A Boomer in the Pew

My New Resolution and Understanding of the Proper Use of Images and Figures

"Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee", 1633, by Rembrandt. 

This post is part of my year long study of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  To facilitate this course of study, I am following along with Princeton Theological Seminary's  "A Year with the Institutes", which also includes an audio reading of the text.

Calvin's Institutes:  1.11.4-16

Having now finished with Calvin's polemic on the use of images, and/or figures, it seems that I now have a new persuasion. 

Let me first share Calvin's paragraph, which tidied up my thinking on this matter:  "And yet I am not gripped by the superstition of thinking absolutely no images permissible. But because sculpture and painting are gifts of God, I seek a pure and legitimate use of each, lest those things which the Lord has conferred upon us for his glory and our good be not only polluted by perverse misuse but also turned to our destruction. We believe it wrong that God should be represented by a visible appearance, because he himself has forbidden it [Ex. 20:4] and it cannot be done without some defacing of his glory. And lest they think us alone in this opinion, those who concern themselves with their writings will find that all well-balanced writers have always disapproved of it. If it is not right to represent God by a physical likeness, much less will we be allowed to worship it as God, or God in it. Therefore it remains that only those things are to be sculptured or painted which the eyes are capable of seeing: let not God's majesty, which is far above the perception of the eyes, be debased through unseemly representations. Within this class some are histories and events, some are images and forms of bodies without any depicting of past events. The former have some use in teaching or admonition; as for the latter, I do not see what they can afford other than pleasure. And yet it is clear that almost all the images that until now have stood in churches were of this sort. From this, one may judge that these images had been called forth not out of judgment or selection but of foolish and thoughtless craving. I am not saying how wickedly and indecently the greater part of them have been fashioned, how licentiously the painters and sculptors have played the wanton here-a matter that I touched upon a little earlier. I only say that even if the use of images contained nothing evil, it still has no value for teaching."

Resolved:

• It is an affront to God to represent him in any visible fashion.
• Visible representations of Christ, and the Holy Spirit by themselves, serve no purpose and furthermore lend themselves towards idolatry.
• Visible representations of Christ, and the Holy Spirit engaged in historical settings, are valuable for teaching and admonition.

I appreciate Calvin's thinking on this matter.  There was a significant amount of digging to do, through his diatribe against the behavior of the papists, nonetheless, his message seems clear to me, and has a ring of truth.

Monster 8 ft. rattlesnake destroys my camping plans

I have been trying to get my wife to do some camping ever since we moved to Arizona.  I am afraid that my grand plans are now irreconcilably dashed!

Thanks a lot Craig Benham!  Why did you show this to my wife, you poop!

Every figurative representation of God contradicts his being - John Calvin

 "Pieta", c 1499, by Michelangelo

This post is part of my year long study of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  To facilitate this course of study, I am following along with Princeton Theological Seminary's  "A Year with the Institutes", which also includes an audio reading of the text.

Calvin's Institutes:  1.11.3

Deuteronomy 4:15-19 - “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. 19 And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven."

Isaiah 40:18-19 - "To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?
19 An idol! A craftsman casts it,
and casts for it silver chains."

Calvin continues his polemic of idolatry, with the condemnation of figurative representations of God:

"We see how openly God speaks against all images, that we may know that all who seek visible forms of God depart from him. Of the prophets it is enough to cite only Isaiah, who is most emphatic in presenting this. He teaches that God's majesty is sullied by an unfitting and absurd fiction, when the incorporeal is made to resemble corporeal matter, the invisible a visible likeness, the spirit an inanimate object, the immeasurable a puny bit of wood, stone, or gold."

and this:

"From this it is clear that every statue man erects, or every image he paints to represent God, simply displeases God as something dishonorable to his majesty."

My thoughts thus far:

• It seems that all of Calvin's Scriptural arguments are in fact talking about idolatry, and not specifically about a sculpture that might be created.  Notice also that the verses in Deuteronomy are given to be us as, "watch yourself" and "beware". 
• Perhaps, as this section of Calvin's treatise is specifically about God (as he has yet to introduce Christ), Calvin's objection to images, and/or figures is specifically to images and figures of God, and not intended to include Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  The Bible does give us specific visual representations of both of these members of the holy Trinity.
• I continue to be persuaded that as God has not given us to specifically see him, and that as such, anything we create would indeed diminish his holiness, that perhaps any such desires to represent God, in the material, is a wrong desire.  God is spirit, how can we reduce him to the corporal?
• In regards to my above example of Christ, in Michelangelo's Pieta, all must be careful not to pray to such sculptures, as some are inclined to do.  But as Christ was given to the corporal, it would seem that to represent him as such, is appropriate and perhaps even beneficial to us.  Again, with the strict warning not to give ourselves into idolatry, by giving the sculpture more due than a mere representation of a historical event and/or person.

These are my thoughts thus far, what think ye?

Thank You RSS Feed Subscribers!

Writing a successful blog is very much a labor of love in the beginning. 

If you read my Blog's Mission Statement, you will see that this labor really is one of love.

