Remy has, wrapping up two of our differences into one package which he feels to be most clever, referred on this blog and elsewhere to the use of holy images in prayer as “prayer condoms”. He believes they place something artificial that need not be there between God and the supplicant, as condoms place something artificial that need not be there between the couple in their conjugal act (is that word related to conjugating a verb, by the by?).
I will, as I have in the past, magnanimously ignore what amounts to something like 2nd degree blasphemy in Remy’s speaking of holy images that way, but that aside, I was thinking about Remy’s analogy today and found it wanting, here’s why: While it’s true that condoms do put a barrier between the couple, that’ not necessarily the inherent problem.
After all, you could enjoy the marital embrace with your shirt on and not do any damage to the nature of the act. The problem with condoms is that they place a barrier where life is transmitted.
I think Remy could even agree that, although he views the one who prays with icons as his weaker brother (in an act of incredible condescension to the great majority of Christians who live now and have ever lived), that doesn’t mean that his prayers aren’t getting through. That doesn’t mean he’s not receiving life from God when he prays.
For an icon to be a “prayer condom” it would have to attempt to stop the life of God getting to the supplicant while still allowing the supplicant to enjoy the pleasure of prayer.
Icons do no such thing. In fact, if anything, they enhance the life received for the “weaker brother”. Condoms are hostile to life, icons foster life, even if it’s not the “pure” life that has no material expression which Remy so desperately craves (quick, someone ring the Gnostic bell!).
Icons=incarnation. They use our sense of sight, one of the most powerful we have, to worship God, who has revealed himself in things that can be seen, both in flesh and in His Saints. These things, which were seen on the earth and are not forbidden to see, we image in icons. I applaud the FV crowd for teaching me to know Gnosticism when I see it, I’m surprised they can’t see this most apparent example of the genre.
Up above, btw, is the icon known as “Unexpected Joy”. It tells the story of a notorious sinner brought miraculously to repentance by the icon of the Mother of God holding her Son.
Homesick No More 
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December 28, 2007 at 4:19 am
Matthew N. Petersen
I think the answer to your aside is “yes.” Both come from con (together) + iungo (join). Though I can’t see why verbs are joined together, nor why verbs conjugate, and nouns decline.
December 28, 2007 at 5:45 am
Thos
I would ask him why icons are more analogous to condoms than to music playing or candles burning in the room during conjugation. I mean, there’s something that gets in between an act, and there’s something that enhances an act because of its own beauty.
I don’t have icons in my home (‘twould be odd since I’m Presbyterian), but I do see a flaw in the analogy.
Peace in Christ,
Thos.
December 28, 2007 at 6:31 am
respect
icons may enhance the act for you, but the question is if it does for God. I believe that may not be the case.
December 28, 2007 at 7:35 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Hey! I have icons and I’m Presbyterian!
December 28, 2007 at 8:16 am
mattyonke
Thos,
That’s an excellent point that I wish I had thought up.
Matt,
You’re a Presblutherocatholic?, can’t you read the sidebar??
But in all seriousness, I’m all for anyone getting icons anywhere. You really ought to have them blessed if you haven’t though. I’m sure your local Roman rite priest would do it, though he might find it a strange request.
December 28, 2007 at 8:45 am
jogomu
There is a larger issue here, which is sacramental mediation.
I like to say that the body is the “sacrament” of the soul.
There is no relating to the soul of another human being without going through at least two “sacraments”– my body and theirs.
While I might wish for a more “direct” communion, more often than not it is too wishful, as in wishful thinking. As in when the dead loved one I remember is more me than them… an “idol” in fact. Or as in when I think that a person on a blog has a different attitude than they actually have because we have reduced our “sacraments” to typing.
What was the look on Jesus’ face, after all, when he interacted with his mother? What was the tone in his voice? …makes all the difference, and inscripturated revelation just doesn’t tell us.
Any “sacrament”– any body– can be either an idol or an icon. It is an idol when we stop with the thing. It is an icon when we go through the thing to the person represented. The solution to sexual lust, for example, is not the elimination of bodies, but rather a change of heart… going through the body to the person… a communion of persons is the real objective. Hence JPII would say that the problem of pornography is not that it shows too much, but that it shows too little. It is an attempt to divorce the body/sacramental from the soul it represents. It is an idol rather than an icon.
If we were to eliminate all idols, we would find ourselves with no icons… a short cut to a dead end. The Bible, after all, can be an idol when divorced from the realities it indicates (Christ and the Church).
When we relate to Jesus Christ, it is less perfect to commune directly with his soul. That happens, I believe, just as my premonitions about my wife are often accurate in her physical absence… making a “spiritual communion.” It is less perfect, and even abhorrent, to relate to Jesus Christ’s body alone. It is more perfect to relate to Jesus Christ spiritually through his Body, which is the Church. But the members of the Church are often more like wounds in the Body than the genuine article. The sacramentality of the Church, which I believe is the real issue here, and which I believe to be the mystical presence of Mary in a way, is the God-bearer that gives us only God and no counterfeit. The Eucharist, for example, is only Jesus Christ with no admixture of error.
The issue, then, is not whether Eastern iconography comes between the Christian and his Lord, but whether it comes between in a way that is proper and even necessary for “incarnational” communion with him.
Imagine Simon Peter committing a mortal sin the day after his profession that Christ is the eternal Son of God. Would he go into his closet to pray to Jesus for forgiveness? “O my Jesus, I am so sorry for having offended you…” What if Jesus were to hear his name, flip on the light, and ask: “Did I hear my name? What are you doing in here?” “I’m asking you for forgiveness, Lord!” “What? In here? Without me? How strange… nevertheless, here I am. Let’s talk.”
And so it is in the sacrament of reconciliation. We come to the Body of Christ and confess our sins. Not that there couldn’t be a very-valid non-sacramental communion in the ordinary case… only that the good Lord has decided not to cater to our proud nature in that way. We have to humble ourselves and come to him in his Body.
December 28, 2007 at 10:04 am
Matthew N. Petersen
I know Father Bill rather well. I’m prety sure he wouldn’t find it odd at all.
