Peter Kirk has posted a discussion of the Latin text Augustine was familiar with and its effect on his doctrine of original sin. The claim is, effectively, this: Augustine believed in the doctrine of original guilt because of an ambiguity introduced by an excessively literal Latin Bible which persists in the Vulgate and later theologians have a propensity to read original guilt into the text of Scripture because Augustine did. The passage in question is the end of Romans 5:12. The English translations are pretty much all the same: "in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned." But Augustine's translation says "in whom all sinned." The English translations are certainly more accurate. It is true, however, that many theologians, following Augustine, have claimed that everyone sinned in Adam. For instance, Michael Rea's paper "The Metaphysics of Original Sin" (which I highly recommend, if for no other reason than because it's fun) discusses several Western accounts of original sin and finds it necessary to examine various accounts of personal identity, since some of these theories require that we actually each be identical with Adam at the time of his first sin, and not identical with him at his second sin, i.e. that in Adam's eating of the fruit we literally all sin in him.
Now, in the comments, Jeremy and others argue, and Peter concedes, that no contemporary Protestant theologian actually makes the argument Augustine makes and, in fact, have other arguments for this conclusion, but Peter nevertheless (plausibly) claims that we tend to be more inclined to accept this view because of Augustine's influence on the tradition.
Peter's claim is supported by the fact that in the Christian East, where Augustine's influence is considerably less (though he is still a canonized saint), theologians have generally accepted original sin while denying original guilt, which, if I read him correctly, is also Peter's view. I have been told that this view was also held by John Wesley who got it from the various Eastern Christian writers he read (he was particularly fond of the Macarian Homilies). The view is this: because of Adam's sin, human nature is corrupted so that none of us is able not to sin (Romans 3:23); however, contra Augustine, we are held guilty only for our own particular acts of sin (which we all necessarily commit due to the corruption of our natures) and not for Adam's sin.
Now, I see the doctrine of original sin as very strongly supported by Scripture, whereas I think the doctrine of original guilt is something that comes primarily out of systematic theology rather than the clear teaching of specific passages of Scripture. (Augustine, of course, had a specific passage teaching this view in his Bible, but that was due to a misleading translation.) In fact, Romans 5:12 seems rather supportive of the original-sin-without-original-guilt view under consideration as against the Augustinian view. For the record, I regard both views as plausible and orthodox, provided that those who deny original guilt make strong enough claims about depravity.
Throughout Romans 5, Paul sets up a parallel between Adam and Christ, the new Adam. "if by the one man's trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift overflowed to the many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ ... from one sin came the judgment, resulting in condemnation, but from the many trespasses came the gift, resulting in justification." (vv. 15 and 16) And the correspondance is real: indeed, there is a theological debate directly parallel to the debate about original guilt, and this is the debate about imputation of righteousness. "To impute" is a King James term for the Greek logizomai which can mean "to charge to one's account" (the word at Romans 5:13 is ellogeo, a cognate that means just exactly and only "to charge to one's account", whereas logizomai is a broader term and can also mean "to reckon," "to add up," "to consider," "to think," etc.). The doctrine of imputation of righteousness says that we are credited ("to credit" is a good translation of logizomai when used with a positive connotaton in some contexts) with Christ's righteousness; that is, in judging us, God considers Christ's righteous life as if it were ours and so acquits ("justifies" - Greek dikaioo) us, rather than condemning us for our sins.
(A brief note on this word: "justified" is often glossed as "declared righteous," and that's not so bad, except that "righteous" is also a technical theological term, and is also originally a legal term in the Greek, and we don't necessarily know what it means. To be righteous is to be on the right side of the law. To be justified means to have a judicial declaration state that you owe no (further) civil or criminal penalty. This can mean one of two things: either you have been found innocent or the penalty has been paid in full and you can now be released. I've used the translation "acquitted," which is footnoted in the HCSB, because it is easy to understand in this context, but I think Paul plays on the broader semantic range of the Greek word: on the one hand, we are acquitted because of Christ's innocence, but on the other hand, we were guilty and Christ paid our penalty for us. I think these are two different metaphors that Paul intentionally merges in his overally view of "justification.")
