I recently wrote the following response to an e-mailer who asked me whether passages like Genesis 28:18 and Hosea 3:4 support a Roman Catholic view of images.
There's nothing inherently wrong with pillars, so a pillar like the one in Genesis 28:18 isn't in the same category as a statue of a god, for example. The ancient Israelites used, and were commanded to use, a lot of monuments and images, as we see with the tabernacle and the temple, for example. The condemnation of pillars occurs within a context. A pillar isn't inherently evil.
Hosea 3 begins with a reference to Israel's current unfaithfulness and closes with a reference to Israel's future faithfulness. The passage you've cited, Hosea 3:4, is about a disciplinary period between those two phases. The decline of the nation involves the removal of both good and bad possessions. The fact that idols are referred to as one of the removed items, along with some other items that aren't inherently evil, doesn't suggest that they're good. Similarly, other passages that refer to how Israel's corrupt allies will abandon her in the future aren't suggesting that those corrupt allies are something good that's being taken away. Rather, the point is that what Israel has relied on and resorted to in disobedience to God is undependable and will be taken away. Hosea 3 is referring to a disciplinary decline of the nation, which will involve the removal of some good things and some bad things, including good things that are sometimes used for evil purposes.
I wouldn't argue against a Roman Catholic on the basis of a lack of images in the Old Testament era or in New Testament times. Some images did exist and were acceptable. I would make three points.
First, the fact that there's some Biblical precedent for one form of image use or image veneration that Catholicism practices doesn't prove that everything Catholicism does with images has Biblical precedent. There's a difference between what occurs in Genesis 28:18 and a Roman Catholic bowing before a statue of Mary, speculating that the statue has some sort of supernatural attribute, etc.
Second, I would argue that although some level of image use and some level of what might be called the veneration of images is permissible, Catholicism has taken the practice to an unwise degree. Though a painting or statue of Mary could be used in an acceptable manner, such as on a table in a person's home or on the wall of a Christian university, how wise is it to place a crown on a statue of Mary, kiss it, bow before it, pray before it, carry it around for crowds of people to appreciate it, write treatises about how sacred the statue is, allow people to form superstitious beliefs about the statue without making much or any attempt at correction, etc.? A judgment about what's acceptable and what isn't can be difficult. It may be hard to draw some lines. But when a group goes as far with the veneration of images as Catholicism has, one thing you can't accuse that group of doing is being careful. It may be difficult to judge just how close a former alcoholic should get to a bar, what it's acceptable for him to do at a dinner that involves alcohol, etc. But if the man is going to a bar every night of the week, and he keeps ordering drinks and staring at them and smelling them for hours on end as he tries to resist drinking them, that's probably unwise. It would make little sense for that former alcoholic to object that other former alcoholics sometimes park their car near a bar when they're going to a store in the area, nor would it make much sense for him to object that it's sometimes difficult to know just where to draw the line concerning what a former alcoholic should or shouldn't do. An individual Catholic might not sin with regard to images, but given how much scripture warns against the abuse of images and how much we know about the potential for their abuse from experience, I think that it's unwise to go as far with images as Catholicism has. That's a fallible judgment on my part, and there are some issues involved that are difficult to judge, but not every objection to Catholicism has to be of equal strength.
Third, there was widespread opposition to the veneration of images among the ante-Nicene Christians, and there was a lesser degree of opposition among Nicene and post-Nicene Christians. There are many posts in the Triablogue archives that discuss the subject, if you want to read more or get some documentation. See this article, for example. If a Catholic is going to claim that the veneration of images is an apostolic tradition always held by the church, how does he explain this opposition to the veneration of images in the patristic era? You can disagree with some of the comments of these patristic sources related to images, as I do, yet note that their beliefs are problematic for some of the claims that Catholics make about church history, the nature of the church, etc. Much the same can be said of ancient Jewish views of images.
Firstly, I appreciate how many concessions this posting makes. To acknowledge that "some level of veneration of images is permissible" is a big step.
