Do we image God on-line? The opportunities and challenges for authentic relationships in cyberspace

ABSTRACT

Genesis 1 states that we are created in the image of God. While Biblical scholars have taken a performative approach, viewing God's image in our actions, systematic theologians have viewed God's image in relational terms. Thus, the quality of our relationships is crucial, not only for the health of our day to day lives but for our very identity. What makes a relationship authentic? Karl Barth suggests four criteria: that we look the other in the eye, speak to and hear the other, aid the other, and do it gladly. We look first at how our authentic relationships function to make God present among us and then use Barth's criteria to examine the quality of relationships that exist primarily in cyberspace. Social media, in particular, present unique opportunities and challenges for forming authentic relationships and raise fundamental questions about who we are and where God is found among us.

KEYWORDS:

• Image of God
• imago Dei
• Karl Barth
• authentic relationship
• social media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Noreen Herzfeld is the Nicholas and Bernice Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict. She holds degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from The Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in Theology from The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Herzfeld is the author of In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit (Fortress, 2002), Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created World (Templeton, 2009), The Limits of Perfection in Technology, Religion, and Science (Pandora, 2010) and editor of Religion and the New Technologies (MDPI, 2017). She is a co-founder and writer for the Avon Hills Salon at avonhillssalon.com. Herzfeld is a research associate at ZRS Koper and the Research Institute for Theology and Religion, University of South Africa. This article is partially funded by Slovenian research grant ARRS J6-1813, “Creations, Humans, Robots: Creation Theology Between Humanism and Posthumanism.”

Notes

1. Wagner and Molla, “Facebook Has Disabled Almost 1.3 Billion Fake Accounts.”

2. Barth, Church Dogmatics, 250–3.

3. For an in-depth treatment of the history of interpretations of the Imago Dei see Herzfeld, In Our Image, chapter 2.

4. Cairnes, The Image of God in Man, 60.

5. Early Christian writers who discuss the imago Dei in terms of reason or the rational mind include Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis 5.14), Origen (Against Celsus 4.85), Gregory of Nazianzus (Orations 38.11), Gregory of Nyssa (On the Making of Man 5), and Augustine (On the Trinity 12–14).

6. Henry, Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics, s. v. “Image of God,” by Gordon H. Clark. Clark also gives a Christological argument for reason as the imago Dei, based on the understanding of Christ as the Logos or Wisdom of God. Sin is understood as either incomplete knowledge or a malfunctioning of the mind. Clark remarks that in heaven we will no longer make mistakes, “even in arithmetic.” In this case, computers have perhaps brought us a bit of heaven on earth!

7. Hehn, “Zum Terminus ‘Bild Gottes,’” 36–52.

8. Wilhelm Caspari advanced a similar theory in his 1929 article, “Imago divina Gen I.”

9. von Rad, Genesis, 56.

10. Ibid., 58.

11. Barth, Church Dogmatics, 184–5. Barth lists and denies the variety of substantive interpretations in vogue at his time: “The fact that I am born and die; that I act and drink and sleep; that I develop and maintain myself; that beyond this I assert myself in the face of others, and even physically propagate my sperm; that I enjoy and work and play and fashion and possess; that I acquire and have and exercise powers; that I take part in all the work of the race; and that in it all I fulfill my aptitudes as an understanding and thinking, willing and feeling being – all this is not my humanity.” Church Dogmatics, III/2, 249.

12. Ibid., 182.

13. Ibid., 216.

14. See Brunner, “Nature and Grace,” 32; Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall; Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective; Kung, On Being a Christian; and LaCugna, God for Us.

15. See, for example Andersen, “Scientists Are Totally Rethinking.” Barth himself was agnostic as to whether animals had a relationship with God, stating that without better communication we really could not know.

16. Hall, Imaging God: Dominion as Stewardship, 124.

17. See Herzfeld, In Our Image, chapter 5.

18. Barth, Church Dogmatics, 250–3.

19. LaFrance, “The Internet is Mostly Bots.”

20. Hern, “New AI Fake Text Generator.”

21. https://www.custard.co.uk/over-three-quarters-of-brits-say-their-social-media-page-is-a-lie/. Accessed 2/9/19.

22. Twenge, iGen, 70.

23. http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html. Accessed 2/16/19.

24. Twenge, iGen, 85.

25. Andrews, I Know Who You Are, 5.

26. Beck, “Facebook.”

27. Ibid.

28. LaFrance, “The Internet is Mostly Bots.”

29. Ibid.

30. Twenge, iGen, 73.

31. Ibid., 80.

32. Though my students tell me that a similar bonding can occur in multi-player video games, I wonder how often these bonds persist once the game is over.

33. Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts, 2.

34. Ibid., 3.

35. Twenge, iGen, 294–300.

36. Levinas, Totality and Infinity.