How do i justify this as a catholic?

[GailMac4]

Dear Christislord - you state:“i don’t understand how graven images are no good, to then perfectly fine. if god’s commandments are unchanging and god is unchanging the graven images don’t make sense to someone like me.”

If you have already read the tract on CA and haven’t yet understood, why not try reading it again prayerfully.

As for some of your other comments on this thread, I dont’ see anyone here asking you to worship a graven image. Our religious art isn’t to your liking and you think we are sinfull when we use it. So, you aren’t the first person to detract from our use of religious art in our Church. No one is forcing you to accept religious art.

It might interest you to know that some of the early Church members were forced to bow to statues of things like Zeus and other gods of the pagans. When they refused to do so, they died for their witness to Christ and their faithfullness. Those statues were definutely graven images and used by others as objects of worship. The early Christians knew the difference. So did the pagans who used them.

One of the oldest objects of Christian art was proported to have been made by none other than St. Luke, Apostle and Patron Saint, of among other persons, artists. He proportedly painted a picture of the Mother of God holding her beloved Son in her lap and it was porportedly painted on a kitchen table top they had used for other purposes. We call it the Black Madonna.

If you look at our religious art and make the determination that it is a graven image then by all means don’t bow to it, pray before it, incense it or even go near it! I wouldn’t want you to do anything against your faith. But please don’t expect me to give it up for your opinions about how the OT is to be interpreted today.

Peace,

Gail

 

[Ruthie]

You have not effectively answered the question as to why, if God forbid the making of all graven images, He instructed Moses to make the bronze serpent on the staff, or the golden cherubim for the Ark. Being made of metal, these are graven.

God cannot contradict Himself. We know He commanded Moses to make those things. (Num 21:8-9, Ex 25:18) Thus He cannot have forbidden the Israelites to make **any **graven images.

I think the answer is seen in Lev. 19:4.

Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God.(RSV)

Neither the snake nor the cherubim were gods. (And when the people began to treat the snake as a god it was destroyed.) The golden calf *was *a god.

Therefore, we are not to make gods. We are not to make things to treat as if they were gods. The images in Catholic church are no more gods than the photos I have of my late Grandma.

I’ve been known to talk to Grandma as if she was still here with us, because I believe that she is in Heaven and can hear me. I do not worship her, any more than I worship Mary or any other Saint. Since she is alive eternally, I can ask her to pray for me, just like I can ask Mary and the Saints.

Sometimes I talk to her picture, but if you think I believe that she is her picture… come on!

Kneeling is an attitude of humility before God. If I kneel before a statue of Mary, I am not kneeling to her, but in front of the Lord’s might and mercy.

Catholic culture is very different from the radical plainness of most non-Catholic Christian churches. You should study it a bit before you write it off as idol worship.

And don’t judge by appearances; heed Jesus’ own words in Jn 7:24.

God bless you,

Ruthie

 

[VociMike]

again that’s a leap to make there, there’s absolutely nothing in the bible stating it is now o.k. to make graven images at will, bow before them and pray.

Please define “graven image” for us, and demonstrate that statues of saints are graven images.

 

[CentralFLJames]

LilyM had my thoughts exactly, but there is even more. Why not just burn all of your family photos? Throw out every piece of memorabilia, crush every replica and model building, car, or train! Let’s just erase our memory of the Saints and Angels who sacrificed everything to be holy examples for us as Catholics Today.

This is precisely the rabid fundamentalism and mindset that came out of the Reformation. In the early part of the Reformation these “enlightened” Protestants not only attacked The Church and its authority but also attacked its symbols and its art forms. The reformers destroyed untold quantities of precious religious arts, statutes and relics and architecture to purify themselves from us Catholics and instituted new secular art forms to replace it.

It was a classic cultural revolution where anarchy reigned and any art that supported Catholic ideas such as venerating the saints could be held in contempt and destroyed to purify the bold new secular world order that they wanted to give to their new religious leaders - the Monarchs; which they later realize was a huge mistake as Protestants flee the tyranny of Protestant leaders to come to America and escape their secular leaders of state and try to start it all over again.

Anyone ever wonder why we Americans don’t see much good public art in the cities and communities of America like we can still see in European cities?
New Yorker: Reformers:

The New Yorker: Reformers

Protestant mobs destroyed untold amounts of church art in the early years of the Reformation. Luther, returning to Wittenberg in 1522, after a period in hiding, found the city’s sanctuaries ravaged by zealots who deemed images of the divine idolatrous. He objected, deciding that, if anyone saw too much in such creations, it was the wreckers themselves. But Luther narrowed his defense of ecclesiastical art to its use for catechismal instruction, chiefly in advancing his doctrine that salvation comes per solam fidem—by personal faith alone, without saintly or clerical intercession. No more miracles were to be countenanced, except those warrantied by Scripture. A brilliant book by the art historian Joseph Leo Koerner, “The Reformation of the Image” (2004), expatiates on a work that is not in the Frankfurt show, Cranach’s “Wittenberg Altarpiece” (1547), which couches scenes of down-to-earth preaching and religious community in a novel language of discursive signs and gestures. Koerner treats this as a paradigm of recurrent anti-aestheticism in Western art, including that of political correctness. The altarpiece was dedicated on the day of the Battle of Mühlberg, a decisive military defeat of faction-crippled Lutheran forces by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Cranach lost his court position and, in 1550, joined the Elector John Frederick in exile, ending up in Weimar, where he died three years later.