No they haven’t been blessed. I got two when I visited an Orthodox church in Post Falls, (two icons of the Blessed Mother), but didn’t have them blessed because 1) that would have seemed too much like “I’m planning to be Orthodox” and 2) because I wasn’t comming back next week.
I also have a dyptich of the Blessed Mother and of Chirst. I decided I wanted another icon, so I gave some money to my Orthodox friends and asked them to bring back an icon. I don’t think its been blessed, but I’m not sure.
But I’ll keep that in mind.
December 28, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Thos
Respect,
Point taken. I merely meant to point out what I saw as a weakness in the analogy that icons are “prayer condoms”. That they move creatures to a form of prayer that does not enhance the experience for God (or even offends him) may well be. But I would still say that they are not a condom-like barrier. The condom analogy, to fit your opinion, would need to be something in the act of coitus that enhances for one and doesn’t for the other. That is not the case for condoms, and I’d prefer to not delve deeper into a prayer-sex framework, particularly when naming some corpus deelcti or another.
Mattew Petersen,
Er, sorry, nothing meant by it. I should have said ‘if I had icons in the house, the folks from our evangelical Presbyterian bible study that come to our house weekly would think I’m weird.’
Peace in Christ,
Thos.
December 28, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Matt
John,
Great points! It certainly reveals further the depth of the gnostic tendency in the iconoclastic position.
December 29, 2007 at 7:54 am
Remy
It is funny that a comment offered so tongue-in-cheek could arouse such passion. I’ll take it as a hint that I’m hitting on something. Thanks for the encouragement to keep digging.
First though, I will ask you again to temper your rhetoric when responding to me. Calling a brother in Christ a weaker brother is not an act of “incredible condescension”. I was just duplicating Pope Gregory’s comments on icons, just FYI. To keep trying to grab the moral high ground so hamhandedly will only make you look bad. We have plenty of disagreement, no need to invent other things.
If you really want to get onto somebody get onto those who call someone baptized into Christ a member of another religion.
Secondly, I’m no iconoclast. I think they’re very pretty.
Now let me address the gnosticism inherent in icons. 1) Iconography assumes God is not present. 2) Iconography assumes that “Spiritual presence” is less physical than Physical presence.
Here’s a story. Let’s take three people Reginald, Donald, and Floyd. They’re all present in the same room. Reginald is speaking to Floyd face to face. Donald has decided to use a cell phone to talk to Floyd. It’s a little funny to have a finger in one ear and to be crouched over in the corner to talk to Floyd when he’s really in the room, but Reginald doesn’t say anything. Then Donald accuses Reginald of Gnosticism because he doesn’t use something physical, like a cell phone, to speak to Floyd. Reginald is content to use words.
As for the difference between idols and icons, I’m not sure being an Aristotlean helps very much.
December 29, 2007 at 8:06 am
Dave Hodges
“It is funny that a comment offered so tongue-in-cheek could arouse such passion.”
Remy, you have brought up the same bad argument, over and over again, for weeks in a row. It’s not like it was a single comment made in passing. You have harped on it over and over again, on this blog and on Gibbs’ blog. You obviously thought it was clever enough to mention a dozen times.
“1) Iconography assumes God is not present.”
No, it doesn’t. I assumes that God was Incarnate. Iconoclasm is a denial of the Incarnation.
“2) Iconography assumes that ‘Spiritual presence’ is less physical than Physical presence.”
Spiritual presence is – by definition – less physical than physical presence.
And your analogy with the guys in the room is dumber than your prayercondom analogy. Firstly, you do not see our Lord or the saints in person. Secondly, icons are not required for anybody to speak to our Lord, so iconophiles will not claim that those who do not use icons are being Gnostic. It is the iconoclast who says, “Looking at icons when you pray is idolatry.” In your analogy, it would be the person talking to somebody face-to-face telling the person using the cell phone that the cell phone was actually an idol an forbidden by the Bible.
For all the complaints that the Novatores through out there about big, bad, evil Rome making too many requirements and rules, from whence does this objection to using icons come?
December 29, 2007 at 10:13 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Dave,
I think Remy’s right, he’s not much of an iconoclast, if any. Yes, his joke that icons are prayer condoms seems like an argument (the glint in an eye is impossible to catch online), and because it keeps showing up without the gleaming eye, we tend to have the reaction of “that is absolutely ridiculous” but then feel a need to explain how something so obviously ridiculous (at least to us) is indeed ridiculous–hence prolonged analysis of the joke.
But I think we should take his word and say “ok, its a joke” and not take it seriously.
Remy,
The Holy Spirit is present everywhere. Would it be like talking to Christ on a cell-phone to talk to physicall talk to the human Christ when he is present with us–after all, the Spirit is more with us than Christ, and Christ more with the Spirit, so the contact with Christ mediated by the Spirit is more direct than the contact mediated by the air.
December 29, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Matt
Remy,
Before I leave on vacation for a few days away from the internet, (I assume you and Hodges will be swinging for the fences as usual, heck, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t) let me leave a thought for you.
Icons are not pretty decorations for us. They are an integral part of our spirituality and, as a consequence, who we are. I hate to sound overblown here, but I think if you’d ask any Orthodox or Byzantine Catholic person they’d say the same.
I really can’t think of an equivalent for you to relate to, I don’t think there is any external thing that hold the same pride of place. Maybe your Lord’s supper, but that’s in sort of a different category.
All that is to say, even if it’s a joke (and I know it’s a joke, but there’s always a grain of truth at the bottom) it’s a joke about something very serious and very dear to us. So when you keep telling the same joke over and over again all over the internet, yeah, it’s bound to get our ire up eventually.
Anyway, whatever Pope Gregory (which Pope Gregory?) said about icons, an Ecumenical council said that what the written Gospels do with words, icons do with colors. I’ll stick by the testimony of the Holy Spirit over and against a quote not cited from a Pope without a number. The Church obviously approves and encourages icons, not just for the illiterate or “weaker brothers”.
