From Image to Likeness: The Christian Journey into God

Under the influence of Augustine, many Christian spiritualities dwell on human weakness and recommend a passive response to grace. According to such spiritualities, the most important fact about human beings is that we are sinners in need of salvation. In From Image to Likeness, William Simpson suggests that our human natures are unfinished and that the Christian spiritual journey finds its fullest expression when one's life reflects God's creative and sustaining activity. We are already bearers of the divine image because we are God's creatures, and we resemble that from which we came. We grow into the divine likeness as we cooperate with grace and begin to manifest God's presence in the world.By emphasizing the incarnational aspects of the Christian message, Simpson offers a traditionally rooted alternative to these Augustinian spiritualities. Here, the spiritual journey emerges not as a flight from one's wounded and corrupt nature, but as the ongoing discovery of one's true nature as a child of God.