So...about icons and images

My recent reflections on being an Augustinian High Church Protestant have me re-examining the role of icons.  The problem in the icon debates is whole worldviews, even ontologies, are wrapped up in the yes and no answers.  I'll try to deconstruct those and provide tentative answers.

• With the Tradition I agree that an Incarnation that can't be imaged is incoherent.  As long as Calvinists say "the divine nature can't be imaged," they will forever lose the debate.
• With some aspects of the Western Tradition and in line with Reformed sympathies, I reject veneration of icons.  God promised multi-generation curses for those who bow down to man-originated pesels. I understand Damascene's argument.  I just don't think it squares with Moses.
• I don't think having icons of biblical characters or even great saints on the church walls, provided they aren't worshiped, is a bad idea.  It is certainly a better idea than fluorescent lights and bright white walls (which C.S. Lewis cogently argued can itself be a form of idolatry).
• Even better, get rid of fluorescent lights altogether and use candles. It saves on the energy bills, doesn't generate migraines, isn't ugly as sin, and fits in with the general tradition of church aesthetics.

Preaching or Venerating the Numinous?

From Paul Ricoeur's Figuring the Sacred

Manifestation

The “numinous” element of the sacred has nothing to do with language (49).  Another key element is theophany–not moments in the biblical narrative, but anything by which the sacred shows itself (icons, relics, holy places).   This means that reality is something other than itself while remaining itself.

There is a correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm (54).  This brings to mind the Luciferian “as above, so below” dictum.  In short, ontologies of manifestation always focus on “reality/grace/etc” emanating from the thing or the place.

Proclamation

There is a rupture–violent in the case of the prophets’ war against Baalism–between manifestation and proclamation.  The word outweighs the numinous (56).  Israel’s whole theology–and identity–was formed around discourses.

Per idols and icons:  “We may say that within the Hebraic domain they (hierophanies) withdraw to the extent that instruction through Torah overcomes any manifestation through an image.  A Theology of the Name is opposed to any hierophany of an idol…Hearing the word has taken the place of vision of signs” (56).  God’s pesel is the Ten Words. It is the only pesel he commanded.

Liturgy Trap: Part Two

The Second Commandment

There is no problem with the actual act of bowing.  The problem is “to what do we people in the context of worship and liturgy?”  The second commandment is very clear that we are never to bow in giving veneration toward man-made objects (24).

The second commandment isn’t saying there should be no pictures of God (a point for another day), but that no image of anything can be set up as an avenue of worship to God and the court of heaven (24).

Only one pesel

Pesel is the Hebrew word for “carving.”  Jordan neatly takes the argument a step forward by pointing out that “there is another pesel in the Book of Exodus:  The Ten Words, which God carved with his own finger” (26).  “The opposition is between God’s content-filled graven Words and man’s silent graven images.”

God’s pesel is how he relates to us.  The relationship is verbal.  It is personal.  “It is God-initiated.”  Jordan comments, “When men set up a pesel it is always man-initiated” (27).  “The ‘veneration’ of man’s pesel is not a conversation with God, but prostration before a man-made object.”  This is the one objection even the most articulate anchorite cannot answer: is conversation–words–possible?

Anchorites love to counter that “Well, God commanded Israel to make various carvings.”  So he did. We say, however, “what is prohibited is the creation of a contact-point with God in the likeness of other creatures” (28).

Jordan makes an interesting observation:  nowhere in the Hebrew scriptures do we see God’s people condemned for making a picture of God.  Rather, they make up images of God and use them as mediators (29).

Application

“God initiates the mediation between himself and us, and He controls it” (29).  “God’s mediation is verbal…God’s mediation is his pesel, the Word.  Manmade mediators are images.”

Jordan concludes the chapter with a reflection on God’s 4th generation curse on image-worshipers.