OK - bear with me here. This is a historical rather than a theological point.
It seems to me that in the history of Christianity a number of tensions exist that never seem to be decisively resolved (in historical terms). Now, I must emphasise that highlighting these tensions isn't to say I don't have positions on each of these.
1. aestheticism vs iconoclasm
2. hedonism vs asceticism
3. universal vs local church
4. rationality vs experientiality
5. celebration of marriage vs celebration of virginity
6. optimistic vs pessimistic views of sanctification
7. free will vs bondage of the will
12 comments:
Hi Michael
Perhaps because all of these are, biblically, false dichotomies? That's my take on it.
To some degree, the tension between creation and the new creation?
Mark's comment leads me to observe that 1 and 2 are pretty much the same coin, with his label as good as any other for them both.
And maybe tinker with 7? It would be nice to have it not just as an anthropological statement, but capture the divine side of it too...human responsibility vs divine sovereignty, perhaps?
Nice idea though, I like it lots.
(Do we need something about evil and its origins?)
I think you are right, Mike Bull, but that is not how it has been experienced in the history of the church. Different circumstances have led to different expressions, because it is hard to live on both sides of the false dichotomies at once, humanly speaking.
I needed to add also:
sectarianism vs co-operation with the state.
Yes, I agree. I think this all part of having to work things out to gain maturity. I posted on this today: A "priesthood of all believers" can be messy in response to a Catholic who was making fun of Protestant doctrinal disunity. Feel free to visit.
I don't agree with number 1.
The Christian objection to iconoclasm is that since God has taken on a human body He can properly be depicted (rather than just described). In most cases, it is probably better for such a depiction to be beautiful, but that is a secondary matter.
(I am probably using 'iconoclasm' in an inaccurate way of course)
Isn't there are also a valid Christian suspicion of idolatry?
My experience in visiting the great Cathedrals of England was that the reading of history given to the modern visitor viewed the period of statue-smashing in the 16th and 17th centuries as an embarassing episode. Yet - with some sympathy for the statue smashers - I couldn't help thinking that they made their own contribution to English church history... they were as much part of the tradition, with whihc the tradition has to deal. The Church of England is not as statue-fixated as the Church of Rome, for example.
I'm sorry for misinterpreting you on "iconoclasm". I agree that aestheticism is not to be associated only with image-making. There is clearly a minimalist religious aesthetic at work e.g. in some Reformed church architecture of the C17, just as in most mosques. (Actually, imho, in a lot of theology too, e.g. Barth, but that is another matter.)
As for the English cathedrals:
(i) I'm entirely with you against the irritatingly snooty guides. However, they probably have no better an understanding of (or real sympathy with) the mindsets of the people who made the images than they do of the image-smashers.
(ii) I'm not sure I follow your point about the image-smashers being a part of the English church tradition. Even if it's true, it doesn't make them right. (Latitudinarianism and Arianism are also part of the English church tradition, but they are still gross perversions of Christianity.)
Going back to dangers, I want to ask: what really is idolatry in this context? Is it aestheticism, as per the snooty guides? If so, then as above there is more than one form of aestheticism. However, it may be a reason why Christian pictures should not necessarily be beautiful (which, if it is OK to misuse Isaiah 53.2, Jesus wasn't).
The point about the Anglican tradition is a historical one, I guess. The smashers are one side of a dialectic (or you could read it that way I am suggesting); and they saved Anglicanism from lots of awful religious bric-a-brac!
Protestants can/have overstate/d the dangers of statues and images as 'idols'. But the human heart is always tempted to venerate the created thing and not the creator. What starts out as symbol and metaphor - and a mediation between two realities - over time becomes identification. We see this in language with 'dead' metaphors. Over time, and with less sophisticated usage, the metaphoric/symbolic meaning ascribed to a word or object is lost and the connection between the two things yolked together becomes immediate, not mediate. So we find ourselves first praying to what the statue represents... then praying to the statue...
The question of beauty is another one again - and a very interesting one. A similar debate in teh middle ages was the one over poverty and riches of course! 'Did Jesus own his own shirt?'
Hmm, I'm not sure the analogy with metaphor is a good one: isn't the movement there in a different direction?
In physics, field began life as a metaphor (as in, an electromagnetic field), but the meaning has quite taken over the word. I look straight through the word and see the mathematics and the behaviour it embodies; it takes an active effort of will to think of a field of grain or such. The metaphor may be dead, but there's now a live word where previously there was nothing.
(Hoi polloi, or physicists wearing a pop-culture hat, can get something similar from "force field", which pretty quickly makes you think of those magic screens in sci-fi that you get from the Enterprise, or Sue Storm, or whatever. This is why physicists try to avoid saying "force field".)
I don't think this is limited to technical vocabulary in the professions. Stalking-horse is a vivid metaphor, and in regular use in talking about politics and culture (at least in the US). But it's been dying for a long time: one thinks of the meaning, not of the similarity to a hunter stalking game.
What you're talking about, however, is the objects fusing without the one in front becoming transparent or denatured; worse, you're concerned with the whole acquiring some third, confused meaning. Yes?
Awesome - I love this stuff.
- I've always found it interesting that different churches (in my lifetime and before) have deliberately chosen to sit on different sides of these issues - or even to accept people on both sides.
What about the biblical ones?
- Fully God and Fully Man?
- God's sovereignty and our responsibility?
....
pastoral vs. apostolic...
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