Doing evil that good may result

The gunmen have devastated this Christian monastery, taken away the church vessels, blown up the bell tower, and destroyed the chancel and the font, the Monastery's Abbot Gadir Ibrahim reported on Saturday.
On top of all that, according to the Abbot, they have demolished the statue of the Old Testament Prophet who is venerated in Syria by both Christians and Muslims.

(Source)

 I'm sure they didn't mean to, but the opposition did everyone in the region a favor, spiritually speaking, unwittingly preventing them from incurring further condemnation upon themselves.


2 Kings 18:1-5

Now it came about in the third year of Hoshea, the son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah became king. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. He did right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan. He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him.

The Shroud of Turin and evolution

Umm, right, so Pope Benedict XVI, the Vicar of Christ on Earth, has spoken out in "favor" of the Shroud of Turin, basically saying that it is authentic, that it really is the shroud in which Jesus was wrapped after His crucifixion. 
From here:

Benedict focused in his meditation on the message that the blood stains conveyed, saying the Shroud was "an icon written in blood; the blood of a man who was whipped, crowned with thorns, crucified and injured on his right side.
"The image on the Shroud is that of a dead man, but the blood speaks of his life. Each trace of blood speaks of love and life," Benedict said.
The Vatican to date had tiptoed around the issue of just what the Shroud of Turin is, calling it a powerful symbol of Christ's suffering while making no claim to its authenticity.

 I have two thoughts on this incident.


1) So the Pope is more than happy to come out in support of the theory of evolution because "the scientists" think it's true, and yet when scientists present evidence using very similar methodologies (ie, radiocarbon dating) that the Shroud of Turin is actually only around 800 years old, he ignores it and leads his people in acts of piety that express dissent with the scientific opinion?
And don't try to play the "but there's debate within scientific circles on the Shroud" card.  There's plenty of debate in scientific circles about evolution as well, not to mention a ludicrous amount of logical argumentation against it.  The Pope went with the scientific "academy" then, why the inconsistency now?

2) These and other news articles are careful to say that Benedict "all but endorses its authenticity". 
It is mind-boggling to me that this man would do such a disingenuous thing as to hold a "meditation" in front of this object, modeling meditation on the Cross of Christ, when there's plenty of reason to doubt that it actually is the shroud that wrapped Christ's body for a time.  Further, all the reason to doubt aside, could not the Pope make a pronouncement that it either is or isn't authentic, for sure?  Why dance around the issue?  Does it matter whether the shroud actually wrapped Christ or doesn't it?  When the Pope speaks infallibly, is he right even when the contemporary "scientific establishment" disagrees or not?
It seems very comparable to the RC practice of bowing down and performing acts of religious and worshipful piety in front of and directed toward pictures of dead people.  Outside of icons of Christ Himself and a few specifically-identified elect angels, such as Gabriel and Michael, the RC worshiper has zero guarantee that the dead person to whom he's praying is actually in Heaven.  S/He might be in Hell, or s/he might be in Purgatory.  The Magisterium could clear all that up, but chooses not to, chooses not to get involved in such trivial matters as truth in worship and spiritual meditation. 
It's pathetic, really. How is this the action of a church that is the self-proclaimed "pillar and support of the truth"? 

Icon't take it anymore

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. Can we get some more peanuts in the front please?
...

If you don't get it, don't worry- it wasn't that good.

Starting from where I left off in the combox of the previous post on icons...

What in the text indicates that Uzzah was treating the Ark "as if it had intrinsic value"?
This is what I mean by ad hoc...God clearly defined how the Ark was to be transported. The Israelites neglected to do that. Where was Uzzah venerating or doing anything to the Ark besides walking beside it and putting out his hand to steady it? More eisegesis on CrimsonCath's part.

Uzzah was, in his own way, a proto-Gnostic. You don't try to grab the divine without permission, outside of the specific channels He provides, or you will be destroyed.

Eisegesis. This reminds me of the way that RCs often try to push prohibitions of contraception onto the text on Onan.

Does that text itself explicitly say any of this? No.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I wonder how it would even be possible to worship Him on your understanding unless He were standing in front of you

Just b/c we are prohibited from using icons in worship, you don't know how I'd worship Christ? "In spirit and in truth" is where I'd start.

even then, if you could not disregard His humanity entirely

Which has nothing to do with the question at hand. And of course I don't do so.

why do you venerate Scripture as the Word of God?

Red herring - it is far from the same thing as the way RCs and EOx venerate icons. I don't recall the last time I or anyone in my church bowed down before, lit incense before, lit candles before, and prayed to the Bible.

Without the Christological explanation, they all lack justification.