ReplyDeleteMy complaint is we are not told why the analogy of the alcoholic at a bar is the right one to use. The assumption is that "going too far" is the problem with images.
But is that what we find in the OT that differentiates between good and bad images? Did Moses want the Israelites to tone down their veneration of the golden calf until it reached a more acceptable level? Or was the problem the actual object of veneration was not in line with what God was about?
Seraphim wrote:
ReplyDelete"My complaint is we are not told why the analogy of the alcoholic at a bar is the right one to use. The assumption is that 'going too far' is the problem with images. But is that what we find in the OT that differentiates between good and bad images? Did Moses want the Israelites to tone down their veneration of the golden calf until it reached a more acceptable level? Or was the problem the actual object of veneration was not in line with what God was about?"
I wasn't suggesting that all images are acceptable, as long as the veneration of them isn't taken too far. Some images would be problematic from the start, such as an image of a sinful act that's meant to put that act in a positive light.
But we do see objects that were initially acceptable, but later received some sort of unacceptable veneration, such as the bronze serpent of Moses (2 Kings 18:4). Similarly, it can be right to think highly of a person or angel, yet some people think too highly of him (Acts 14:11-13, Revelation 19:10). Some Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox beliefs about Mary are modern examples. While an image can be problematic regardless of how it's venerated, the veneration of an acceptable image can be taken too far as well. Surely you don't think that any veneration is acceptable, as long as the image isn't problematic in itself. What if somebody associates some false beliefs with an image, such as a belief that anybody with cancer who touches a particular image will be healed? Surely you wouldn't conclude that any belief that's formed about the image is acceptable, since the image itself is acceptable.
The only way I can see veneration as being "too high" is if ones beliefs about the object are false in a way that materially effects ones level of veneration.
ReplyDeleteHow are Orthodox beliefs about Mary false in a way that materially effects our level of veneration?
If you just want to say that Orthodox veneration is "too high" for no particular reason other than your own assessment, why should anyone care about your assessment, how do you measure its "highness" anyway, and who sets the limit?
Re healing and images, I dare say if someone had taken a handkerchief from Paul (Acts 19:12) and they were not healed, that would be disappointing, but hardly a theological problem.
Seraphim writes:
ReplyDelete"The only way I can see veneration as being 'too high' is if ones beliefs about the object are false in a way that materially effects ones level of veneration. How are Orthodox beliefs about Mary false in a way that materially effects our level of veneration?"
Different Orthodox have different beliefs about Mary. But even some of the most common Orthodox beliefs about her are false and would have an influence on the manner in which she's venerated, such as belief in her status as a recipient of prayer, which I've discussed in another thread.
You write:
"If you just want to say that Orthodox veneration is 'too high' for no particular reason other than your own assessment, why should anyone care about your assessment, how do you measure its 'highness' anyway, and who sets the limit?"
You could make similar comments about immodest clothing, for example. Some matters are more difficult to judge than others. As I said in my original post, "I think that it's unwise to go as far with images as Catholicism has. That's a fallible judgment on my part, and there are some issues involved that are difficult to judge, but not every objection to Catholicism has to be of equal strength." If you want to walk around in public in your underwear, and you want to defend your behavior by asking questions like the ones you ask above about the veneration of images, then I'm not going to be able to demonstrate the inappropriateness of your behavior in the same manner in which I could demonstrate the inappropriateness of murder, for example. But the fact that some judgments are less objective than others doesn't prevent us from making such judgments and living by them. And such an objection to the veneration of images isn't the only one I mentioned.
You write:
"Re healing and images, I dare say if someone had taken a handkerchief from Paul (Acts 19:12) and they were not healed, that would be disappointing, but hardly a theological problem."
You're not interacting with what I said. I was addressing false beliefs about images. Whether your handkerchief example would involve false beliefs would depend on some details you haven't specified, so the relevance of your example can't be judged. And a problem doesn't have to be theological, however you're defining that term, in order to be a problem.
A compilation of most if not all our posts on the topic of graven images and the second commandment can be found here.
ReplyDelete