It has not gone without notice that my RSS Feed subscribers have been flirting with 80, in the past few days. 

It has taken nearly 9 months to get to 40 subscribers, and as you can see, this has doubled in the last three months or so, to 80.  I suppose this is very typical of every enterprise.

Anyway, I want to thank those of you who are reading my material from an RSS Feed.  RSS Feed subscribers are the most loyal, the most likely to interact, and the foundation of this type of enterprise.

While I am busy thanking you, may I ask you one simple favor?  Would you mind referring this blog to one friend today?  Perhaps we can double again, to 160 RSS Feed subscribers in only the next two months?

In this way, you might help me fulfill my 4th resolution:

Resolved:  to communicate in a manner so transparent, that it may be possible for others to see and find Christ through me.

Thank you!

Do some Roman Catholics worship statues?

"Statue of St. Peter", from my personal collection, taken in Rome, at St. Peter's Basilica.

This post is part of my year long study of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  To facilitate this course of study, I am following along with Princeton Theological Seminary's  "A Year with the Institutes", which also includes an audio reading of the text.

Calvin's Institutes:  1.11.2

In further contemplating John Calvin's concerns with images, and figurative representations, I can certainly understand, and completely agree with many of his concerns. 

Here is a photograph that I shot in the heart of the Roman Catholic Church, at St. Peter's Basilica. 

This bronze statue, of the Apostle Peter, clearly has significant value assigned to it beyond a piece of art representing a possible likeliness of Peter.

While we were in the basilica, hundreds of people were lined up to rub the foot of St. Peter.  In so doing, the "faithful" believed that this would bring them good luck, while some believed that this might preclude St. Peter to open the "pearly gates" to let them in, when they die.  Here are many examples from flickr.

First of all, let me be clear, I had no interest in rubbing the foot of this statue.  Why would I, unless I was willing to assign it some value beyond its bronze?

Herein, lies the rub!  Hah Hah!  No pun intended...well...maybe some intention given to the pun.

It would seem to me, that this statue, in and of itself, is not an idol.  However, the behavior of thousands of people each day, do in fact, seem to elevate it to such a thing.

Therefore, if Rome were to call me today, and offer me this statue, free of charge, I would deny the thing.  Millions have touched, prayed to, hoped through, and perhaps even worshiped this thing.  What would I have to do with it, but throw it into the deepest sea!

So, here I stand clearly with Calvin.  This, in my opinion, is clearly people placing hope, faith, trust, or something in an inanimate object, instead of solely and clearly in the one, true, and holy God.

To this, I am certain that God is angry.

Pictorial Representations of God are Forbidden - John Calvin

"The Creation of Adam", c 1511, by Michelangelo.

This post is part of my year long study of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  To facilitate this course of study, I am following along with Princeton University's "A Year with the Institutes", which also includes an audio reading of the text.

Calvin's Institutes:  1.11.1

Calvin is of the very strong persuasion that any pictorial representation of God is strictly forbidden by God.  Not sharing his staunch conviction, I am going to slow down during his argument, so that I might not miss something that God would have me understand of his will.

Calvin:

"But as Scripture, having regard for men's rude and stupid wit, customarily speaks in the manner of the common folk, where it would distinguish the true God from the false it particularly contrasts him with idols. It does this, not to approve what is more subtly and elegantly taught by the philosophers, but the better to expose the world's folly, nay, madness, in searching for God when all the while each one clings to his own speculations. Therefore, that exclusive definition, encountered everywhere, annihilates all the divinity that men fashion for themselves out of their own opinion: for God himself is the sole and proper witness of himself.

Meanwhile, since this brute stupidity gripped the whole world -to pant after visible figures of God, and thus to form gods of wood, stone, gold, silver, or other dead and corruptible matter- we must cling to this principle: God's glory is corrupted by an impious falsehood whenever any form is attached to him. Therefore in the law, after having claimed for himself alone the glory of deity, when he would teach what worship he approves or repudiates, God soon adds, "You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any likeness" [Ex. 20:4]. By these words he restrains our waywardness from trying to represent him by any visible image, and briefly enumerates all those forms by which superstition long ago began to turn his truth into falsehood."

Exodus 20:4-6 - 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments."

Please continue on for my thoughts...

Dr. Steve Lawson - God's Sovereignty Over America

Dr. Steve Lawson hits the nail squarely on the head, once again, in his continuing, must hear message, on God's Sovereignty Over America.

This time his message is on God's Sovereignty over America's spiritual life.

Here is the link.

Beware of Calvin Worship!

This post is part of my year long study of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  To facilitate this course of study, I am following along with Princeton University's "A Year with the Institutes", which also includes an audio reading of the text.

I have been involved with my study of John Calvin's Institutes for 28 days now.  In just that short amount of time, I become uneasy with a certain reverence prescribed to Calvin, by some, that borders on worship, or at the very least,  giving Calvin's words preference over the holy Scriptures.

I have also recently come across those who, it would seem, give more reverence to their doctrines, creeds, catechisms, and other imaginations of man.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with these things.  Where it becomes a problem, in my opinion, is when more time is allotted to, and more of ones life is fashioned by these words of man.