And, no, it’s not necessarily a great condescension to call someone a weaker brother, but it’s not like you’re talking about one unlearned Christian in the midst of all these brothers who know better. You’re talking about centuries upon centuries of better and wiser men than both of us throughout all of Christendom. To be frank, you’re just some dude. For you to call all of them weaker brothers who just couldn’t see the clear truth like you can, yeah, that’s a little condescending.
Finally, you don’t believe that we should make images of Christ, especially to venerate, right? If not I’ll right readily rescind the following comments and apologize handsomely, but that pretty much makes you an iconoclast. Appreciating icons as pretty pictures does not make you not an iconoclast. And with three points for the double negative, I’m going on vacation.
As always Remy, know that none of this is meant in any mean spirited way. Sorry if the initial post came across that way.
Kisses,
Matt
December 29, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Remy
Matt, we’re cool. I was assuming it was not an attempt to demonize me, but only an overblown rhetoric that I am all too familiar with in my own writing.
I’m all about external things. People, the rest of creation, you know things God made. I like man-made things too, but I favor the Master Creator’s things.
Pope Gregory the I, aka the Great. And he wasn’t disapproving of icons he said they are very useful for illiterate people. Maybe that was condescending of him.
I know we have different views of the church at work here, yours is a more frozen view, mine a more organic view, but we both agree that a good plate of veggies is delicious. Mine gets points for being more environmentally sound, but I can still pick out some good stuff from your plate as well.
I’m fine with images of Christ. I’ve got a couple icons in my house. Iconoclast means “one who destroys icons”. You wanna send that handsome apology through UPS?
You get me on the veneration thing. Speaking at a picture strikes me as silly. When it comes to saints I find it innocuous. However to worship Jesus through icons runs afoul of the 2nd commandment. The definition of idol in the Bible is “eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear”.
I noticed you didn’t address the inherent gnosticism of icons. Pardon my incivility for pointing this out, but I think it’s important that you understand Aristotleanism is gnostic. Looking past the physical for that deep down essence. Yes I know that this flies in the face of the Frozen Rome church and transubstantAristotleanism. I just think the least you could do is own up to it, tell me Aristo-gnosticism is true and my Hebraicism is outdated.
Have a great vacation, I think this will keep us busy well beyond your return.
Holy kisses,
Remy
December 29, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Remy
Dave, I do think it’s clever and no single comment gets me more goats.
Iconoclasm is a denial of the incarnation? I don’t get it. Icons are cell-phones, except, you know, totally unnecessary. I don’t care for cell-phones, but I’m not sure how a dislike for them denies the incarnation.
I’m sorry to see that you think spiritual presence is less physical than physical. Jesus could walk through walls because He was more solid than the walls, not less solid. Maybe the word “physical” is tripping you up. How about “metaphysical”? Does that make you feel better? My comment is intended to go after the assumption that the spiritual is “less real”.
“iconophiles will not claim that those who do not use icons are being Gnostic”
Isn’t that what Yonke said?
My point with the story is that one of the friends believes Jesus is really present and can address him to His face. Another uses a cell-phone, presumably because He isn’t present. I guess you could say that they both communicate to Jesus through the Spirit, one as a primary means and the other as a secondary means.
Other Matt -MNP- all communication is through the Holy Spirit. I don’t divide.
December 30, 2007 at 12:02 am
Joshua
I’m all hungry to beat the Jan Hus drum right now, but I’ll refrain.
Also, Satanism is on the rise.
December 30, 2007 at 12:06 am
Joshua
Also, I now have a John Wycliffe’s Ashes drum.
December 30, 2007 at 10:06 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Remy,
Again, I’m not sure you understand the incarnation.
Has it ever struck you as odd that there were only ten lepers cleansed? There should have been thirteen–that would have made the symbolism better. But one of the lepers tried to persuade his fellows to faith in Yahveh, quoting Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man.” And he argued that it is pursuing false gods to go to the man passing on the road, for their trust was in the God of Israel, and the “The Strength of Israel…He is not a man.” (I Samuel 15:19) Finally he concluded his argument “And God is present everywhere. We don’t need to go to some individual person, to communicate through the air–we can hardly touch him with our flesh–we should comunicate directly to God and not use the medium of air. We ought not believe God isn’t present here in our cave. We shouldn’t go to that man there to be healed, because God is here. You have perfect access to Him here.”
Two of his fellow lepers were healed, and one almost was. The three faithless lepers were never cleansed, the one who was almost convinced though was even more grateful than he would have been, and returned to Jesus to thank and worship Him.
December 30, 2007 at 11:21 am
Matthew N. Petersen
that should be “convinced” not healed.
December 30, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Joshua
MNP,
You should not say to Remy, “I’m not sure you understand the Incarnation.”
December 31, 2007 at 2:32 am
Thos
Remy,
I’m not an iconophile, but I can’t help but think your analogy to cell phones is lacking. The iconophile, as I understand them, use the icons to draw or direcrt their heart to the object of prayer. If that holds true, then you should also compare folded hands, a bowed head, and closing ones eyes as “cell phones”. They are certainly (all would agree) unnecessary. I can pray eyes-wide-open from my foxhole. But they are normally done nonetheless, because their absence allows for distractions and a heart less devoted to the object of the prayer.
Just a thought.
Peace in Christ,
Thos.
December 31, 2007 at 7:31 am
Remy
MNP, I like to think that I’m adept at elliptical thinking but your response reads like zigs and zags to me.
My contention is that the math is all off on the “incarnation=icons” equation. It has been acknowledged that to stop at the physical attributes of the icon is idolatry, so it isn’t incarnation, it only seems like incarnation. What I’m hearing from that end, iconography is Docetism, an incarnational heresy. Either you can stop at the surface (incarnation) or you can’t (Docetism).
Thos, I’m not sure I would say they are all unnecessary. While folding hands is something we teach children so they won’t mess around during prayer, and I’m not a fan of closing eyes in prayer, bowing heads is certainly something we should be doing at times in prayer. I would add, bowing, kneeling, prostrating, raising hands and numerous other things we do with our body. My objection is not “we can’t use physical things in worship”, but that the 2nd commandment prohibits worshipping YHWH through man made images. The definition of an idol is “mouths that do not speak and ears that do not hear”.
