the imago dei

A reader writes Andrew Sullivan:

Mancow has glimpsed the real evil of torture: every act of torture--even "play" torture like this--betrays the deepest core of human trust: the trust in God.

Why? Because every man, created in the image of God, the imago dei, must--whether he wishes to or not, whether he knows it or not--stand and act in the place of God, with every decision, with every action, in every human relationship. The torturer therefore does not simply betray the laws of war, he betrays the imago dei: he betrays God, he betrays the other, he betrays himself, he betrays Trust itself.

The inarticulate terror you see flash for a moment across Mancow's face is the existential terror of a child--and we are all children--who sees that: a child faced with a world in which God cannot be trusted, in which God may indeed be actively evil: capricious, all-powerful, hateful, inexorable, inescapable. This is the deepest betrayal of all. This is the utter failure of human love.