"God 'communicates' information on development, function and behavior to his creatures through the genome. That was metaphor."
Yes, but a metaphor for what? What do you mean by "communicate"? My apologies, but none of this makes any sense. And these "sound bite" answers just make things worse. Frankly, it's also getting frustrating to have to keep pumping you for information when a single detailed answer would clear everything up. Please describe what you mean when you say that genes are a vehicle of communication between God and man.
"All of these are imperfect examples of what God said He had done in making man. In reality, neither of us knows exactly what the statement means, since off the top, neither of us knows anything about the physical reality of God, other than that He is the One that defines physical reality."
It seems to me you are avoiding the question by hiding behind metaphysical discussion. You say that your examples are "imperfect examples" of what God did when He made man. You were half right. Those examples are also crude reproductions of the actual objects being represented; they are meant to convey an overall impression of what the represented object is supposed to look like, not provide detailed information on its physical nature. If we apply that analogy to mankind as well, then humans are nothing more than crude representations of God, meant to give other observers an overall impression of what God is like, but not detailed information. Personally, I find that insulting.
You also keep trying to terminate the discussion by falling back on the claim that "neither of us knows anything about the physical reality of God". Yet your first statements on this issue were pretty adamant; you insisted that mankind was made in the physical image of God, and that we shouldn't "deface" that image by trying to place human developmental genes into a chimpanzee fetus. This sounds contradictory; if we cannot know that we were made in the **physical** image of God, then you have no basis for making those kinds of dogmatic statements, especially the one about how inserting those human developmental genes into a chimpanzee fetus would "deface" that image.
If, on the other hand, we can know for certain that we were made in God's **physical** image, then we can use that to draw some preliminary conclusions regarding God's physical nature (especially if you reject the idea that mankind is just a crude representation of God). Two basic conclusions are that God is a human being, just an exceptionally powerful one Who can also reside on the spiritual plane simultaneously with the physical plane, and that He is made of flesh and blood. Yet you flatly reject those conclusions. So again I ask you: how can man be a physical image of God if God is not a human being?
Addendum: Last night I did some research on the word "image" as it appears in the Bible, since if God used that word then knowing what the word meant to the Hebrews would give us a strong indication of what God meant. The word is _tselem_ (6754-HSN); it's based on an unused root word that means "to shade". As such, to the Hebrews the word meant "phantom, i.e. (figuratively) illusion, resemblance; hence, a representative figure, especially an idol". The KJV translates it as "image" and "vain shew". ("Shew" is an archaic word meaning "to show".) Another form of the word (6755-HSN) means "an idolatrous figure".
Now, this is one possible interpretation of Scripture based on a literal reading of the original Hebrew, one that I do not entirely accept myself (though it does answer a lot of questions). However, it does show that if we take the concept of man being made in the **physical** image of God to its logical conclusion, we end up with a story that is more like a Canaanite creation myth - where mankind was created to be the gods' slaves - than the more positive and hopeful story expressed in Genesis. That more than anything else is what convinces me that the concept of physical image is hopelessly flawed and we should look elsewhere for the correct interpretation. This is where I believe the latter half of Genesis 2:7 become important; the Hebrew words there strongly suggest that God imparted more than just biological life into man, but spiritual life as well, making him unique among animals, but also imparting to him some of God's own spiritual essence.
Kevin L. O'Brien
"Good God, consider yourselves fortunate that you have John Adams to abuse, for no sane man would tolerate it!" William Daniels, _1776_