I’m fine with icons at home and even in church (I agree with Pope Gregory I that pictures are helpful -illiteracy isn’t a problem so much anymore, but there are plenty of children that would benefit from them), the problem comes when we worship the True God through manmade things. Otherwise what was the problem with the Molten Calf?
December 31, 2007 at 7:36 am
Remy
I apologize, I don’t mean to sacrifice manners for snap.
Holy kisses, Peace in Christ, Lordbless,
Remy
January 1, 2008 at 3:11 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Remy,
I understand the objection to icons “well, the second commandment says…” but some of your logical defense of why the second commandment says what it says don’t add up. (By the way, Matt, what’s the second commandment?) The argument that Christ is already with us, and we don’t need an image to be with Christ–“Now let me address the gnosticism inherent in icons. 1) Iconography assumes God is not present.”–misses the whole point. Even prior to the incarnation, Christ was always with us. Christ came precisely because we needed an image of the invisible God. Christ came to Himself be the image of the invisible God. And so the exact same argument you used against images of Christ is likewise an argument against the image of the invisible God, or at least against the necessity of the invisible God.
Otherwise what was the problem with the Molten Calf?
“Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, the likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.” (Deuteronomy 4:15-19)
The golden calf was wrong, according to Deuteronomy 4 because the Israelites “saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto [them] in Horeb out of the midst of the fire.”
But the problem with this is “[We] are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more…But [we] are come unto mount Sion … to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel“–“unto Jesus the image of the invisible God”–“unto the word of life which the Apostles which have seen with their eyes, which they have looked upon.”
We have seen a similitude–Strongs even says homoiōma which is used in the LXX for “similitude” is a synonym for “eikon”–we have seen an icon, Jesus Christ, the icon of the invisible God.
January 1, 2008 at 3:13 am
Matthew N. Petersen
at the end of the first Paragraph it should be “necessity of the image of the invisible God.”
January 1, 2008 at 3:15 am
Matt
Well, first off, a highly valued opportunity to apologize quickly for a misrepresentation of someone’s beliefs.
Remy, I assumed you were of the D-dub any-image-of-any-person-of-the-Trinity-breaks-the-second-commandment school. My bad. You are far more enlightened than he and you’ve got much better hair.
I’ve got a lot more to say about everyone’s comments, but I’ve also a party to get to tonight. So more tomorrow perhaps.
January 1, 2008 at 3:20 am
Matthew N. Petersen
I stopped my last comment because it was getting too long, but I don’t think you understood Matt’s statement about looking beyond the physical part of the icon you object: “It has been acknowledged that to stop at the physical attributes of the icon is idolatry, so it isn’t incarnation, it only seems like incarnation.”
But I think this kinda misses Matt’s point. He meant we don’t stop at the physical attributes of the picture, but go beyond to the physical person pictured. Kinda like if you look at a picture of your wife, or even kiss a picture of your wife, your devotion is not to the photograph, or to the paint, or to this or that arrangment of light, the physical properties here but to the physical one pictured; so when people pray to icons they aren’t looking to the physical properties here they are using those physical properties to physically portray a physical person who is (physically) absent.
January 1, 2008 at 4:35 am
bennettcarnahan
guido,
while we’re in apologizing-quickly-for-misrepresenting-someone’s-beliefs mode, last I heard Wilson has no objections to images of persons of the Trinity (particularly Jesus): he does have an issue with using images (of anyone, really) in worship (which i guess is the point of you all’s squabble here).
that said, you speak unassailable truth about Remy’s Luscious Locks.
January 1, 2008 at 4:56 am
Matt
Ben,
Thanks for the heads up. Let me hereby apologize for ascribing a former (or merely supposed) view to the right Rev. Pastor Wilson. I thought less of him than I should have.
Matt,
Thanks for clarifying for me, that’s exactly the distinction. St. Peter is physically in Heaven, not in Church or at home with me. Therefore, when I see an icon of St. Peter and reverence it, I am not ignoring the person in the room whom I should be paying attention to, I am seeing the person not in the room by the aid of the icon.
More to come.
January 1, 2008 at 6:54 am
Sarah Hodges
“you speak unassailable truth about Remy’s Luscious Locks”
And I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but his lips resemble Bruce Willis’. Wonder if he has ever been a lip double for Bruce.
January 1, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Remy
MNP: “Christ came precisely because we needed an image of the invisible God. Christ came to Himself be the image of the invisible God. And so the exact same argument you used against images of Christ is likewise an argument against the image of the invisible God, or at least against the necessity of the invisible God.”
RW: Unusual way to present the reason for the incarnation. I’m not sure I disagree I just think this alone or this primarily severely misses the glory of Christ’s incarnation. I assume you aren’t doing that. My objection isn’t to Christ coming in flesh or saying that we shouldn’t see God. I feel like we should see images and shadows of Christ all throughout the world (something I feel icons limits, by the way). Since I’ve learned the word “Christotelic” it has been in my top three favorite words since.
MNP: “The golden calf was wrong…because the Israelites “saw no manner of similitude…”
RW: Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying that the calf was wrong because it didn’t look like YHWH? Or the 2nd commandment only worked before Christ? You don’t believe in the 2nd commandment? I honestly don’t see what the argument is. I see “Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female…” and I think that settles the matter, so I’m missing something.
With regards to the picture thing, I honestly don’t see the appeal of that analogy. I think someone smooching a picture of his wife is being silly, but I’d look like a jerk if I ever said that. Personally, I’m not a fan of pictures and videos because that draws the memory outside of the person. It draws that person from the first person plural, “we”, and makes him a third person, separate from the event. That’s why I will never watch my wedding on video. I don’t want to trade my first person view for an outsiders view. That’s what cameras do, they only can give you an outsiders view. I like my view of my wife.
When you say “so when people pray to icons they aren’t looking to the physical properties here they are using those physical properties to physically portray a physical person who is (physically) absent.” I see that as exactly what is prohibited in the 2nd commandment. The other thing is that it isn’t incarnation, making that whole discussion a red herring.
