Gen., i., 26, 27: "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'"
"So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them."
Gen., v., 3: "And Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth."
The whole question in these passages turns on the meaning of the words "image" and "likeness."
Now the only conceptions possible of the "image or likeness" of a human mind to its spiritual Creator are, first, resemblance in its constitutional powers of intellect, susceptibility, and will, and, next, resemblance in the action of these faculties.
That man is the image and likeness of his Maker in constitutional powers is clear, because we can not have any conception of the Creator but as of a mind like our own, infinite in the extent of such capacities. This, then, is one respect in which the first pair could be in the image or likeness to God.
The other only conceivable respect in which they could resemble their Creator is by their own voluntary action, and this can not be conceived of as created.
Man is the sole producing cause (see page 158) of his own voluntary acts, which alone decide moral character. Should God create these, man would cease to be their author and cease to be a free agent.
It is thus manifest that a mind can be created in the image of God, so far as we can conceive, only in its constitutional powers of intellect, susceptibility, and will.
This being established as the meaning of the word when it is said that Adam begat Seth "in his own image," if it has reference to the mind alone, or chiefly, then it means that the mental organization of the child was like the parent's, and thus like the Creator's.