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What do we learn about ourselves from these stories? We learn, first of all, that we have been created "in the image of God." This is a difficult thing to understand, but we must shed as much light on it as we can. It does not mean that we are God. That would be an intolerable notion to the Biblical writers. We are, however, made in God's "image" or "likeness." We are something like God, even though we are not just like God.
For example, God is creative. He makes and sustains the world. He makes and sustains us. And we too are creative. We create everything from poetry and music and democratic forms of government to mosquito netting, typewriters, and double fudge sundaes with nuts on top. Furthermore, men and women have a responsible part in the creation of new human life, as they marry and have children. As we look at creativity in human life we can see, as a kind of blurred image, something of what creativity is for God -- with this significant difference, that we create because the creative impulse has been planted in us by God and is dependent upon him, whereas God creates because it is his nature to create, and he is dependent upon no one.
Another way of interpreting the "image of God" is to think of a reflection, such as you see in a mirror. When you look at your reflection in a mirror, it is something like you, and yet it is not truly you, even though it can give you a pretty good idea of what you look like. Furthermore, the image is completely dependent upon you. If you move away from the mirror -- no more image. It cannot exist independently. This reminds us of an important fact about our relationship with God. We are dependent upon him, just as the image in the mirror is dependent upon us. If God were to depart completely from us, we would cease to be, just as the image in the mirror ceases to be if you go into another room.
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