Man and Creator: His Perfection

movement we call “life,” which, when completed in the realization of those perfectible energies, is “perfected” Cronan 16.

2.1.3.3 Man and Creator: His Perfection

Man is not God, only his faint and imperfect image. It is not that man is a perfected and completed image, but is created “into the image,” that is, in some image, and with perfectible powers to improve that image. And yet however perfected he becomes man is always a very imperfect and incomplete image of the original, since it is the infinite God he is the image of Cronan 97. The image of God in man’s personal nature is a natural aptitude to know and love God, with consequent operative capacities to do this, including a rational recognition of the created functional aim of these abilities. The image grows in further and further immanent acts of intellect and will by which self-perfection remains most human, and yet in that same human imitation, becomes most divine when the object of those acts which perfect himself is identical with the object of divine intelligence and will, God Himself Cronan 112. Therefore, man with his rationality surpasses other creatures and makes him the natural image of the Creator’s nature. Because of that man alone is an image because of his intelligence alone, the image of God exists in his spiritual and rational principle, not in his body Cronan 92-95. Therefore, God is final and complete and true value, and man is of value in the measure he is God-like, in the measure his nature, and therefore his existence and powers and operation, are the copy of the divine nature. From the “traces” of 13 divine perfection in creation, one can “trace back” the power and causality of God. From an image, one can see reflected what kind of person He is, and if a creature so images, he can do so only in the degree he shares that nature in his own manner and proportion. Therefore the quality of the image will indicate the “quantity” of that creature’s share in the original perfection and be a true measure of his value or dignity, which is existential perfection Cronan 32. In conclusion, we do not acquire love of God: it is in us, His participating images, and we perfect ourselves as we develop it in awareness, as we educate ourselves to it. So there is something common between him and God, some connaturality by which he naturally knows and loves Him who completely transcends man, because He is also immanent in him Cronan 111.

2.1.3.4 Man and Men: His Perfecting