Redeeming Creation: Creatio ex nihilo and the Imago Dei in Augustine

Contemporary theology has sometimes been critical of the perceived abstract, speculative intellectualism in A ugustine's anthropology, especially in his understanding of the imago D ei . Within the larger context of A ugustine's claims on the soul, however, and, in particular, in the way he conceives the soul created from nothing according to the image of G od, one finds an intimate binding of soteriological and moral concerns to his claims on the created origin of the soul. In this we see that A ugustine's intellectualism does not remove the soul from time, history and the relations with G od and the world forged therein, but underscores the soul's sensitivity to, and dependence on, its relations to G od and the world.