Another naked appeal to "Christological explanation"s, without an argument.
Just b/c Christ is the eikon of the Father and took on human flesh, why does it follow that it's OK to perform worshipful actions in front of statues of dead people and pray to them?

It certainly doesn't mean that there are no more signs and symbols in Christian practice,

As if that were part of the argument.
But we're talking about communication with the dead through worshipful actions directed at icons here. Let's try to stay on point.

and it certainly doesn't mean that there is no longer worship through icons.

No longer? When was there before? The OT? Where?

The saints are likewise venerated as "in Christ."

1) And are in some cases treated as more merciful and generous than Christ Himself.
2) Where is the justification to pray to them as Christ?
3) They're dead and the Bible forbids communication with the dead. Christ is not dead.

Service of God's instruments is not service of other gods (1 Chron. 29:20, Dan. 2:26, Rev. 3:9); rather, it is a form of service to the One True God.

Except that worship and serve are bound up in the same ideas and terms in the OT as the post demonstrates.

And yes, service is less than latria.

Not in the eyes of the OT. That's the point.

Given that the instruments of God (like Scripture, David, the Ark, Daniel) are venerated in the Old Testament

Not even close to in the same way as modern RCs and EOx do.



Matt said:
1) Where is "religious context" specified in the Old Testament? Where does the Scripture clarify what is in and what is out?

When it says you shall not bow down to them or serve them.
This is the same attitude as pro-death people and those tempted towards sexual immorality - how close can we get to the line? They never stop to consider that we should remain FAR away from any question of wrong, especially on so delicate and important an issue as the worship of the One True God when He's said over and over again that He's a jealous God!
We might ask ourselves then: "Is it OK to light a candle to the dead person? OK, how about to light a candle AND burn incense? Great, how about both of those AND praying to them inaudibly requests that I'd otherwise share with Jesus, since they can probably read my thoughts?"

Religious context is where you're rendering worshipful actions. It's not that hard unless you belabor it in order to protect your manmade traditions.

2) If you were living in the seventeenth century, would you bow to the king of your country?

Sure, fine. So what? I can guarantee that I wouldn't bow down to a picture of him AND light a candle to his image AND burn incense before it AND say an inaudible prayer to the king while doing those things in front of the image. Why? B/c those are things we do to God, not men.

If so, then why is that not going against the command of God(?)

B/c I'm not rendering worshipful actions in a religious context to him.

This "religious context" stuff is really unpersuasive.

That has nothing to do with whether the argument stands. I don't control your spirit; I can only point the way.

Bowing down to kings is often a "religious context" (think of the Caesars or the Eastern emperors who proclaimed themselves to be gods).

Precisely. And the early Christians did what exactly when commanded to do so?

It seems like some of the criticisms are against doing things to "dead" (who are, to my mind, more alive than we are) people through the mediation of an image which are perfectly OK with living people: making requests (petitionary prayer)
Until you tell me that you do ***ALL*** of the following to a living person, this is a non-point:
1) Kiss their image. While they're not there.
2) Burn incense and light candles to their image. While they're not there.
3) Set up that image in church. While they're not there.
4) Pray inaudibly to them and expect them to read your thoughts and carry the prayer to God. While they're not there. And you can't say it audibly to their ears since the dead don't hear with their physical ears.

We honor them as rational animals created by God, imago Dei, etc.

Not according to the way that you act towards them. This insults our intelligence.

What really matters is that what I MEAN by the term is actually contrary to the word of God.

Which is what Dr White was trying to tell you. *You* don't get to define the terms of what is acceptable worship to the Lord. Maybe you should think about letting Him do that.

Something overlooked by your analysis is that some of the passages are referring to FALSE GODS!!!

They are, of course, no gods at all, and yet these people condemned in the OT bow down before them and do worshipful piety to them in a religious context.
Your dead people to whom you pray thru icons are no gods at all, either, as you would agree. There's a reason why God didn't accept worship on the high places or in Samaria in OT Israel and Judah, you know. Your assertion begs the question that it's OK to bow down to dead people as long as you intend to worship God thusly.



CrimsonCatholic continued:
so that both were forbidden of any creature.

I didn't say that. I am pointing out that there are certain contexts in which the distinction advanced by RCC and EOC does not hold, and religious actions is one of those categories. That's why I keep pointing out the religious worship/non-religious non-worship contexts in your counter-examples.

Luke xiv.10

Nobody is doing anythg religious in that context. It's a dinner.

Now in the Old Testament no distinction in the Hebrew is drawn between these words when applied to creator or creature.

My point is clear for all to see, above.

Nor do they appear to be categorically forbidden in the context of religious practices.

Then give me JUST ONE example where somebody other than God received actions of worshipful piety in the Bible and your case is much-bolstered.



