The Redeemed Image of God examines the classical development of imago Dei, the image of God, in Christian theology, and reconstructs the doctrine in order to recover the role of the image in redemption and the importance of human embodiment in salvific relationships. The author argues that the imago Dei is the point of contact that enables a rich web of relationships to others, but most importantly the redemptive relationship to the Other, God. From this perspective, not only can the imago Dei be saved, but the imago Dei is essential in saving us. Windley-Daoust retrieves the deep classical meaning of the Image of God as redemptive point of contact and addresses the wholistic worldview of our century through dialogue with existential phenomenologists Gabriel Marcel and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This contemporary reconstruction of the image of God theology fully values the Incarnation as enabling redemption, and the human body as touchstone to the transcendent. This is a new vision of the imago Dei, and a theologically suggestive understanding of the human as embodied spirit.

Pope John Paul II expected theologians to expand their insights of the 129 lectures given during his Wednesday audiences in St. Peter's Square and Paul VI Audience Hall between September 1979 and November 1984. However, his integrated vision of the human person - body, soul, and spirit - has rarely gone beyond the popular topics of moral theology associated with sexuality and marriage. Now, Susan Windley-Daoust, a passionate disciple of John Paul's complete work, devoted spiritual director, and popular Assistant Professor of Theology at St. Mary's University of Minnesota, extends the Theology of the Body to what it means to be human during the experiences of childbirth, impairment, and dying. Are there spiritual signs in these bodily events that are central to the human experience? Oh yes And the signs mysteriously and wonderfully point to God.