Theological Anthropology versus Anthropology

General anthropology deals with the study of the human experience. Eriksen (2017) describes the discipline as “a comparative study of humans, their societies, and their cultural worlds” (p. 3).  Also, general anthropology seeks to understand who/what is man apart from God and ignores the implications of the Fall of Man (Gen. 3). In contrast, theological anthropology explores the entirety of the human experience, “with all its complexities and ambiguities,” and  “is viewed from the standpoint of the biblical story, which is both the story of sin and the story of glory and the glory of divine salvation” (Cameron, 2005, p. 54). 

Rusty Small defines theological anthropology as a study of “what Christianity affirms about humanity” (week 1 lecture). Fleshed out, Hughes (as cited in Cameron 2005) suggest that theological anthropology “highlights several features of human experience, which bears the imprint of God’s image (imago Dei) in humanity―personality, spirituality, rationality morality, authority, creativity” (p. 57).

Why is imago Dei central to theological anthropology?