While Paul speaks of God "imputing" (or, rather, not imputing) sin in several places, the only talk of "imputing" righteousness in the New Testament centers around Genesis 15:6, which uses that wording in the Septuagint. The longest such discussion is Romans 4, immediately before our passage. This verse, as quoted by Paul at Romans 4:3, reads "But Abraham trusted God, and it was counted toward his [being] on the right side of the law" (my translation - traditionally, "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness"). At 4:24-25, Paul connects this back to us and to Christ: "[Our trust] is about to be counted in our [favor], since we place our trust in the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. [Jesus] was betrayed on account of our violations [of God's law] and raised on account of the full payment of our penalty [or 'on account of our acquittal']." (With the traditional theological vocabulary: "[Our faith] is about to be imputed to us [as righteousness], since we have faith in the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. [Jesus] was betrayed on account of our transgressions and raised on account of our justification.")
This, as I said, leads directly into Romans 5, the first verse of which says, "Therefore, since our penalty has been declared 'paid in full' because we have trusted him [lit. 'from trust' or 'because of trust'], we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Side note: I'm beginning to understand why translators use the traditional theological vocabulary - translating into plain English is hard work, and I'm not sure I'm even succeeding!) The traditional Protestant view can be seen as a pretty straightforward inference from this passage: because we trust in Christ's rigtheousness rather than our own, God judges us on the basis of Christ's righteousness, rather than on the basis of our own. There is a lot of Biblical support for this kind of idea, especially in the prophetic books, often with the metaphor of clothing (e.g. Isaiah 61:10, 64:6, Zechariah 3) - I have no intention of tracking down every passage to this effect, because there are a lot of them. In fact, I think this is strongly enough supported that the parallel to imputation of righteousness can be used as an argument in favor of original guilt! Nevertheless, it remains an inference from the text, rather than the immediate teaching of the text. The immediate teaching of the text is something more vague and general, as original sin is more vague and general than original guilt. The text teaches that Adam's sin brought sin and death into the world for everyone, and Christ's righteousness brings life, peace, and justification into the world for everyone who believes.
As this is an inference, there is room for a view parallel to the original-sin-without-original-guilt view: the Christ's-righteousness-without-imputation view which, if I understand this article correctly, may be the view of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The author says "For a Christian, the beginning of eternal-life is the beginning of his belief in Jesus Christ. For him a promise has been given, a reward for eternity because, 'Who soever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die' (John 11:26)." Later he also says, "Repentance is the exercise of the free will of man, without which there is no salvation ... Repentance is ... the human reaction to the appeal of Jesus Christ." Christ, his righteous life and sacrificial death, his promise, and our trust in him are thus all seen as essential ingredients in salvation. Later, however, judgment is said to be according to "faith and deeds on earth" and reference is made to "the moral progress of the soul." Now, this is admittedly a little vague, and I'm going to interpret it charitably, keeping in mind that the Orthodox theologians who say these things intend them to be compatible with Scripture, including Romans. What could this possibly mean that would be compatible? Well, first we note that repentance and faith are seen as the beginning of this process - no good deed or "moral progress" occurring before this can please God in such a way as to acheive salvation - and that repentance is seen as a "reaction to the appeal of Jesus Christ." We further note that Pelagianism - the view that man is capable of initiating and/or accomplishing his own salvation - is regarded as a heresy in the East just as in the West. The story of salvation begins with "the appeal of Jesus Christ." Only after Christ makes his appeal to us can there be good deeds and "moral progress." We can then understand this Christ's-righteousness-without-imputation view by comparison with the original-sin-without-original-guilt view. Remember that because of Romans 5 we ought to say that we have Christ's righteousness in the same way we once had Adam's sin. As a result of Adam's sin, "death spread to all men because all sinned." We now claim that because of Christ's righteousness life can spread to all who believe, because all can live righteous lives. After repentance and the new birth, the believer can say "I have been crucified with Christ; and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." (Galatians 2:19-20) Christ in the believer now does what the believer could not do for himself - lives the life pleasing to God. On account of this life, the believer is judged to be righteous and acquitted of his sin. (Everyone who has begun the process - who has repented and believed - counts as "saved" in the Evangelical sense of that term. The Orthodox writer combines the "Great White Throne" judgment by which one enters heaven [Revelation 20:11-15] with the bema judgment for the heavenly reward [2 Corinthians 5:10].)
