Why Are All Persons of Equal Worth?

וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃


      So God created man in his own image, 
      in the image of God he created him; 
      male and female he created them.

This is why people are all equal.  This is why every person on earth has sacred worth.  Because they are all made in the image of God.

What does it mean to be made in the image of God?  Since God is a spirit, and a spirit does not have flesh and bones, it cannot mean God's physical image.

We have a clue, however, in this:  No other animals in the creation story were made in the image of God.  Only people.  So what is the major difference between people and animals?

Moral agency.

When a new lion pack leader kills the cubs of the previous pack leader, even though they are still cubs, we do not hold him guilty of murder.

But if a man murders children, we do hold him guilty of murder.

The man has moral agency... he is morally responsible for his actions.

That is the Image of God.  What makes us human is that we are responsible.

Now, one theological objection to my premise might be this:  Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, but Cain and Able (and Seth, and all the rest) were made in the image of their parents.

But Genesis 9:6 makes a blanket statement:


      “Whoever sheds the blood of man, 
      by man shall his blood be shed, 
                  for God made man in his own image. 

Now, capital punishment issues aside, this verse makes a blanket statement, after the flood of Noah, regarding the worth of human beings, and giving a reason for it:  All humans are of the same worth because they are all made in the image of God.

One weak objection to this would be that it only speaks of "man," not woman.  But the Hebrew word there translated as "man" is "אָדָם" (adam) which refers to both men and women.  It is the same word used in Genesis 1:27 above, which calls both "male and female" by this word.

The important question here, then, is this:  If we jettison the Torah, if we jettison the "Image of God" concept, what basis do we have for declaring that all people are equal?  A word of warning:  Simply stating "All people are equal" is not an argument... it is a statement.  What is the foundation upon which it is made, if not God?