Kwang-Jin OH. Bild-ing a Memory Model of God: A Wesleyan and Neuroscientific Prospect. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2024.177 pp., paperback, $28. ISBN: 978-1666775365. Reviewed by Steve W. LEMKE, B. H. Carroll Theological Seminary, Arlington, TX 76010.

Kwang-Jin Oh is a scholar of both theology and neuroscience, having earned a doctoral degree in theology and ethics from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, a Master of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Master of Neuroscience from Rush University, as well as serving at the Rush University Medical School in Chicago. As the title of this work suggests, Oh brings both disciplines to the table in discussing the image of God in humans. The first word of the title, “Bild-ing,” is a play on the German word “Bild,” meaning “image” or “picture.” Oh is thus building or “imaging” a model of the image of God which utilizes the thought of Wesley and Bonaventure, but goes beyond them to propose a physically-based model of the image of God utilizing memory. Clearly, this is an exercise in speculative theology, as the book’s subtitle suggests.

Oh’s first chapter surveys the more popular interpretations of the imago Dei – the substantial, relational, and functional views, as well as interpretations of the proposed similarities and differences between the words “image” and “likeness” in Gen. 1.26. This reader would have appreciated a more thoroughgoing survey of other perspectives on Christian anthropology, but Oh’s intention is to add to this tradition.
In the second chapter, Oh seeks to connect the concept of memory with the image of God. Unfortunately, he begins with the Platonic doctrine of recollection (which Plato places in the mouth of Socrates), in which persons remember what they knew in their preexistent immortal souls. Obviously, that is not a viable option from the Christian perspective. However, Oh surveys eikon and related words as used by Plato, Neo-Platonists, and Aristotle. Oh makes much of Plato’s analogy of impressions made on a wax tablet as a model for memory. He also distinguishes possessing a memory from having a memory. He also addresses how Christ can be the perfect eikon of the Father, not a mere imitation. For Oh, the wax tablet analogy and the incarnation of Christ point to the image of God as something physical.

In chapter three, Oh offers an interaction of the ideas of Augustine, Bonaventure, and John Wesley. From Augustine, Oh highlights that the image of God is reflected through the memory, intellect, and will of persons. Oh then draws from Bonaventure that humans can “contuit” truth by participating in the life of the Trinity. The image of God in humans is derived from the memory of God. The image of God is most active in the affectus, the emotions or desires, as regulated by the more objective synderesis, communicated through the Holy Spirit. Wesley applied a triadic concept of the image of God as natural, moral, and political. Wesley distinguished reminiscence, or searching through memory, from recollection, the search for further information about something one remembers. The believer is often prompted or guided by the Holy Spirit, or the “Voice,” to share in the mind of Christ.

In the final major chapter, Oh builds on the physicality of the image of God to propose a neuroscientific understanding of the image of God. Specifically, Oh proposes various engrams as the means by which the memory of God is imprinted in the human brain, not unlike Plato’s analogy of the impressions made on a wax tablet. The memories move from the long-term memory in the hippocampus to the neocortex for conscious recollection. Oh’s proposal is quite technical (and thus difficult to communicate accurately in this short review) and is admittedly an adventure in speculative theology. It is nonetheless an intriguing proposal that is worth considering.