying account of the image of God that integrates creation, vocation, and redemption without collapsing creaturely distinction.
The Problem of the Image of God
The doctrine of the image of God has long suffered from conceptual fragmentation. Substantive models locate the image in rationality or consciousness, functional models emphasize dominion or vocation, and relational models stress interpersonal capacity. Each captures an aspect of the biblical witness, yet none fully accounts for the pervasive scriptural language of holiness applied to humanity from creation onward.
This paper proposes that holiness provides the integrative grammar these models lack. The image of God is not merely something humans possess; it is something humans are intended to become and enact. The capacity for holiness—understood biblically as consecrated participation in God’s life—offers a coherent account of humanity’s distinctive status within creation and its redemptive trajectory.
Humanity Set Apart: Holiness and Distinction in Creation
Genesis presents humanity as distinct within creation. Humans alone are created “in the image of God” and entrusted with relational, moral, and vocational responsibilities. This distinction is not framed primarily in terms of power, intelligence, or immortality, but in terms of relational proximity and representative purpose.
Within the LUMEN proposal, this distinction is best described as humanity’s unique capacity to be holy. All of creation reflects God’s goodness, but humanity alone is capable of being claimed by God in a covenantal sense. Humans can belong to God, respond to God, and align their lives freely with God’s purposes. Humans can reflect God’s holy-love. This capacity is not yet moral perfection, but moral addressability. Holiness begins as vocation before it becomes character.
Hebrew Holiness: Consecrated Purpose, Not Withdrawal
The Hebrew concept of holiness (qādôš) is often misunderstood as mere separation or avoidance. While the term includes the notion of being set apart, biblical usage consistently shows that this separation is for consecrated purpose rather than isolation.
Objects, times, places, and people are holy because they are claimed by God and directed toward God’s purposes. Israel is called holy not to withdraw from the world, but to embody God’s justice, mercy, and covenant faithfulness within it. The command “You shall be holy, for I am holy” presupposes that holiness is communicable, participatory, and relational.
Applied to humanity as such, this suggests all humans are intended as God’s. Holiness is not an elite spiritual achievement but the original orientation of human existence. To be made in God’s image is to be created with the capacity to belong to God and to live in alignment with God’s holy life.
Greek Holiness: Dedication and Participation
The Greek term hagios, shaped decisively by its use in the Septuagint and New Testament, reinforces this understanding. In biblical Greek, holiness refers to what is dedicated to deity and drawn into divine service and presence. The term does not primarily denote moral flawlessness, but divine claim and consecration.
New Testament usage intensifies this participatory dimension. Believers are called “saints” not because they are morally complete, but because they belong to God through Christ and are being transformed by grace. Holiness is something entered into, not something self-generated.
Within this framework, to be holy is to be drawn into alignment with God’s character and purposes through grace. This aligns naturally with an image-of-God doctrine that is dynamic, relational, and teleological rather than static or merely descriptive.
The Image as Capacity, Not Completion
A key strength of identifying holiness as the image of God is that it preserves both human dignity and human incompleteness. Humanity bears the image fully in capacity, yet incompletely in realization. This avoids two common theological errors: reducing the image to a lost possession after the fall, or equating the image with moral achievement.
In LUMEN’s account, the image is the creaturely capacity to receive and reflect divine holiness. Sin distorts this capacity but does not erase it. Redemption does not replace the image; it heals and fulfills it. The image thus provides the continuity between creation, fall, and salvation.
Holiness, Grace, and Non-Coercive Participation
Because holiness is participatory rather than imposed, it coheres with a non-coercive understanding of divine action. God does not force holiness upon humanity; God invites humanity into it. Grace does not override human agency but restores it.
This is crucial for ethical and pastoral theology. If the image of God is the capacity for holiness, then respecting human freedom becomes an ethical necessity rather than a concession. To violate agency is to violate the very image one claims to honor.
Conclusion
This paper has defended the claim that the image of God is best understood as humanity’s capacity and vocation for holiness. Hebrew and Greek biblical theology converge on a vision of holiness as consecrated belonging and participatory alignment with God’s life. Within the LUMEN proposal, holiness is not withdrawal from creation but humanity’s distinctive way of inhabiting it.
To be made in the image of God is to be created capable of being claimed by God, transformed by grace, and drawn into communion. Holiness is not an optional spiritual upgrade; it is the original purpose of being human.