Now, what this theory needs, which is not mentioned in the article I linked, is an account of atonement. I don't necessarily mean penal substitution - I regard the doctrine of the atonement as an essential point of orthdoxy, but penal substitution as a probably correct but certainly incomplete account of the atonement. If this theory is to work, we cannot claim simply that the believer is "a new creation ... the new things have come;" we must also claim that "old things have passed away" (2 Corinthians 5:17), and the clear Biblical teaching is that, one way or another, it is the death of Christ that takes away our old sins (Romans 6:1-11, Ephesians 2:14-16, etc.).
By way of conclusion, let me say that I regard the traditional Protestant view as solidly Biblically and historically orthodox, whereas the view that I've been sketching here I say might be made to be both plausible and orthodox if sufficiently strong pictures of depravity and atonement can be annexed to it. This is far from an endorsement of this theory, but I present it for your consideration in the hope that it will cause you to reexamine your assumptions and think through the Biblical and rational grounds of your beliefs. Good luck!
Some time ago, I posted on icons and discussed my attempt to understand the difference between what Catholic and Orthodox believers call "relative worship" or "veneration" and the "true worship" which belongs to God alone. I mostly failed to understand any real difference here.
Today, I did something I should have done a long time ago: I read the decree of the Second Council of Nicea (the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which reinstated the veneration of icons). I found something interesting. In the Greek, the council makes a distinction between veneration and worship, as is to be expected. However, the words used are the Greek proskuneo for "venerate" and latreuo for "worship". The words are used together in Scripture in both Matthew 4:10 and Luke 4:8, which are identical quotations of Deuteronomy 6:13: "You shall worship [proskuneo] the Lord your God and him only shall you serve [latreuo." It's interesting that both Matthew and Luke use the word proskuneo (whose meaning we shall discuss below), when the Septuagint uses phobeomai which means "fear" (the verse is otherwise identical).
So what does proskuneo mean? Well, in Homeric and Classical Greek it usually refers to making obeisance to a king (in Attic, usually the King of Persia - the Greeks, especially the Athenians, prided themselves on the fact that they didn't make obeisance to kings like slaves). It can refer to any of various reverential acts, most commonly falling prostrate on the ground. Now this is just etymology - the Second Council of Nicea was in the 8th century, some 1200 years after the classical period. However, the word probably became a technical term with a pretty crystalized definition at least a few centuries earlier. In the New Testament and the ante-Nicene Fathers (that is, the period from the beginning of Christianity to AD 325) according to BDAG it means "(fall down and) worship, do obeisance to, prostrate oneself before, do reverence to, welcome respectfully." Examples are given of uses regarding human beings who are recognized as "belonging to a superhuman realm," kings, God or gods, idols, the devel or Satanic beings, and Jesus. It seems to have a religious overtone of sorts.
Philip Schaff's Introduction to the Seventh Ecumenical Council seems to imply that the word was in use with regard to the honor paid to the Byzantine Emperor. He remarks that "The council decreed that similar veneration and honour should be paid to the representations of the Lord and of the Saints as was accustomed to be paid to the 'laurata' and tablets representing the Christian emperors, to wit, that they should be bowed to, and saluted with kisses, and attended with lights and the offering of incense." Later he also says, "To those accustomed to kiss the earth on which the Emperor had trodden, it would be natural to kiss the feet of the image of the King of Kings. The same is manifestly true of any outward acts whatever, such as bowing, kneeling, burning of lights, and offering of incense."