Mike Burgess said:
Luke 20:34-38
John 11:25-26
Hebrews 12:1-24

I've made multiple comments on this topic already.
1) God says BOTH - that the dead are not destroyed but merely appear to us to be asleep.
2) Yet there is obviously a changed relationship. You agree since you don't do ALL OF THE FOLLOWING to a living person

• Kiss their image. While they're not there.
• Burn incense and light candles to their image. While they're not there.
• Set up that image in church. While they're not there.
• Pray inaudibly to them and expect them to read your thoughts and carry the prayer to God. While they're not there. And you can't say it audibly to their ears since the dead don't hear with their physical ears.
  

3) God still forbade contact with those who have died physically. He must consider it pretty important that we not do so.

I'd probably have to know what you're looking for in each of those passages, though.

Col 3 - who is dead at the beginning of the chapter?

This refers to the spiritually dead who are raised by regeneration.

What does St. Paul say idolatry is in v. 5?

I assume you mean "why does...?".
B/c idolatry is forbidden and sinful.

What does that contextually tell us about "motive" and its relevance?

Nothing.

You seem quite devoted to (at least implicitly) the regulative principle of worship.

Not at all, I'm a Southern Babdist.
But I decry that which affirms what God has prohibited.

What about anything short of what He commanded in the OT?

Since rendering worshipful piety to pictures of dead people and talking to them doesn't fall under this category, I fail to see how this is relevant.
If you really want to know, feel free to email me.

Daniel Clendenin's Eastern Orthodoxy A Western Perspective

I read that one.


Jeremy said:
I agree with the comments about "religious context" being arbitrarily defined.

Yes, of course!
Doing ALL OF THE FOLLOWING to an image of a dead person is just CLEARLY non-religious.
1) Ascribing non-human inabilities to these dead people (ie, hearing you when you pray silently)
2) Falling down before them
3) Lighting candles to them
4) burning incense to them
5) addressing THEM in prayer

The insults to readers' intelligence continue.

If it is permissible to bow down before someone outside of a "religious context", is it not also permissible to murder, commit adultery, steal or give false testimony - so long as these are only done outside of a "religious context"? Clearly not

The question at hand is whether it's OK to do to dead people what you do to God - worshipful actions.
This would only be analogous if you wanted to see if I'd argue whether it's OK to murder God, commit adultery away from God, steal from God, etc...

Rhology asserts that this verse "makes it clear that we are to bow down to no one other than God" - in otherwords, we shouldn't bow down to anyone. However, this is false. What the passage actually states is that we shouldn't bow down to "them"

Right, to the false gods. Who are not gods at all. Neither are dead people gods.

Peace,

The difference between latria and dulia is ad hoc and imaginary

Mateo tried to distinguish between latria and dulia and I think it's worth spending a little time on. I'll shamelessly swipe from my own post on the topic:

The transparent teaching of the OT is NOT to fall down before images. Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox do so. So do pagans, Hindus, Shintos, animists, etc. The RC/EO excuse partly consists of pleading a difference between latria and dulia as Mateo said. The lexical differentiation is, however, disproved by the OT itself.

The reason that such distinctions are made in the 1st place is to justify the behavior of rendering worshipful actions of religious piety to someone other than the One True God. As a monotheist, it stands to reason that one would need to come up with a reason why such is not prohibited, especially since Exodus 20:5 makes it clear that we are to bow down to no one other than God, and yet here they are bowing down to someone other than God.

Ex 20:5 - you shall not worship (bow down to) them nor serve them.
God discusses His wrath and visiting the iniquity on children, etc.
In Heb, shachah is "worship" or "bow down" and `abad is "to serve".

Yet the LXX translates `abad as latreuo and douleo (out of which come latria and dulia in Latin) both. So here we are forbidden to "`abad" anyone other than God.

Let's see some other psgs where that is the case.

Ex 23:33 - they shall not live in your land... for if you serve their gods, it will be a snare
`abad here is LXX douleo.

Deut 28:64 - there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, etc
`abad here is LXX douleo.

Judg 10:10 - we have served other Baals
`abad here is LXX latreuo. Would anyone argue that this is not idolatry?
I can hear it now: "Lord we didn't give latria to the Baals, we just gave them dulia."
(Edited 19Jan2008)

In the Heb mindset, you can't worship him whom you don't serve.
You can't separate it out biblically. That's why the LXX doesn't just use latreuo or douleo; the Hebrew term is richer than that.

1 Sam 7:3 - remove the foreign gods... serve Him alone
`abad here is LXX douleo.

1 Kings 9:6 - serve other gods and worship them
Both appear.

Ex 4:23, Ex 12:31, Ex 23:24, Deut 4:19, the list goes on.

