As we learn to know and understand God, we learn to see ourselves as perfect, the image and likeness of God, or as God's eternal, spiritual idea.
Christ is that aspect of God, which impelled by divine Love, is understandable to human consciousness.
If we want to ascend to God, we must avoid sin, which clouds the mind. A pure mind prays best and most clearly communicates with God. We must pray, live holily, and strive to express God's attributes of love, forgiveness, order, intelligence, artistry, purity, growth, and truthfulness -- in order to understand and see ourselves as God's image and likeness.
God is calling us to do this and has made us able to do it.
In the first stage, carnal sense appears to be intelligent and believes itself to be because it believes it understands the nature of everything.
Carnal sense is concerned with material things, with counting, measuring, weighing, and naming all the objects in the material world, evaluating function, distinguishing one thing from another, etc.
In the second stage, the believer is one stage higher because the believer knows there is MORE than a physical universe...
One state is material and corporeal, the other spiritual and eternal. In the corporeal stage there is corruption, while the spiritual is eternally pure and incorruptible. "Behold, I make all things new."
Man in God's image and likeness has a 7-fold nature derived from God. God is infinite, without boundary or limitation and is all-Power, all-Presence, all-Spirit or eternal substance. This immensity is seen in the complex nature of the creation, its beauty, sublimity, grandeur, and order. Likewise, Scripture indicates the "immensity of His wisdom," and the Church reflects the infinitude of His goodness.
A spiritual awakening must take place in order for the individual to see God. The awakening begins when the individual starts to look for God's image in others. We have to look for the image -- it takes effort because corporeal consciousness hides it from our view. "Open your eyes, therefore, prick up your spiritual ears, open your lips, and apply your heart, that you may see God in all creatures..."