Now, here's the point, and it's a good one: if you perform some act of reverence to the emperor, then why not to the saints? And if to the symbol of the emperor, why not to the symbols of the saints? And if to the saints and their symbols, how much more to God and his symbols, whether these are the cross and the Bible (the two most important icons in Orthodoxy) or paintings seeking to represent Christ according to his humanity. This sounds good, but it leaves me with three questions: (1) is the treatment of the emperor and his symbols idolatry to begin with? If it is, the whole argument will collapse. (2) Can one still apply this as an American who is not accustomed to making obeisance to anyone? (3) Is this actually the doctrine and practice of the Eastern Orthodox Church today? I'm going to answer these questions as "maybe", "yes", and "no", respectively.
Regarding question (1), it is not at all clear to me, but I would be very uncomfortable with undue reverence being shown to a ruler. On the other hand, it is not clear to what degree my discomfort is based on my biases as a Protestant or my biases as an American and to what degree it is based on my faith as a Christian. In any case, it is clear that it is possible to pay excessive reverence to political leaders and symbols so that this becomes idolatry, and many Christians were executed prior to Constantine for refusing to burn incense (or whatever) before the image of the Pagan emperor. Is the case with the Christian emperor so much different? Nevertheless, as I shall discuss next, we do appropriately give reverence and respect to political leaders and symbols in ways that are clearly not idolatrous, so the argument must in some degree be successful.
Regarding question (2), it is indeed true that Americans are not accustomed to paying obeisance to anyone. If you meet the President, you shake his hand and call him "Mr. President" - not "your highness" or "your excellency." They say that people used to bow to George Washington, but that's been a while back. However, there is a political object to which many Americans do give a kind of reverence: the flag. There is a complex etiquette, not enforced by legal penalties, but frequently followed nonetheless, about respecting the flag. Flags are not to be thrown away, but rather "retired." A flag is not supposed to touch the ground, and if it does it is to be retired immediately. Flags are retired by ceremonially burning them, and the burning is to be carried out by certain specified groups (I believe the only groups are military units and boy scout troops). The flag is folded a particular way, and hoisted on a pole ceremonially in a particular way. There are varying degrees of ceremony depending on what group you are in. I believe regulations do require that government departments treat flags in this way.
Honoring the flag is a way of honoring the country and the ideals it stands for. People have different ideas about what those ideals might be, but they people with many different political stances honor those ideals by honoring the flag.
My conclusion is that we American Protestants ought to treat the Bible, the cross, and perhaps also any images of Jesus or the saints we might have (we tend not to have them, but let that go) with at least the degree of reverence and honor with which we treat the flag. We ought, in fact, to treat the Bible and the cross with the very highest degree of reverence and honor with whcih it is permissible to treat any material symbol - but we must continue to gaurd against idolatry.
With regard to question (3), I believe, as I have indicated above, that Eastern Orthodox Christians want to say something stronger than what I have just said. Here's twentieth century Russian Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov:
The veneration of the holy icons is based not merely on the nature of the subjects represented in them, but also on the faith in that gracious presence which the Church calls forth by the power of the sanctification of the icon. The rite of the blessing of the icon establishes a connection between the image and its prototype, between that which is represented and the representation itself. (The Orthodox Church, p. 163)
Finally, the icon has a liturgical function, it is a means of worship and veneration. This is one of its primary functions, more important than the first. Like sacred hymns and music, the icon is used as a means of worshipping God and venerating His saints. As such, it is essentially symbolic, leading the soul from the visible to the invisible, from the material to the spiritual, from the symbol to the prototype or original which it represents.
In sum, I conclude that it is quite proper to show great respect to objects which in any way represent or symbolize God or, to a lesser degree, the great saints of ages past, and likewise there is nothing wrong, per se, with having such objects, but this is not sufficient to justify the practice of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Now that everything is all wrapped up in a nice conclusion, I want to add two relevant points that I couldn't figure out how to fit into the main part but thought I should mention.
Firstly, there is a precedent for what I'm talking about in Judaism: the reason most Orthodox Jews will not write out the word 'God' (they typically write 'G-D' instead) is that when something has the word 'God' written on it it becomes a holy object and must be treated according to all sorts of rules for respect, much like the flag rules only more intense (I'm not familiar with the specifics).
