The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
Made to be Godly 55 both inherent resemblance as well as (2) an active tendency to become the paradigm upon which something is derived.
Olivier du Roy argues that this understanding of ad allowed Augustine to hold two truths simultaneously: the human soul is both an image (however imperfect) of the divine and is at the same time naturally desirous of becoming more like God.52 According to du Roy's study, ad similitudinem bespeaks both humanity's imaging of God as well as the perfect image yet to be revealed, that perfect image toward which and for whom we have been created. As we saw, for Augustine two existents who share mere similitude may be "alike," but they have no natural propensity to become more like the other. Where an existent reveals an image-model relationship, however, a longing for transformative communion is exhibited. This is how Augustine maintains that those creatures which are merely like God do not consciously or willingly long to become like him. The human person alone, as creature, is like God, while simultaneously being an imago that has been implanted with a nature longing to become God.
But how does this divine likeness appear? In what sense can we see how Adam imaged and was like God? In Eden, Adam and Eve enjoyed a true and uninterrupted joy. They lived without want, never knew hunger or thirst, knew only perfect health (that is, always free of bodily decay), and thus dwelled with nothing ever distressing their interaction with the sensible world.53 In his reflections on the prelapsarian Adam, Augustine tends to highlight four perfections which
52. Du Roy argues that the "ad" signifies a particular relation of resemblance ("relation particulière de ressemblance") as well as an orientation and movement toward an existent's unifying principle; cf. L'intelligence de la foi in la Trinité selon saint Augustin: Genèse de sa théologie jusqu'en 391 (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1966), 361. Vladimir Lossky, on the other hand, defends the Septuagint's κατά as "loaded with a promise of future theology, denoting a progress of tradition, a 'preparation for the Gospel' in light of revelation"; In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), 137.
53. Cf. ciu. Dei 14.26.