And again, I want to separate icons of Christ used in worship from icons of saints used at home. One is prohibited in Scripture, the other is just a silly thing to do in your free time.
Ben & Sarah, thanks for taking the last shred of my rhetorical effectiveness.
Lordbless,
January 1, 2008 at 10:30 pm
bennettcarnahan
rems,
wonder if the telephone analogy would be anymore helpful portrayed thusly:
Reginald wants his young son Donald to call his Grandpa Floyd. Donald is only two, and phones are still conceptually a little difficult for him. So Reginald shows his young son a picture of his Grandfather which is hanging on the wall.
“We’re going to talk to Grandpa Floyd now.”
“OK.”
So Donald talks for a while to the picture of Grandpa Floyd on the wall while Grandpa Floyd talks to Donald on the phone.
“Bye, Grandpa.”
“OK, good bye buddy.”
Reginald picks up the phone to talk to Floyd and walks over to the couch on the other side of the room.
“Father”, says Donald “I find the fact that you are not speaking to Grandpa Floyd to be downright Gnostic.”
“What do you mean?” asks Reginald, inwardly assured that those baby Einstein videos were a sound investment.
“Well, instead of talking to Grandfather right here in his frame, you are babbling into the phone.”
“Son, the picture was just to help you remember who you were talking to, since you’ve never met Grandpa Floyd.”
“So you just talk to Grandpa on the phone without the picture? That’s so gnostic. C’mon Grandpa,” says Donald, pulling the photo off the wall and heading off to his room, “We’ll go talk in here.”
“Donald, the picture can’t hear you. That isn’t really Grandpa.”
Donald yelled back from the other room “You Novatores!”
“Dad, I got to go,” said Reginald. “Donald needs a spanking.”
not a perfect analogy (they never are), but personally I think Gregory I would like this one better, especially when he realized that in my mind, Donald has a really hard time with his L’s and R’s.
ok boys, back to it.
love,
ben
January 2, 2008 at 1:08 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Remy,
Deuteronomy gives a reason for the prohibition, “you did not see an image.” The Israelites heard a voice, they did not see an image.
At Mount Horeb there was no image. But at Mount Zion there was. There has been a fundamental change in our relation with God–prior to the Incarnation, God did not have a body. Prior to the Incarnation, our relation with God was physical person to non-physical Person. After the Incarnation, our relation with God is physical person to physical Person. Mary has brought forth God for us. Mary has given God flesh and blood. God walks among us and is a man. At Mount Horeb–and consequently in the covenent from Mount Horeb–there was no image of God, only a voice. The Old Covenant was audible, but not visible. But at Mount Zion–and consequently in the covenent from Mount Zion–there is an image of God.
As I see it, the prohibition was first, like the rest of the law, a looking forward to, and longing for Christ. Images of God were forbidden because Christ had not yet revealed His sacred face. Images of God were forbidden because they were an attempt to snatch what had not yet come–Christ. Images of God were forbidden because they were an attempt to ascend into heaven to bring God down. Images of God were forbidden to make the Israelites long for an Image of God. And if we look at the passages, images of God were forbidden because they made created things–not the images themselves but the things they were images of–God.
But now Christ has revealed His sacred face. Christ has come down to us. The Image of God is near us, in the man Jesus Christ. We need not ascend to heaven to bring down an image, but need only turn to the flesh and blood Mother of God. We need no longer long for the Image of God–
Christ is in our midst! We can make an image of a physical thing, and it is no longer necessarialy an image of a created thing, it is an image of God Himself.
Regarding devotion to pictures of loved ones: What about a wife to her dead husband, particularly to her recently dead husband. Or a husband away at war?
O that birth forever blessèd,
When the Virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving,
Bare the Savior of our race;
And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,
First revealed His sacred face,
Evermore and evermore!
January 2, 2008 at 2:24 am
Remy
Just to make this clear. You do not believe the second commandment is binding. You believe in the 9 Commandments. Right?
So in your view what would be wrong with bowing before a tree and praying to Jesus? Or a statue of Buddha? I mean, if you are just using the physicality as a stepping stone, no problem. Kneel before Britney Spears and pray to Jesus.
Why not kneel before Zod, son of Jor-El?
January 2, 2008 at 6:19 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Just to make this clear. You do not believe the second commandment is binding. You believe in the 9 Commandments. Right?
Well Jews number the ten commandments one way, and in their numbering what you call the second commandment is part of the first. Catholics and Lutherans number them a different way, but again what you call the second command is part of the first. Orthodox number them a different way still, but like you they have “no graven image” as the second commandment. You and Protestants from Geneva number the ten commandments yet another way. I am undecided which is correct. And I don’t think the law applies quite like that anymore. The law came to point to Christ. I believe the second command pointed to Christ.
So in your view what would be wrong with bowing before a tree and praying to Jesus?
Well…I do kind like The Wreck of the Deutschland and I think Hopkins’ “I kiss my hand to the stars…” is very Christian, but that’s aside the point. The problem with bowing before a tree and praying to Jesus is that the tree isn’t Jesus.
You reply “well, exactly, neither is this picture.” But if you object like that, you miss nature of images. At the end of Pirates of Penzance someone produces an image of Queen Victoria, and everyone falls down before the queen. The whole play would have become a complete farce if one of the poliece officers was so curmudgeonly as to actually say “You know that picture isn’t the Queen don’t you! Are you really confessing that peice of paper, that ink and paint is the Queen? That’s high treason!–supporting another monarch in place of the Queen! I’m arresting you and dragging you off to the Tower!”
January 2, 2008 at 8:18 am
mattyonke
Nothing like an appeal to Gilbert and Sullivan to sew up the loose ends of an argument. Good on you Petersen!
January 2, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Remy
Dude, you can read the red parts of the Bible and know that Jesus Himself says He’s a tree. He’s also a rock. If you’re really going to wave your hands before the Ten Words you need to admit that you can have no objections to this. And hey, Britney Spears has the Holy Spirit insider her so I can put up a poster and worship the Almighty through her. I will cite Flannery O’Conner’s “The Temple of the Holy Ghost”, which has a hermaphrodite.