Secondly, the word proskuneo is used in Revelation 19:10 where a voice (presumably of an angel?) instructs John not to 'venerate' him. His instruction, however, doesn't seem to be on the grounds that this would be idolatry, but rather on the grounds that he and John are to be regarded as equals: "I am a fellow slave with you and your brothers who have the testimony about Jesus." John is then instructed to 'venerate' God instead, "because the testimony about Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." (Whatever that means.) This verse does provide important considerations against the veneration of saints, I think, but not against the veneration of icons of Christ.
I have recently been participating in a little debate over at The God Fearin' Forum on some of the issues of Church history (primarily history of doctrine) that are significant to Protestant-Catholic (and Orthodox!) disagreements. I encourage you all to head over and read the debate so far, and perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I will jump in! Later today (if I have a chance) I'm hoping to get a case put together for the historical foundations of Sola Scriptura (to show, contrary to GodFearinFiddler's claim, that this doctrine was around prior to the invention of the printing press). If anyone feels like beating me to the punch on that, consider yourself invited.
At the new blog Metaphysical Frameworks, Johnny-Dee (also of Fides Quaerens Intellectum fame) discusses the meaning of sola scriptura in its application to the practical methodology of Protestant theology. His suggestion is that "protestants consider the Bible to be like the Constitution, and the theological tradition to be like legal precedents from the Supreme Court." In other words, the determinations made by previous generations of Christians as to the teaching of Scripture are to be given great weight and not overturned lightly, but, ultimately, they are interpretations of Scripture and it is Scripture that is ultimately authoritative. Therefore, as much weight as they may be give, there are indeed cases where such traditions can be overturned.
I think this is, overall, an excellent interpretation of the sola scripture principle. However, I would like to point out one thing that Western Christians frequently miss due to our fixation on the Catholic-Protestant Scripture vs. tradition debates: at least the canon of Scripture, and probably also the idea of its inerrancy, are themselves extra-Biblical traditions. Perhaps we would like to say that it is an interesting theoretical property of the system of Protestant theology that all of its views can be derived from Scripture - and, indeed, it does seem that at least inerrancy can be so derived - but these are postulates which we, in practice, take prior to our study of Scripture, on the authority of tradition. What I here mean by tradition is not the particular interpretation of Tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church which I have argued for, but simply the literal, etymological meaning of the word: that which is handed down from one generation to the next. Ultimately, we believe in the canon on the authority of the Church; we believe it because we were told by people we believe to be in a position to know. This is even acknowledged by the Westminster Confession which, after stating in 1.4 that Scripture does not depend on the Church's testimony for its authority, nevertheless goes on in 1.5 to list the testimony of the Church as the first of the several means by which we know the truth of the Scripture. I will discuss this and its relation to the other means listed at greater length if I ever get around to writing the fourth part of my Why Believe the Bible? series, but the point for me is that I think it is highly unlikely that any of the other means would be likely to provide rational ground for belief in precisely the canon we have with no more and no fewer books.
The real point that I'm trying to make here is that the strict disjunction of Scripture and tradition in the West is not actually an accurate way of speaking, but is a product of a particular historical (and continuing) debate. It would be more accurate, I think, to view Scripture as the Constitution and tradition as the total legal system (of course, there is no legislative process in this analogy; only judicial intepretation of the Constitution).
I think Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians can agree on this picture; where we will disagree is on the degree of authority of various interpretations (as I understand it, the Orthodox tradition holds the seven ecumenical councils to be totally infallible, and anything contained in the liturgy to be as good as infallible for practical purposes).
My essay "Tradition as the Platonic Form of Christian Faith and Practice", which I posted on my writings page a few months ago, was published online today at the Sergius Bulgakov LiveJournal, a blog devoted to the 20th century Russian Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov, whom I cited in the essay. It looks like there are some other interesting materials up at the site as well. I reccomend checking it out.
