Both contemporary interests and classical theories concerning symbolic images consider the sense of those images either as primordial universal forms or as indifferent cultural forms. In order to overcome that alternative, the A. distinguishes four stages in the determination of the sens of symbolic images. A symbol may become, according to various uses, really creative of sense, in the expectation of its being validated or not through an act of judgement which belongs to language. Beyond an effect of code, due to its cultural form, a symbol may lead to a knowledge, to an alliance or else to an assimilation. A theology concerned with Christian identity ought not to link its symbols to any particular culture.