The NT likewise shows no hint of the distinction.
Rom 14:18 - does service to Christ not involve worship? douleo
Gal 4:8 - when you did not know God you were slaves to those which by nature were no gods. douleo
So these Galatians were not involved in idolatry? It would've been OK to serve those gods, just not worship them?

Col 3:24 - it is the Lord Christ whom you serve. Is this less than latria?

1 Thess 1:9 - you turned from idols to serve a living and true God. douleo
Is he not saying you turned from idolatry to true worship?


The disturbing part of all this is the attempted separation of what our RC and EO-dox friends are defending and what Scripture teaches is wrong.
I'll illustrate by way of comparison:

Exodus 20:15 - you shall not steal.

In Hebrew, the word is "ganab".
In the LXX, ganab is translated "foneuseis" and these words have a similar usage to "klepto" in Grk, which is often used by the NT to express the same idea.
Several 100s of years after the time of Christ and the time of the writing of the NT, the argument could go like this:
"Yes, the property 'belonged' to a brother in Christ, but you know, we all hold all things in common like the book of Acts says. I didn't steal it from him, you see. He may want it back and accuse me of stealing it from him, and yes, I have it and he never explicitly gave me permission to remove it from his property, but that's OK. We're all free in Christ, and we don't use the word 'steal' the same way anyway."

I'd like to know the difference between the two situations.

As I've said before, when you ask a dead person to pray for you, you light candles, kneel and prostrate yourself before an icon, kiss the icon, burn incense, and pray at the icon. These are worshipful actions. These are actions that God has reserved for Himself in the Old Testament. Is man left up to the task of determining what is right worship before God, or does God determine that for us?
It is simple ad hoc equivocation to say that one can "proskuneo" before an image of a dead person, light candles, burn incense, and pray to them. Prayer is a worshipful action. Bowing down is a worshipful action, as in Exodus 20:5.

Intentional icons

Piggybacking on the recent post on images... some thoughts on God directing how He shall be worshiped follow.

I don't think I'll be able to do much in this combox, but maybe God will be merciful to my schedule.
Our Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends defend the blatant violations of Old Testament directions for YHWH's worship by appealing to their intentions.


Leviticus 10:1-3

1Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them.

2And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.

3Then Moses said to Aaron, "It is what the LORD spoke, saying,
'By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy,
And before all the people I will be honored.'"
So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.

God's instructions were clear as to how He should be worshiped, when, by whose hand, etc. These men violated those instructions. This is not pagan worship or the intrusion of a different religion into Judaism; this is disobedience to how they were to worship. Intention played no part.



Exodus 25:10-15

10"They shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long, and one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high.

11"You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and you shall make a gold molding around it.

12"You shall cast four gold rings for it and fasten them on its four feet, and two rings shall be on one side of it and two rings on the other side of it.

13"You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold.

14"You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark with them.

15"The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be removed from it.

Here God gives instruction for how the Ark of the Covenant shall be transported. And the consequence of disobeying with good intention:


2 Samuel 6:2-7

2And David arose and went with all the people who were with him to Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God which is called by the Name, the very name of the LORD of hosts who is enthroned above the cherubim.

3They placed the ark of God on a new cart that they might bring it from the house of Abinadab which was on the hill; and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were leading the new cart.

4So they brought it with the ark of God from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill; and Ahio was walking ahead of the ark.

5Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD with all kinds of instruments made of fir wood, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets and cymbals.

6But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it.

7And the anger of the LORD burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God.

Uzzah's intentions were good, as the text says - to stop the ark from falling over. Indeed - what a terrible thing to have the ark fall over! But God destroyed him b/c Uzzah did not treat God's worship and instructions on worship as foremost and holy.
The Lord struck out in anger and wrath over the breaking of His instruction, despite the good intentions of David, Uzzah himself, no doubt the guys who lent the oxen and cart, the people in the procession, etc.

...


Acts 10:24-26

24On the following day he entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends.

25When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, and fell at his feet and worshiped him.

26But Peter raised him up, saying, "Stand up; I too am just a man."

Revelation 22:8-9

8I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things.

9But he said to me, "Do not do that I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship God."

There is a way to bow down to mere humans and honor them in righteousness, as attested to by Scripture, without it being a sin. But not in a context of worship, which is the heart of the matter and the objection we have to RC and EO-dox practice.

Deuteronomy 4:15-18

15"So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire,
16so that you do not act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
17the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky,
18the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth.

What's the definition of a graven image here? "The form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth."
Presumably, something like this.
Let's leave aside the question of making an image of Christ here and focus on v. 16 - no image of form male or female. How is making an image of a dead person (ie, a saint) for worship not a violation of this command?