Also, this seems like a good time to remind everyone that all of my writings on this site are released under Creative Commons licenses. There are different licenses for this blog, my old writings, and my new writings (see the pages for details), but all permit non-commercial verbatim copying with proper attribution, so if you see something you like, feel free to post copies elsewhere, or print them out and distribute them, or whatever else you feel like doing.
The other day I was walking through Plaka (a region of Athens) and I saw a really fantastic icon. It was a large picture of Christ clothed in a purple robe, prominently displaying his wounds. This is good already, but I did a double-take on the text: around the image it said, in Greek, "o nymphios tes ekklesias" - "the bride-groom of the Church." I was actually very moved by this depiction, and its connection of Christ's wounds with the marriage of the Church.
I can give a few other accounts like this, from having been in Greece, surrounded by icons for four months. Nevertheless, I retain my Protestant unease with the manner of their use in Orthodoxy, and I don't think that the distinction made between worship and 'veneration' is very meaningful in practice.
Now, Pastor Shaun of Postscript Posthaste has an article entitled "The New Iconoclasm" discussing an article in Christianity Today about a resurgence in the use of images in worship services and the communication of the gospel by Protestants. One pastor is quotes as saying "When we limit the gospel message to the written and spoken text, we short-circuit it. We truncate it … The soul is moved by more things than the word." Pastor Shaun objects, citing Romans 10:17, "belief comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God," but I don't think this necessarily invalidates the use of images as a mode of communication of the gospel. For instance, it is sometimes helpful to occupy the visual sense or imagination in worship in order to avoid distraction, as I occasionally, when I find myself becoming distracted in times of worship, attempt to visualize certain prophetic visions of God found in Scripture, such as Isaiah 6. So what's good about icons, and what's bad?
Well, first, I think that one of the most powerful things in the physical appearance of an Eastern Orthodox church that we are entirely missing in Protestantism is the profound feel of the eternal character of the true spiritual church. That is, when we come together to worship as a body, we are worshipping God in community with the WHOLE Church, past, present, and future, which is constituted "wherever two or three are gathered." Being surrounded by the icons of various historical saints reminds us that when we worship God in community in the Church we are worshipping in fellowship not only with those who are alive right now and physically present, but with St. Jeremiah the Prophet, and St. Paul, and St. John Chrysostom, and C.S. Lewis, and all of the other believers, past, present, and future. This works, and doesn't distract us from the worship of God provided we remember that we too are part of this community (the 'communion of saints' spoken of by the Apostle's Creed), and we worship with the saints, rather than worshipping the saints or attempting to somehow worship God through them (which is what the Orthodox say they do; I'll deal with that shortly).
Secondly, there is what has already been talking about: an image can indeed communicate the deep truths of Christianity. It is not the same as a text, and cannot - must not - replace the Bible or the spoken word, but it can nevertheless be effective. This is what Christianity Today talks about Protestants recovering: the idea that the use of images can help people who are 'visually driven thinkers' or whatever to understand what they might not get from words alone, because of their distinctive learning style, and it can give us a more well-rounded 'feel' for the message - that is, it can help the message penetrate deeper than the intellectual level. For these reasons and others, Orthodox and Catholic churches in antiquity and in the Byzantine/Medieval period used images and statues in their churches so that people who came in could see the message of Christianity, even if they were illiterate. This too is a good thing.
A third point, one that Orthodox theologians bring up frequently, is that making images of Jesus reminds us, quite simply, that we can make images of him: that is, that he did in fact take on a fully material body and became a physical thing that can be depicted. This is a core truth of Christianity. But it is impossible to depict the Father or the Holy Spirit (the icon of the Trinity in the Church across the street from my school notwithstanding - my Orthodoxy professor referred to this as 'degenerate' iconography; it's not technically allowed). In this sense, the iconoclast controversy was seen as fighting Gnosticism all over again, in that the iconodules (venerators of icons) charged their opponents with denying the material body of Christ (of course the iconoclasts vigorously denied this charge). The point is, however, that Jesus really did take on a physical, human form, and pictures of him remind us of this: we can look at a portrait of a human man and say "that is God." The New Testament does in fact say of Jesus, "he is the image [Gr. eikon] of the invisible God" (Collosians 1:15).