Nothing should replace, or come anywhere near replacing the holy scriptures, the Holy Spirit's work in helping us understand the scriptures, along with understandings of learned men like John Calvin.

When push comes to shove, however, I am going to side with the Scriptures over anything devised by man.

Calvin was not a perfect being.  Therefore, it is entirely likely that he missed the boat somewhere in his exhaustive Christian Institutes.

Let us all keep that in mind.

Before Christ, and apart from Israel, who is God?

detail:  "David with the Head of Goliath", c 1655, by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione.

This post is part of my year long study of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  To facilitate this course of study, I am following along with Princeton University's "A Year with the Institutes", which also includes an audio reading of the text.

Calvin's Institute:  1.10.1-3

To be completely forthright, I have struggled with the first two sections of this particular reading.  For some reason, the light bulb has not gone on.

In spite of that, I am pressing forward and will seek the enlightened mind(s) of some kind reader of this blog.

Calvin has thus far pointed out that the knowledge of God is clearly set forth in creation, and his creatures.  Furthermore, he has shown that the Scriptures makes this knowledge of God, far more "intimate and vivid".

Here he seems to ask, "Who is God, as revealed to us,  before Christ, and apart from Israel?"

Calvin:

"We, however, are still concerned with that knowledge which stops at the creation of the world, and does not mount up to Christ the Mediator. But even if it shall be worth-while a little later to cite certain passages from the New Testament, in which the power of God the Creator and of his providence in the preservation of the primal nature are proved, yet I wish to warn my readers what I now intend to do, lest they overleap the limits set for them. Finally, at present let it be enough to grasp how God, the Maker of heaven and earth, governs the universe founded by him. Indeed, both his fatherly goodness and his beneficently inclined will are repeatedly extolled; and examples of his severity are given, which show him to be the righteous avenger of evil deeds, especially where his forbearance toward the obstinate is of no effect."

then this:

"Indeed, in certain passages clearer descriptions are set forth for us, wherein his true appearance is exhibited, to be seen as in an image. For when Moses described the image, he obviously meant to tell briefly whatever was right for men to know about him." 

Exodus 34:6-7 - “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

"Here let us observe that his eternity and his self-existence are announced by that wonderful name twice repeated. Thereupon his powers are mentioned, by which he is shown to us not as he is in himself, but as he is toward us: so that this recognition of him consists more in living experience than in vain and high-flown speculation. Now we hear the same powers enumerated there that we have noted as shining in heaven and earth: kindness, goodness, mercy, justice, judgment, and truth."

Is Calvin saying that God is so holy, that we cannot look upon him, and furthermore, the only right way to imagine holy God is in his actions toward us, and not to attempt to imagine him as he is to himself?

Calvin concludes this section by making it clearly known that God, through the Scriptures "distinctly excludes and rejects all the gods of the heathen".

This section also brings to mind my further ignorance.  Where there any elect, outside of Israel, prior to Christ's first coming?  Furthermore, why does Calvin pose this view of God in this fashion?

I am all ears to any enlightened saint!

Will the Holy Spirit ever bring a message contrary to Scripture?

"Old Woman Reading a Bible", c 1630, by Gerrit Dou.

This post is part of my year long study of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  To facilitate this course of study, I am following along with Princeton University's "A Year with the Institutes", which also includes an audio reading of the text.

Calvin's Institutes:  1.9.1-3

John Calvin continues in his discourse about God's holy Scriptures.  Evidently, there were those who claimed that the Scriptures were old news, and that now the Holy Spirit was speaking, through them, a new message.

Calvin:  "Furthermore, those who, having forsaken Scripture, imagine some way or other of reaching God, ought to be thought of as not so much gripped by error as carried away with frenzy. For of late, certain giddy men have arisen who, with great haughtiness exalting the teaching office of the Spirit, despise all reading and laugh at the simplicity of those who, as they express it, still follow the dead and killing letter."

"...What devilish madness is it to pretend that the use of Scripture, which leads the children of God even to the final goal, is fleeting or temporal?"

"But in promising it, of what sort did he declare his Spirit would be? One that would speak not from himself but would suggest to and instill into their minds what he had handed on through the Word [John 16:13]. Therefore the Spirit, promised to us, has not the task of inventing new and unheard-of revelations, or of forging a new kind of doctrine, to lead us away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but of sealing our minds with that very doctrine which is commended by the gospel."

Calvin goes on to say that the Word, and the Holy Spirit,  belong inseparably together.  Furthermore,  the Holy Spirit is recognized by his agreement with the Scriptures.  The Holy Spirit wrote the Scriptures, through human means, and he is not going to disagree with himself.

So it would seem that nothing has changed.  Jesus struggled with man's improper motives, as did Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and still today, the church in the 21st century.

God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the holy Trinity,  will not conflict with themselves, and their message will never change.

To believe otherwise is either a great deception of Satan himself, or worse, a selfish pride deeply seated in the pits of hell.