The cultural or creational mandate (Gen 1:26-28) is the call for humanity to develop and unfold God's good creation.  The command is given to humans on day six of creation.  Humans are created in the image of God, which distinguishes them from the animals and the rest of creation.  But what exactly does it mean to be the image God?  There has been  much debate as to what this phrase means and there are as many answers as there are theological systems, because the nature of humanity is integral to one's worldview.  H. Berkhof notes:
 

By studying how systematic theologies have poured meaning into Gen. 1:26, one could write a piece of Europe's cultural history.

 
Crudely we can classify the manifold ways that theologians have understood the image of God in four ways: resemblance; representative; rulership; and relationship.

 Resemblance   J. J.  Stamm in his survey of the image of God sees 1940 as a turning point  Post-1940 the scholarly consensus was that the image of God consisted in humanity's form.  It was Gunkel who developed this idea.
 In some way the image means we mirror some aspect of God: we resemble him in some way.  Be it physical or spiritual or some combination of the two.  Here the term is used as a noun.  Imaging God is something we are.  For Aquinas the image consisted in human rationality, Luther saw it in terms of morality and Calvin and Charles Hodge in terms of both rationality and morality.
 The problem with this viewpoint is that the OT never makes a distinction between the physical and spiritual parts of humanity.  It is the whole person that is the image of God.

  Representative/ counterpart   Here the image is taken to be a verb: humans are to image God.  We are his representative on earth.  To image God means we represent him, perhaps as ambassadors, or vice-regents.

 Relational   The adherents of this position see the image consisting in some form of relationship: the ability to have a relationship with God; or, as Barth, our relationship male to female.  Leroy Caper also advocates this Barthian position; he does not, however, understand he image to be exclusively relational.  Paul Jewett also follows Barth's view and concludes (rightly, though not for all the right reasons) that women should not be barred from leadership positions.

 Rulership   To be the image of God involves a task: imaging God is seen in ruling and subduing the rest of creation.

 Doug Hall's context, in his Imaging God: dominion as stewardship, for examining the image of God is the relationship between humanity and nature. He sees the image as a verb not a noun.  We are not so much the image as God as we are to image God.

Each of these positions carry an element of truth, some more so than others.  The large choice indicates that certainty is elusive.  There are only a few verses that mention the image of God.  It has been described it as a 'treasure hunt without any biblical clues'.  Werner Schmidt makes a pertinent comment, which ably summarises:
 

'Accordingly, the likeness to the image of God in man can be understood as deputizing for God on earth.  Perhaps the concept of the "image of God" cannot be strictly defined at all, because in the tradition itself we catch the note of several themes: the appearance of God, his actualization, his representation, his representation by another, and also that of governorship on his behalf.'

 
Thus, the biblical and extra-textual contemporary evidence seems to suggest that it is both a verb and a noun: we image God and we are to be imagers of God.  The first implies that it is something we are, the second something we do.  The latter arises out of the former.

Included within its meaning is the task to subdue and rule the creation: this is not a mandate for dominion but responsible stewardship.  Part of the calling to be human is to steward creation.  This means developing and cultivating creation according to God-given norms. 

The mandate to work and develop creation is implicit within the command to subdue and rule.  The so-called "second" creation story (Gen 2: 4b ff.) fills in some details:

verse 5 "and there was no one to work the ground" (i.e the ground needed subduing)

verse 6 The Lord God took hte man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it (abad) and to take care of it (shamar).

There are two sides to the developing and opening up of the creation: the kingly and the servant.  The kingly is implicit in Genesis 1:27f; the servant in Gen 2:15 (abad work in the sense of serving).  Both aspects are important, both are required to fully understand our task of filling/ developing/ opening up creation.

  Dominion or domination?
 Many placed the blame for the environmental crisis on Christianity because implicit within the cultural mandate it appears to condone an anthropocentric attitude and the notion that  no item in the physical creation has any purpose save the use to which humans can put it. and hence being able to dispense with and dispose of nature as we see fit:

 [The Bible] in its insistence upon dominion and subjugation of nature, encourages the most exploitative and destructive instincts in man ... Here can be found the sanction and injunction to conquer nature ...

 
 writes Ian McHarg; likewise the radical eco-feminist Andree Collard suggest that:

 
Genesis presents the view that God created everything and gave it to man to dominate

 The two words translated as subdue (kabas) and rule (radah) seem to bear out this sort of interpretation:  Kabas is elsewhere translated as rape (Esther 7:8) and Westermann has translated radah as "to tread out the wine press" and von Rad as "trample".  Yet, a words meaning is not found in its derivation (cf green house), or history (cf nice; it originally "meant" ignorant!) but in its context.  Meaning is context-dependent.

 Context of the cultural mandate
As we have seen the initial context is that of the cultural mandate.  Here the emphasis is being the image bearers of God.  Subduing and ruling are then to be done as God's representatives: he is our role model.

James Barr suggests that humanity's role is "less explotation and more leadership" (1972); this however, is only satisfactory if we see (with Houston 1978) leadership as servanthood, as exemplified by Jesus the Shepherd-King.

Context of the Creation narrative
Opening up the context a little more places the subduing and ruling within the Hebrew record of creation.  One thing is immediately obvious: creation is not merely for humanity.  The world exists for the glory of God: creation is not anthropocentric (nor biocentric) it is theocentric.  All things exist and have their meaning in God.

The earth is not humanity's to do with it as we see fit.  It is God's creation, and as God's delegates we are to take care of it on his behalf; humanity is accountable to God for its treatment of the earth (cf Pss 115:6; 8: 4-6).

Context of the cultural mileu
Another important context is that of culture.  Whatever the meaning the concept of dominion conjured up in the time of writing, it could only have fairly restricted meaning (cf Job 38: 33; 41:9); there was no potential for world destruction.  Most likely the original readers would have understood dominion in terms of animal husbandry and the cultivation of the ground. 

Dominion cannot therefore mean domination, it is to be done as image bearers of God gently and caringly unfolding and developing the potential locked in God's creation.  It is to be done with freedom within limits.  God follows on from the cultural mandate with an implicit restriction: humans are not to kill for food (2;29-30).  The Law also contains restrictions on human use of the earth:

•      No blood of any animal may be eaten (Lv 17: 10-14)
•      Fields are not to be reaped to the border (Lv 19:9)
•      The grower may only harvest from trees five years old (Lv 19: 23)
•      Fruit trees may not be used for seige works (Dt 20:19)
•      A kid may not be boiled in its own mother's milk (Dt 14:21)
•      An ox is not to be muzzled when treading corn (Dt 22:6)
•      The land is to lie fallow regularly (Lv 25: 1-12)
•      All the tithe of the land is the Lord's (Lv 27: 30-33)
 
Within the garden are certain natural resources (2:11): gold, aromatic resin, onyx.  Why are these mentioned if they are not to be developed? (cf Job 28)

Thus, developing and cultivating the creation is a God-given activity, which is to be done in dependence on God and his Holy Spirit.  It cannot be an autonomous activity independent of God.  Neither is it is to be used for domination or destruction of the earth but to be exercised by humans in their role of image bearers of God to unfold and continue the work of creation with freedom but within clear limits.