However, the idolatry charge needs to be addressed. The Orthodox assert that they 'venerate' rather than worship the icons. This means, they explain, that they worship God through the icons by bowing and crossing themselves in front of them, and burning candles and incense, and kissing the icons. The idea, as I understand it, is that the very material is sort of 'redeemed' and made holy, taking on, to some degree, the divine nature, so that we see the divine nature in the icon and worship the divine nature. This is more clear in the veneration of saints, as Peter does in fact say, "He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). The Bible itself, then, teaches that the saints (that is, all believers) become 'sharers' (in other translations, 'partakers') of the divine nature, and certainly we would think that this is perfected after death. The Orthodox, then, suppose that they can see the divine nature in a particular saint and worship the divine nature through that saint.
Now, the first problem I have with this is practical: it always, always, always slides imperceptibly into idolatry and syncretism. But this huge practical difficulty, it seems, arises from a relatively small theological error, which, I think, makes the whole thing rather insidious. Christianity does indeed teach the ultimate redemption of the material creation (Romans 8:19-24), and certainly 'redeemed' matter will reflect the divine nature, and redeemed human beings (such as the canonized saints) will be the clearest reflection of the image of God. I think that the error comes in simply in worshipping God's reflection here, which can never be the whole of God. We worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because each is the whole of God, so we are not guilty of worshipping only some one part of God in isolation when we worship on Person of the Trinity, but when one worships the reflection of God in the material creation - even if one successfully distinguishes this from the worship of the material creation - one worships a part of God at the expense of the whole. This is like worshipping Truth or Love. God is Truth, and God is Love, but Truth is not God, nor is Love, and when we worship God in pieces we are guilty of idolatry, because the true God is one single whole, and not a bunch of little pieces.
So then, we have three benefits to the devotional use of images, with one huge caveat. Is it possible to make use of images without falling into this trap? I think that it is. The Orthodox do, after all, view the cross and the Bible as icons, but Protestants insist that we are not committing idolatry, although we also make symbolic use of the cross and the Bible. Why should it be different with these? There are also often Bible scenes depicted on stained-glass windows of Protestant churches, surely these are not idols, nor are the banners often placed at the front of more liturgical Protestant churches to with symbols indicating where we are in the liturgical year.
Of course, the images being discussed by Christianity Today and Pastor Shaun are not quite like the Orthodox icons. We are simply talking there about using visual stimuli as part of worship and teaching. That's not a bad thing either, I think. Although we must be careful that worship doesn't become 'entertainment,' and even more careful not to slide imperceptibly into idolatry, I think that the it is possible to worship God with our sense of sight and with ability in the visual arts for those who have it, and to communicate the Christian message visually rather than merely verbally, and I think all of these things are good. So perhaps we ought to allow more images into our services, but let us be very, very careful.
"For tell me, if you saw any two persons, one naked, one having a garment, and then having stripped the one that had the garment, thou wert to clothe the naked, wouldest thou not have committed an injustice? It is surely plain to every one. But if when thou hast given all that thou hast taken to another, thou hast committed an injustice, and not shown mercy; when thou givest not even a small portion of what thou robbest, and callest the deed alms, what manner of punishment wilt thou not undergo?" - St. John Chryosostom (Patriarch of Constantinople, c. 388 AD) on tax-funded welfare programs (ok, so he was actually talking about Matthew 27:6). Full text available from CCEL.
I have just posted on my writings page a new essay, "Tradition as the 'Platonic Form' of Christian Faith and Practice in Orthodoxy." This served as my mid-term essay in my class on the Greek Orthodox Church here at DIKEMES in Athens where I am studying this semester. I have attached a short preface explaining the relationship of the views presented in my essay (realizing that the essay is supposed to explain the teaching of the Orthodox Church) to my actual beliefs and my reasons for deciding to publish the essay. Please post here with any comments or objections. If I edit the essay at any time in the future, I will document that here as well. The essay is located here.