Diminishing Image and Icon

Longfield: Presbyterians and Culture,... Iconic Prayer

Diminishing Image and Icon

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By Stephen W. Hiemstra

We care about the divine image because the wider your image of God, the wider your image of humanity and more careful you will honor God’s name and image. Our identity and self-worth both draw from this well. A good job in a prosperous company brings wealth and security; any job in a failing company brings poverty and anxiety about the future. Our status in life is derivative of the God that we worship.

The creation account focuses on the person of God and the divine image reflected in humanity. In the Garden of Eden, the personhood of God is immediate and real; the relationship between God and humanity is personal and concrete; Adam and Eve are sinless and their lives are potentially eternal. This all changes after Satan questions God’s integrity, and Adam and Eve doubt God and sin. From this point, the Bible generally proscribes anything that diminishes either the divine image or the icon of that image.

The image of God can be diminished in the eyes of believers either by altering the image itself or confusing the image with something else. The primary thing that diminishes the icon of God’s image is sin.

Altering the Image

Assuming Christians are correct in worshipping a triune God, offering believers only one person in the trinity diminishes the image of God presented to prospective believers. In animistic religions, God the Father and Christ the Son do not appear, but spirits abound. The Holy Spirit is normally not present in these religions, but demon spirits are not only worshipped, they are invited into one’s life (Ritchie 2000, 97). In Islam, Allah is transcendent and roughly parallel to God the Father in Christianity, but Jesus is considered a prophet, not divine, and the Holy Spirit is absent.

Another way that the image of God can be diminished is by misunderstanding key divine attributes. When people want to believe that all religions are basically preaching the same ethical principles, they will often argue that there are multiple paths up the mountain to god, an idea attributed to a Hindu sect called Jainism.

For the Christian, this statement is misleading because there are no paths up the mountain to God. Because God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1), he stands outside of time and space, which makes it impossible for us to climb up the mountain to God( Gen 11). God must come to us, which Christians believe he did in Jesus Christ.

Diminishing the image of God is not necessarily a sin, but it poses a partial revelation of God true nature. As Christians, we believe that the Bible provides a sufficient revelation to assure salvation. On the Day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter advised: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38) Because none of us have received a complete revelation, this advice comes as Good News.

Confusing the Image

Confusing the image of God (or the image’s icon) poses the problem of idolatry, where something other than God is worshipped.

As argued earlier, the problem of idolatry for most people arises in placing something other than God as the number one priority in your life, which violates the first commandment. Watered-down faith diverts your attention from the image of God and allows other priorities to dominate your time, energy, and money (Giglio 2003). The classic faith game—god of the gaps—is to turn to God only when all else fails—your own strength, your bank account and health plan, your friends, and family.

When we deliberately worship something other than God, we violate the second commandment. Pride worships self. When we slander God’s name as Freud and Marx do, saying that worshipping God is a delusion or a consequence of drug abuse, we violate the third commandment. When we refuse to rest with God we violate the fourth commandment. In each case, the attack is directly on the person of God.

Because our status in life is derivative of the God that we worship, cultural Christianity precludes the life guidance that may have aided the people around us and prevented many griefs.

Diminishing the Icon

Because God is sinless, sin diminishes the icon of the image of God. The affront of sin on God most directly affects God’s image when our personhood or the personhood of our neighbor is diminished. The majority of commandments focus on attacks on the icon of God’s image: Refusing to honor parents, murder, adultery, theft, bearing false witness, and coveting a neighbor’s things (Exod 20:3-17).

Viewing the fall from grace through the eyes of attacks on God’s image and the icon of that image widens the scope of problems posed by sin and evil. The commandments help make sin and evil more concrete, but the principles posed are far reaching and keep evolving with devious minds and blackened hearts. You know that sin is particularly evil when the mere mention of such sin is toxic and burns the lips of those describing it.

References

Giglio, Louis. 2003. The Air I Breathe. Colorado Springs: Multnomah Publishers.

Richie, Mark Andrew. 2000. Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomanö Shaman’s Story. Chicago: Island Lake Press.