Now just because these are obvious things that I wouldn’t do they are offered in earnest. They seem perfectly reasonable given your premises.
As for the TEN, you do admit that the Golden Calf incident broke one of the TEN right? And since they were worshiping God we know that (at least before the incarnatus Christi) idols/icons worship was prohibited. If the coming of Christ changed that then you can have no objections to worshiping through sticks and stones and Britney Spears. Right?
Yonke, no points for my appeal to Superman?
January 2, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Dave Hodges
Remy, I’m over the whole Internet thing. Really I am. I’m ready to give up on the medium itself altogether. So I really don’t have any desire to debate this stuff any more. But seriously, your arguments get worse and worse with every comment you make. And the arrogance with which you judge all the saints who went before you is unbelievable. I know, I know, you’re the super-strong Christian, the very uber-saint before whose intellect we should all bow down in awe. We mortals are nothing in light of your ultra-rational mind, the paragon of perfect Christian balance and reason.
St. John Damascene owned all your arguments and then some. If I have to choose between your private opinions on the Holy Scriptures and the Sacred Tradition of the Church handed down through the Fathers and guided by the Holy Ghost, you can bet a large sum of money that your Britney Spears argument isn’t going to mean a whole lot to me, no matter how clever you think it is.
I know your private opinions are very important to you, but the Bible says that a lot of people misinterpret the Bible to their own destruction. And I’m not resting the salvation of my soul in your opinions.
January 3, 2008 at 12:27 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Remy,
I wouldn’t go so far as Dave say you are being arrogant. And I understand that for you your objections to images are in accord with Church Tradition. And I understand that our arguments sound like Biscotte asking his wife to sleep with Bastoche (from A Very Long Engagement). At the end of the day the Bible says…
January 3, 2008 at 12:42 am
mattyonke
Oh, come on now Matt. There is no way to argue that iconoclasm (or the toned down version of it that allows for images to exist, just not in any context of veneration or worship) is in accord with Church Tradition.
Or at least you’d have to redefine Church Tradition to mean “Views never upheld by the Church that lay dormant in the perspicuous teaching of the Scripture, which any blockhead could see if they’d just read it, till the reformation”.
If you do that, then yeah, it’s right in line with Church Tradition.
January 3, 2008 at 1:47 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Matt,
I agree Church tradition doesn’t agree with iconoclasm. But Remy’s Church tradition does. For Remy, all the rhetorical weight of “the Church believes…” is behind the iconoclast position. The Church that nourished Him, the Mother that gave him suck, the saints he knows and loves, all with one voice declare it is idolatry to bow before an image.
But I did accidentally cut off a last sentence (I had a long long post going, and decided it was better to just make peace and lay it aside) that said that I did find his more recent arguments a little thin.
Matt
January 3, 2008 at 4:43 am
Remy
Dave, I agree that you should probably back off the internet thing for a while.
Guido, I know you believe in a monolithic frozen church tradition but I’ve read too much history to pretend that this is as simplistic as you make it.
Matthew, a little thin? Well since the thick ones were getting ignored I thought I’d ease up.
This isn’t an iconoclastic position, I know it’s a simple term and I know sloganizing and truncating makes arguments easier, but it gets us nowhere. I’ve presented several challenges but if you don’t want to answer them that’s your business.
It’s been a while, but I have read St. John. I’ll have to refresh myself, but if I remember correctly, he defends icons by saying the Bible doesn’t forbid worshiping through created things, but worshiping demons. This isn’t what is going on in the Golden Calf incident. They worship YHWH, they just do it improperly. That’s my contention. For me to say that someone in the Church was wrong gets some people riled, calling me uber-rationalistically-gnostic-arrogant. Ah well, let it be remembered that I mentioned Britney Spears and Dave mentioned St. John of Damascus.
January 3, 2008 at 4:51 am
Remy
But this gets me to another point I’ve been sitting on with regards to Tradition. Guido has numerous times presented things in the black/white either FOR Tradition or AGAINST Tradition. You get a similar dichotomy when you talk about Patriotism. Romanism is a “My Country Right or Wrong” but they add onto it “But My Country is Always Right”. The otherside is presented as saying -if I may be grossly allowed to mix my metaphors- “The Bible is Right and I Don’t Care What Tradition Says”.
I am neither. I believe in Sola Scriptura, but not Solo Scriptura, meaning I have a high regard for Tradition, but the Scripture is the anchor and theology is done over the course of centuries amongst a community. What this means is that tradition can grow.
Growth in the Roman church means stacking new stuff on the old, but that’s not growth. Growth in some Protestant circles may mean sweeping aside the old and restacking, but that isn’t growth either. Growth in a child is all encompassing, incorporating, expanding, abandoning, changing. The only thing that grows like the Romanist church is presented as growing is a trashpile, and even that rots at the bottom
(For the score: No, I do not think that the Roman church is a trashpile. Honestly, I see the Roman church moving albeit very very slowly, which is why I call her frozen. I would offer the image of an enormous block of ice, but the idea of changing is repugnant to Romanists so I will still be abused for thinking this).
Most of what I know about the incarnation has been drawn from Augustine and Athanasius so appeals to tradition carry weight with me, but not because they come from the church’s past, but because they reveal the Scripture.
Anyway, if we all want to beg off from this discussion that’s fine with me. Lordbless.
January 3, 2008 at 5:24 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Remy,
I’ll try and answer the questions about bowing before trees, and the golden calf.
First, just to clarify, it isn’t a problem to bow before a tree any more than it is a problem to bow before the chair infront of me in church. It is a problem for me to bow before a tree and worship the tree as Yahveh.
This distinction may seem trivial, but it gets at something important. It is wrong for me to bow before an image and worship the image as God. The problem is that no one worships an image as God. Just as when people rever an image of something secular the reverence for the image is actually reverence for the one imaged; so people recognize an image of Christ to be just what it appears to be, an image of Christ, and bowing before the image worship the one imaged as God.
