The image of God
What the divine image in humanity consists of — reason, dominion, relationship, or bodily form.
Genesis 1:26-27
26God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
What each tradition says
Rabbinic / Midrashic
Asked how many deities created the world, Rabbi Samlai answered the heretics by inviting inquiry into the early days, citing Deuteronomy 4:32: "For inquire now into the early days that were before you, from the day that God created man."
Genesis Rabbah (Bereshit 8:9), Midrash Rabbah, Genesis — Sefaria 2022 translation — Bereshit Rabbah 8:9 (Rabbi Samlai on 'Let us make Man')
Patristic
Gregory of Nyssa states that being made in the image of God means human nature was made to participate in all good. Because the Deity is the fullness of good, and this is His image, the image resembles its Archetype by being filled with all good.
Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man (NPNF series II, vol. V, trans. H. A. Wilson) — Ch. XVI, §10 (the definition of the image)
Catholic
Thomas Aquinas holds that the image of God exists in the mind. It is not because the mind remembers, loves, and understands itself, but because it can also remember, understand, and love God by whom it was made.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars (Fathers of the English Dominican Province trans.) — I q. 93, a. 8, 'On the contrary' (quoting Augustine, De Trin. xiv, 12)
Orthodox
Gregory of Nyssa says that being made in God's image means human nature was made to participate in all good. Since the Deity is the fullness of good, the image resembles its Archetype by being filled with all good.
Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man (NPNF series II, vol. V, trans. H. A. Wilson) — Ch. XVI, §10 (image as participation in the good, not bodily form)
Reformed / Protestant
Calvin says the Anthropomorphites were too gross in seeking this resemblance in the human body. He therefore dismisses that reverie.
John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses called Genesis, Vol. I (trans. John King, Calvin Translation Society, 1847) — Commentary on Genesis 1:26 ('In our image') — the Anthropomorphites refuted
Evangelical
Matthew Henry says that “image” and “likeness” mean the closest image. They mean the nearest resemblance of any of the visible creatures.
Matthew Henry, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (Vol. I, 1853 ed.) — Commentary on Genesis 1:26 (image and likeness)