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Thanks again for your reply. We're talking past each other on the "Where did God come from" question. My complaint, somewhat off-topic to the origin of evil, is as follows. Ascribing the universe to an anthropic God--literally one whose image is mirrored in our own--fully formed from somewhere outside of His creation and infinitely capable, simply moves the question forever out of reach. (Another thing: His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence would seem to contradict the statement that our image is His image.)

Most times, there's nothing about the approach that strikes me as either likely or intellectually satisfying as an answer to the real origin of the universe. This doesn't mean that I can prove it wrong or that I'm sure it is. Thus, I call myself an agnostic. I marvel that people not only think they know absurd details of the God story, but that they imagine the answers as obvious.

Thank you so much for your reply and for sharing your concerns and for giving me the opportunity to testify! Hugs!!!

Ascribing the universe to an anthropic God--literally one whose image is mirrored in our own--fully formed from somewhere outside of His creation and infinitely capable, simply moves the question forever out of reach. (Another thing: His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence would seem to contradict the statement that our image is His image.)

Perhaps some of the confusion is in what is meant by “image” in which context. In Hebrews 1:3-12 – Jesus is shown as the “express image” of the Father’s person and the meaning is explained:

Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.

But unto the Son [he saith], Thy throne, O God, [is] for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness [is] the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, [even] thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

The Greek root word for express image is charakter means a marked likeness, a precise reproduction in every respect. Notably, it is only used to describe Jesus.

Compare that to Genesis 1 and 2 where man is being made in “our image:”

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. – Genesis 1:26-27

The usage of the Hebrew root word for likeness d@muwth shows that it means appearance. The same is true for the Hebrew root word for image tselem

You continued…

I marvel that people not only think they know absurd details of the God story, but that they imagine the answers as obvious.

Indeed, we are quite certain of what has been revealed to us by the Spirit. And we who have the indwelling of the Spirit cannot be moved:

For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. – I Corinthians 2:11-16