Why was it wrong to worship the Golden Calf? Well, as I have said, repeatedly, as the Bibe itself says, the problem with images in the Old Covenant was that the relationship with God was not a visual one, but an aural one. But our relation with God is now, at least in part visual. Something fundamental changed in the incarnation! Yahveh is not a cow-god. Christ is Yahveh. The Son of Mary is Yahveh. It was wrong to worship the cow because that wasn’t Yahveh. I have gone over this two or three times. I have answered that objection.
January 3, 2008 at 5:34 am
Matthew N. Petersen
I’m not at all understanding your “Christ said he was a rock” this is the example Calvinists use when people point say that the bread was the body of Christ. You aren’t saying that rocks are Christ are you?
Or maybe you are equivocating on “image.”
Rocks can be symbols of Christ, but they aren’t pictures of Christ. People may kneel before pictures of a monarch, (incidentally, this is why we have icons, because people bowed before the image of the emperor, and so how much more should they bow before the image of the true emperor), but just because a monarch says “I am the rock on which the state is built” doesn’t mean people should go around bowing before rocks.
Again, the pecular nature of pictures is seen in this: if I pee on a rock, nothing is wrong. If I pee on a picture of you, I am mocking you. Likewise, if I pee on a picture of Christ, I’m mocking Christ. Things done to the image are not just done to the image, but to the one imaged.
January 3, 2008 at 6:59 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Three posts,
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you. You’re asking what’s the problem with using rocks as images of Christ, and bowing before the rock, while thinking of it as an image of Christ.
To answer this, lets instead of considering veneration of rocks, lets consider desecration of rocks. And just for the sake of example, lets consider flowers, not rocks.
John is off stroling through the woods, and really needs to pee. He sees a bed of daisies, heads over, and relives himself. Obviously there is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
But lets say John just went through a bitter divorce. His wife really liked daisies, and he used to bring her bouquets of daisies. He’s walking through the wood, sees a bed of daisies, and as a way of spitting on his wife, goes over and pisses on the daisies. Now, if there isn’t something wrong with his action, he certianly is being disrespectful toward his ex-wife.
Now, returning to rocks, consider some Hereclitean philosopher walking through the woods, cursing the rocks for their permanence. Suddenly he calls to mind “you know what, I really hate these rocks, but the one I really hate is Christ, the rock.” So he whips it out, and pisses all over the rocks. His otherwise innocent action of relieving himself has suddenly become sacrelidge.
On that note, consider someone absolutely devestated by death and the impermenance of this life. Solomon’s words “vapor of vapors, all is vapor” has just been strongly impressed upon him. He is walking along ocean cliffs, watching the waves break on the rocks. “Yeah damn rocks, you think you’re all special and will endure forever, but you shall die. Those waves will eat you and turn you into dust. You are absolutely nothing.” But then it is as if a small soft voice whispers in his ear “I am the rock.” And he falls down in awe before the Rock who never erodes, all the while gazing at the rocks before him. Their very impermanence is suddenly a counter-point to Christ, and their visual and temporary permanence a perfect image of Christ. He cannot take his eyes from the rocks, for that is, for him, to look from the true Rock he sees in them. And so he gazes at the rocks, worshiping Christ through the rocks.
I don’t have any problem with this last guy. And I think I would expand it further. “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” I don’t have any problem falling down in worship before the grandeur of God when It flames out, like shining from shook foil” when “It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed.”
But I would have a problem with the manufacture of rocks as images of Christ. They aren’t transparent images. But pictoral depictions of Christ are transparent.
That we can worship God through created things is the message of Dante.
I don’t, in principal, have any more objection to worshiping God through Britney Spears or Wordsworth’s Nature than through Beatrice–or of wives submitting to their husbands as to Christ.
Consider this passage from George MacDonald, and the following passage from Wordsworth:
“The very element in which the mind of Wordsworth lived and moved was a
Christian pantheism. Allow me to explain the word. The poets of the Old
Testament speak of everything as being the work of God’s hand:–We are
the “work of his hand;” “The world was made by him.” But in the New
Testament there is a higher form used to express the relation in which
we stand to him–“We are his offspring;” not the work of his hand, but
the children that came forth from his heart. Our own poet Goldsmith,
with the high instinct of genius, speaks of God as having “loved us into
being.” Now I think this is not only true with regard to man, but true
likewise with regard to the world in which we live. This world is not
merely a thing which God hath made, subjecting it to laws; but it is an
expression of the thought, the feeling, the heart of God himself. And so
it must be; because, if man be the child of God, would he not feel to be
out of his element if he lived in a world which came, not from the heart
of God, but only from his hand? This Christian pantheism, this belief
that God is in everything, and showing himself in everything, has been
much brought to the light by the poets of the past generation, and has
its influence still, I hope, upon the poets of the present. We are not
satisfied that the world should be a proof and varying indication of the
intellect of God. That was how Paley viewed it. He taught us to believe
there is a God from the mechanism of the world. But, allowing all the
argument to be quite correct, what does it prove? A mechanical God, and
nothing more.
Let us go further; and, looking at beauty, believe that God is the first
of artists; that he has put beauty into nature, knowing how it will
affect us, and intending that it should so affect us; that he has
embodied his own grand thoughts thus that we might see them and be glad. Then, let us go further still, and believe that whatever we feel in the
highest moments of truth shining through beauty, whatever comes to our
souls as a power of life, is meant to be seen and felt by us, and to be
regarded not as the work of his hand, but as the flowing forth of his
heart, the flowing forth of his love of us, making us blessed in the
union of his heart and ours.
Now, Wordsworth is the high priest of nature thus regarded. He saw God
present everywhere; not always immediately, in his own form, it is true;
but whether he looked upon the awful mountain-peak, sky-encompassed with loveliness, or upon the face of a little child, which is as it were eyes
in the face of nature–in all things he felt the solemn presence of the
Divine Spirit. By Keats this presence was recognized only as the spirit
of beauty; to Wordsworth, God, as the Spirit of Truth, was manifested
through the forms of the external world.”
