This is my position. Being in the image of God is already basic to the nature of life itself. We are only the more perfect image of God (“very good” instead of only “good”). Infinite potentiality is implicit in the ability of life to become more than it is through growth and learning, and it is our infinite potentiality which is the image of God’s infinite actuality. It is what makes us capable of receiving all the infinite things God has to give in an eternal relationship – this is the meaning of “eternal life.” With language we can at least in principle receive what God has to give from God directly rather than learning everything from scratch on our own. That is a very big difference.
Thus I share Pete Enns’ disagreement with equating “created in the image of God” with being “souled.” I don’t even believe in the “soul” stuff anyway. I believe in the spirit created by the choices we make in the self-organizing process of life. But I also don’t agree with Pete Enns’ idea of equating “image of God” with dominion over nature either. For me it is all about our relationship with God.