In what
sense was the image of God present in Adam? It could not have been fully
present for he was alone and lacking a partner. God is never one single person,
he is always one in three and three in one, as we have seen. When God had
created Eve and presented her to Adam, he became more human and the image of
God became more present. Likewise the fact of the Fall shows us that the first
people not had become what they were intended to be, otherwise their choice in
the garden would have been different. In other words we may say that even that
because humans are created in the image of God they have the potential to
distort that image or to let that image be developed and become more visible.

The
apostolic teaching of the New Testament clearly supports this idea, that each
human person is potentially a participant in the one destiny or purpose God has
for us, in sharing the reality to which the concept of the divine image points.