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn
January 3, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Matthew N. Petersen
Remy,
Feel free to reply, if you want to continue the discussion, I’m certianly game. I took one of your comments to Dave on Josh’s blog as saying “ok, I think we have had enoug of this discussion.”
And my comment that your arguments were thin was perhaps ill advised. In a second person it probably would have sounded better “I think it’s time to quit, I think your arguments are a little weak, but it’s probably time to move on sort of thing.”
January 3, 2008 at 8:41 pm
respect
dave its funny you say that about remy. A bunch of my friends were saying the same thing about you, that dont even join into these conversations, they just read through all of the commotion and were like, “did dave graduate highschool?” Its hilarious that you accuse others of having terrible arguements and what not, when yours are this way. I disagree with most people on this thing, but of everyone, you dodge issues, cop out, and make horrible arguements. If you get stumped on the holy scriptures, you decide to reference the pope as a legitimate authority. This is funny.
January 3, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Remy
Matthew, thank you for your response. I hope I didn’t come off as snippy in my last posts, upon reflection they look awfully snippy and I didn’t intend that.
A few things to explain my objections:
I’m not arguing that we ignore the world when we worship. If we do not see Christ in the world we are not seeing the world. It’s using certain things as if they were cell-phones to Jesus that I object to.
You present idols as if they believed that piece of wood or stone were the demon itself, but that isn’t the case. If you knocked one over no one would look at the rock thinking it’s about to rise up and smack you, they’d back up and look to the sky for the lightening bolt. Idols are treated the same way as icons: as cellphones to gods. By dropping the 2nd Commandment (or the back-end of the 1st commandment if you’re Roman or Lutheran) you eradicate one of the distinctions between the True Faith and paganism. Paganism said you worship gods this way, YHWH said not until Jesus comes along.
So this is why I ask about trees and rocks. If you object to people treating trees and Britney Spears like icons of Christ because they don’t look “Jesus” (as if a picture painted 2000 or -heck- 100 years after Christ looks like Him) you are just practicing naive realism. You’ve said about icons, “Oh, nobody would think Jesus is paper and paint” right, so no one would think Jesus is a tree or a defrauded pop star on her 16th minute. I don’t know where this “transparent” definition comes from, sounds gnostic; I’m sticking with Mouths that do not Speak, Ears that do not Hear and they be no gods which are made with human hands.
Those are what have been considered “thin” arguments. Okay. Thick arguments include that icons are either gnostic or docetic. Like I said, the problem is not seeing Christ in the world, it’s not seeing Him enough. Icons draw you away from this world, when you are putting your burdens on St. Christopher you aren’t putting them on your flesh and blood neighbor, because it is easier, faster, less messy, and St. Christopher can’t tell you that you’re being a putz and selfish. Your neighbor can. Also in St. Paul’s admonition to bear each other’s burdens the grammar is a little ambiguous, meaning the benefit goes both ways, it is beneficial to be prayed for, but it is also beneficial to pray for someone. To think that your burdens are too big for little ole Jim Beameye and therefore you need a heavy-hitter like St. Chris is selfish.
To use icons of Jesus in worship puts Jesus in one place. Christ is naked down the street, He’s hungry next to you, He’s sick behind you, but hey, you lit a candle in front of a picture of Him. Nice.
Now I know that just because you use icons does not mean you skip ministering to the Body, but icons make the emphasis backwards. We are commanded to see Christ in the body and nowhere are we commanded to see Christ in pictures, but when you sit down to worship where is Christ? Oh, He’s up there on that table. That’s the cell-phone, it’s been blessed. No, we can’t get that kind of reception through Tommy Speckles. He fidgets when I pray through him, he’s kinda burpy too, he’s not transparent enough. He draws my attention from emailing myself into heaven. Yeah sure we’re in the presence of Jesus, but the cardboard cut-out of Him helps us focus, kinda like marijuana, but you know, not illegal. Blue eyes? Sure, He coulda had blue eyes…Whazzat? Oh, He definitely had those rocking abs, the man was a carpenter.
Heh, okay, I better stop before I bring out a certain comparison between icons and a certain unnatural barrier. I am content to let this thread mercifully slide off into the lithosphere of molten images.
Lordbless.
January 4, 2008 at 2:06 am
Matthew N. Petersen
Remy
If I may make just a couple quick clarrifications:
First, by “transparent image” I don’t think I’m inventing something. Some things are images necessarialy. When you see “Jesus” you don’t think about the word “Jesus” you think about the person. When you see a red octagonal sign, you think “stop”, you don’t have to put in the step “this is an image commanding me to stop.” The image itself is transparent, and we see only the thing imaged (albeit in the manner imaged).
On the other hand some images are not so transparent. You can look at flowers and think of your wife–flowers can image your wife–and if there is a strong association between flowers and your wife, this may be very easy. But a flower can be just a flower.
I think there is philosophical discussion along these lines, though I probably have the jargon wrong.
Second, by “looks like” I didn’t quite mean is a photo representation of. In theory, I could draw a picture of Lothlorien, and you could say “that doesn’t look like Lothlorien.” I could draw a picture of Mr. Darcy, and you could say “no, that’s not Mr. Darcy, that looks more like Mr. Wickham.” One of my objections to the movies versions of LOTR is that Elrond doesn’t look like Elrond.
By “looks like” I meant it in this way. I think a black Jesus can look like Jesus. I think a blond Jesus can look like Jesus. And I think a Jewish Jesus can fail to look like Jesus. The problem I have with the golden calf is 1) it doesn’t look like God. God isn’t a cow-god. It was like painting a picture of Jesus as a robber baron. 2) It was dissatisfaction with the One speaking from the mountian, and an attempt to seize by violence what God would give by grace. It was like the rape of Tamar–he should have just asked David, and surely he would have consented. It would have been like Christ summoning leigons of angels. 3) The Old Covenant was a covenant of hearing and submitting to a school master, the New of seeing and talking face to face with a brother.
And I wasn’t offended.
In Christ,
Matt
January 4, 2008 at 3:51 am
Remy
Cheers.
January 9, 2008 at 1:59 am
andy martin
Hey, these are fun!
http://www.wondericons.com/