2nd century

The Anti-Gnostic Fathers and Irenaeus: the Image of God, Freedom and the Fall as Interrupted Growth

Against the Gnostics, the anti-Gnostic Fathers stressed that good and evil in humanity are not explained by nature: if evil were inherent in matter, the human being would not be a free moral being. Tatian taught that humans and angels were created free and that evil arose from the misuse of freedom. For Irenaeus, the image of God is the Son, in whom we were created, so the image is not something in us but a direction of growth: Adam and Eve were created "as children", able to grow. The image includes the body as well: God created not part of the human being but body and soul, and the image is complete when body, soul and spirit are present. The fall, for Irenaeus, is not the loss of perfections once possessed but the interruption of due growth; the incarnation of the Word restored the image and likeness of God.