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Copyright © 2018 Jonathan Mark Threlfall All Rights Reserved. the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Has Permission to Repr Copyright © 2018 Jonathan Mark Threlfall All rights reserved. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has permission to reproduce and disseminate this document in any form by any means for purposes chosen by the Seminary, including, without limitation, preservation or instruction. THE IMAGO DEI AND PASCAL’S ABDUCTIVE ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARGUMENT __________________ A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary __________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy __________________ by Jonathan Mark Threlfall May 2018 APPROVAL SHEET THE IMAGO DEI AND PASCAL’S ABDUCTIVE ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARGUMENT Jonathan Mark Threlfall Read and Approved by: __________________________________________ Douglas K. Blount (Chair) __________________________________________ Theodore J. Cabal __________________________________________ James Parker III Date______________________________ To Christa, my beloved wife, cherished friend, and companion in pursuit of Christlikeness. “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.” TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE ........................................................................................................................ viii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................1 Pascal’s Anthropological Argument ...................................................................1 Thesis ..................................................................................................................5 Pascal’s Anthropological Argument in Apologetic Literature ...........................6 Douglas Groothuis ..................................................................................... 8 Peter Kreeft ................................................................................................ 9 Robert Velarde ......................................................................................... 10 The Present Work .................................................................................... 10 Outline of Argument .........................................................................................10 2. THE CONTEXT AND CONTENT OF PASCAL’S ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARGUMENT ..............................................................13 Introduction .......................................................................................................13 Context: The Pensées as an Unfinished Apology for the Christian Religion .....................................................................................................14 Content: Three-Stage Abductive Argument......................................................19 Abductive Reasoning in Pascal’s Anthropological Argument ................ 20 Data: The Human Condition as a Duality of Greatness and Wretchedness................................................................................... 23 Explanation: Creation and Fall ................................................................ 36 Elimination: Inadequacy of Other Explanations ...................................... 44 iv Chapter Page Conclusion ........................................................................................................46 3. INTERPRETING THE IMAGO DEI THROUGHOUT HISTORY ....................48 Importance of the Doctrine of the Imago Dei ...................................................49 Challenges of Interpreting the Imago Dei .........................................................51 Taxonomies of the Views .................................................................................52 Irenaeus .............................................................................................................54 Augustine ..........................................................................................................61 Thomas Aquinas ...............................................................................................66 Martin Luther ....................................................................................................69 John Calvin .......................................................................................................73 Karl Barth ..........................................................................................................77 Consensus of Old Testament Scholars ..............................................................80 Conclusion ........................................................................................................81 4. IMAGE-BEARERS AND SINNERS: THE PARADOX OF HUMANS CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD ...........................................................83 Introduction .......................................................................................................83 Imagedness Means that Humans Are, by Their Very Nature, Relational ..................................................................................................84 Imagedness Means that Humans Are Constituted for a Relationship with God and the Rest of Creation ...........................................................86 Sonship: The Godward, Vertical Relationship .........................................87 Dominion: The Otherward, Horizontal Relationship ...............................88 Representation: The Purpose of this Dual Relationship ...........................89 Sin Perverts Expressions of Imagedness ...........................................................91 Imagedness and Sin in Conflict ................................................................91 Expressions of Imagedness, Perverted......................................................92 Imagedness and Sinfulness Together Render the Human Condition Paradoxical ...............................................................................................98 v Chapter Page This Paradoxical Condition Has Epistemic Implications .................................99 Imagedness and Sin’s Epistemic Consequences .....................................100 Christ as the True Image of God .............................................................103 Imagedness and Epistemic Remedy .......................................................104 The Image of God Is Being Restored in Believers .........................................107 Conclusion ......................................................................................................108 5. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARGUMENT STRENGTHENED ....................110 Introduction .....................................................................................................110 The Anthropological Argument and the Doctrine of the Imago Dei: Agreements and Differences ...................................................................111 Agreements .............................................................................................111 Differences ..............................................................................................116 The Doctrine of the Imago Dei Supplies More Explanatory Detail................116 Detail for the Duality of Happiness and Misery .....................................117 Detail for the Duality of Humans’ Epistemic Condition ........................121 Detail for the Paradox of Greatness and Smallness ................................125 The Doctrine of the Imago Dei Provides a Broader Explanatory Scope .......................................................................................................128 Paradoxical Behavior ..............................................................................129 Paradoxical Beliefs .................................................................................141 Conclusion ......................................................................................................147 6. THE EMBODIED ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARGUMENT ..............................149 Introduction .....................................................................................................149 Scripture’s Portrait of Christiformic Image-Bearers .......................................152 Explaining the Concepts: Christiformity and Christiformic Image-Bearers .........................................................................................152 Exegeting the Passages ...........................................................................156 vi Chapter Page Unveiling the Portrait .............................................................................165 Evidence for Christiformic Image-Bearers: The Embodied Anthropological Argument .....................................................................168 Augustine ................................................................................................168 C. S. Lewis ..............................................................................................175 Jonathan Edwards ...................................................................................181 Conclusion ......................................................................................................185 7. CONCLUSION: AN EXPANDED VISION FOR APOLOGETICS ................187 Further Areas of Research ...............................................................................188 Biblical Theology and Apologetics: Powerful Allies .....................................189 The Christian Faith: Compelling Beauty ........................................................190 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................192
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