All of us are surrounded by images of God, whether we are iconoclasts or not, for we are all made as images of God. In being human we are always in the presence of an image, unless we close our eyes to who we are and who are friends (and enemies) are.

Those images are the objects of most modern day idolatry, even going beyond reality TV about singers who are idolized in the USA.

As such, even the simplest Reformed church building is full of images of God. What we do with those images is of utmost importance: will we only be amazed at the beauty or folly of man, or will we see what is transcendent, the invisible God who has made us and sustains us?

Blessings,
Jonathan

To Tim, your welcome, it was an excellent article and to Matt, thanks for the welcome.

Regards

I thought I recognized your handle from Imonk’s site. I hope you’ll stick around and keep commenting!

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19860409en.html

I think from reading this lecture by Pope John Paul II, we see that the image that God wanted was man, who was created in the Divine Image of God (c.f. Gen 1:27). THus, man left to his own imagination would fall into heresy or idolatary, thus in the commandments in Exodus 20, for example, God commands us not to make images, which can be interpreted as do not make images outside of God’s parameters as later we see God commanding man to make images as Exodus 25:18-19; Numbers 21: 8-9 [bronze serpent, which in and of itself does not have power, but using typology, is a prefigurement of Christ {c.f. John 3:14}], and 1 Kings 6, we see the construction of the temple, which had images, etc.

Through the incarnation, the Word was made flesh and Christ took on our human nature, which ties the creation of man in God’s image to the incarnation of Christ, or perhaps a better way of stating it through his incarnation, Christ has revealed the face of God and shown man’s true nature and destiny. St. Paul could say that “He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation” (c.f. Col 1:15). So the image of man back in Genesis is now the image that God uses to reveal himself in the incarnation of Christ.

Christ, through the Church, as the body of Christ, and the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim 3:15) reflecting on the theological signifiance of the incarnation dogmatically rejected iconoclasticism of the 7th century and condemned it at the 7th Council of Nicea (787AD). Thus, Icons, sacred art, images, can be used in Liturgy, etc and venerated. All of these (i.e. Icons, sacred art, rosaries, etc) can loosly fall under “sacramentals”, which while related to a sacrament, or distinct from them, in that they point to God’s Grace, but do not give man Grace as Christ gives us through the Sacraments/Divine Mysteries, etc.

Anyway, I love the blog and I linked one of your articles [Tim' Troutmans article on Sola Deo Gloria] on a Protestant blog [Internet Monk, who is very cordial and gracious with Catholics]

Pax et bonum

Bacon would have a great point, if Catholics treated images as if they were God. But of course we don’t. Of course images are a poor substitute for God, but think of the analogy someone cited above of a picture of a loved one.

A picture of my wife is of course a poor substitute for my wife if I’m expecting it to do all the things my wife does. But if I’m away on business for a few days, a picture of my has a completely appropriate purpose different from the purpose of my actual wife.

Indeed, if I expected a picture of my wife to mind the children, cook dinner and look after the house, it would be a poor substitute, but when set to the purpose of reminding me of my wife in her absence, it does just fine.

Perhaps those more expert might elaborate and provide further clarification on the matter.

In fact, in light of St. Francis of Assisi, I am curious, to the point of utter dismay (truly–”dismay”) about the entire Reformation.

VERY GOOD POINT!

If you ever read any biographies (not actual spiritual literature, but the more dry ones) concerning Francis or even Anthony of Padua, their times were replete with Church corruption and notorious sin committed by certain clergy — even worse than those observed during the times of the Reformation.

Yet, even as worse as those times were, instead of producing a Martin Luther, you got saints that worked within the Church and by their devotion and humility ultimately saved it.

I wonder what would’ve been if Luther had actually conquered his demons that made him scream the anguished cries of “Non Sum” that ineluctably led to Reformation of a more deformed kind.

Thank you for your comment which I take in the spirit of charity in which it was given. Perhaps a point of clarification might help, since we have not yet had the opportunity to meet: you should know that my comments are meant neither as self-righteous Catholic indignations nor as ad hominem attacks, and if my words sometimes belie my purely collegial motives, you have my sincere apology. In fact, in light of St. Francis of Assisi, I am curious, to the point of utter dismay (truly–”dismay”) about the entire Reformation. And being steeped in history, I would argue that motives are interesting to consider. Where I get stuck, what I do not understand, is how “high-minded” (a friend’s expression) people of good will can argue against the unity of our Holy Church (the Body of Christ) with a variety of banal and outdated philosophies that are clearly “centrifugal” in nature, that in themselves, lead away from the worship of our LORD. Now you are all far more educated than I on the subject at hand, so please accept my comments as being from one, who like you, shares your interest in reasoned debate and simply loves our LORD; I am merely a Catholic Christian who considers nothing trivial when it comes to that which, in my view, seriously inhibits my brothers and sisters in Christ from sharing sacramentally the body, blood, soul and divinity of our LORD in His Holy Roman Catholic Church. This is my faith. And for this I do not apologize. Yet, I am reminded of a book by Isaiah Berlin, “The Fox and the Hedgehog.” Perhaps you are familiar with it, but it sums up nicely my thoughts on the stone that toppled the wagon even if it does not precisely address the arguments the children were having in the wagon at the time that it was toppled. The point is, the wagon is overturned (See excerpt below):

“THERE is a line among the fragments of the Greek
poet Archilochus which says:’ The fox knows many
things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’.1
Scholars have differed about the correct interpetation of these dark words, which may mean no more
than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by
the hedgehog’s one defence. But, taken figuratively,
the words can be made to yield a sense in which they
mark one of the deepest differences which divide
writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in
general. For there exists a great chasm between
those, on one side, who relate everything to a single
central vision, one system less or more coherent or
articulate, in terms of which they understand, think
and feel–a single, universal, organizing principle in
terms of which alone all that they are and say has
significance–and, on the other side, those who pursue
many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory,
connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some
psychological or physiological cause, related by no
moral or aesthetic principle; these last lead lives,
perform acts, and entertain ideas that are centrifugal
rather than centripetal, their thought is scattered or
diffused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the
essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects for
what they are in themselves, without, consciously or
unconsciously, seeking to fit them into, or exclude
them from, any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete, at times
fanatical, unitary inner vision. The first kind of
intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the
hedgehogs, the second to the foxes; and without
insisting on a rigid classification, we may, without too
much fear of contradiction, say that, in this sense,
Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the
second; Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky,
Nietzsche, Ibsen, Proust are, in varying degrees, hedge­
hogs; Herodotus, Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus,
Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzac, Joyce are foxes.” (Berlin, Isaiah: The Fox and the Hedgehog, 1953)