Can we make images of God? Many (heck, most) Christians do. We make images of God for art, worship and teaching. But are we supposed to? The Second Commandment is:
“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. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God"
Wes White has a thought-provoking reflection on this problem:
"God cannot be pictured. Such an attempt is a breaking of the second commandment. It is not only wrong to worship images of God, we need to understand that we are forbidden from making images of God."
I think he makes a pretty good case from Scripture. I would be interested in a conversation that engaged this interpretation from Scripture. Most interaction and objection I have seen and I tend to have come from personal preference and feeling, which is not a good objection. And if it is true, I think we need to rethink our piety:
http://johannesweslianus.blogspot.com/2010/09/can-and-may-we-make-pictures-of-god.html
No comments:
Post a Comment