Art of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation:

hyperhistory.net/apwh/essays/comp/cw20reformationart.htm

During the Middle Ages art had focused almost exclusively on religious content, and it often employed symbolism instead of depicting realistic scenes. (For example, the use of the halo over a saint was extremely common during the Middle Ages.) With the coming of the Renaissance much of this changed as humanists—including Michelangelo and da Vinci—began painting realistic scenes which focused on “ideal man” rather than on religious content. *Once the Reformation began, Protestant leaders such as John Calvin and Huldreich Zwingli encouraged iconoclastic1 movements, which denounced Catholic imagery as idolatrous and called for its destruction. However, the Protestants did not condemn all art—they chiefly opposed the Catholic religious art, to which Catholics of the time gave *.

Development of the Baroque Style:

bookrags.com/essay-2006/5/31/7482/44978
The Reformation was a movement in which protestant reformers rejected the use of religious icons in churches and so there was a wave of iconoclasm in which stained glass windows were smashed, statues broken, paintings of saints destroyed and organs removed from the churches.

The Catholic Church responded to this with a form of art that opposed the severity of the protestant reformers. This form of art and architecture was called Baroque.

James

 

[Soutane]

*“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. **You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or ***worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

it says pretty clearly don’t make them, don’t bow down to them, and don’t worship them. it seems like a clear commandment, yet in the catholic church i see people, bowing down to them, lighting candles before them, rubbing them, praying before them. i just don’t know how to justify it. how does god go from forbiding making graven images for thousands of years to allowing rampant graven images adorning his church and having people bowing before them?

i’ve read the catholic answers apologetic on this and it doesn’t seem convincing to me. god only authorized the cherubim to be placed on the mercy seat which wasn’t in the public eye, and the serpent staff was later destroyed because some were falling into idolatory.

i don’t understand how graven images are no good, to then perfectly fine. if god’s commandments are unchanging and god is unchanging the graven images don’t make sense to someone like me.

Open your wallet.Do you have a picture of your wife,husband,child?Have you ever kissed it?Do you have a driver’s license with your picture on it?Do you have a landscape in your living room?Then by your definition you are an idolator.Period.End of story.One cannot idolize by ACCIDENT.Scrupulosity gone mad.

 

[Sir_Knight]

In Exodus 25:18-22 & 26:1,31 God commands the making of the image of a golden cherubim. This heavenly image, of course, is not worshiped by the Israelites. Instead, the image disposes their minds to the supernatural and draws them to God.

Also, in Num. 21:8-9 God commands the making of the bronze serpent. The image of the bronze serpent is not an idol to be worshiped, but an article that lifts the mind to the supernatural.

Finally, in I Kings 6:23-36, 7:27-39 & 8:6-67 we see that Solomon’s temple contains statues of cherubim and images of cherubim, oxen and lions but God did not condemn these images that were used in worship.

It is only when the people began to worship the statue in 2 Kings 18:4 that they incur God’s wrath, and the king destroyed it.

This clearly shows that God’s commandment “thou shall not make a graven image” is entirely CONNECTED to the WORSHIP of false gods. God does not prohibit images to be used in worship, but He prohibits the images themselves to be worshiped.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

it’s a three part commandment from how i read it.

1. don’t make them
2. don’t bow before them
3. don’t worship them

even if people aren’t worshipping them, they are making them and bowing before them, both no-no’s if you look at the wording. it isn’t like you have to fit all three for it to be wrong.

##** In this context, bowing down = worshipping as god or a god. **

**When you find the Church encouraging us to offer Mass to a piece of wood, plaster & paint, please tell me: I’ve never seen that. **

What is entirely likely, is indeed usual in the US, is that those who accuse Catholics of idol-worship on this account will be found to:

• sing a hymn to the USA
• venerate a piece of bunting named "Old Glory"
  The accusation you refer to is sheer hypocrisy; those who make it invariably use a logic which destroys the Catholic position only at the cost of destroying their own. It was rubbish when Newman skewered it in 1850, & the passage of time has not improved it:
• [http://www.newmanreader.org/works/england/index.html (http://www.newmanreader.org/works/england/index.html)

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

for anyone who has been to mexico or south america we can see that idol worship has grabbed hold of that church almost through and through. many mexicans believe in the cult of santa meurta, many mexicans will outright claim mary is their god. and the statues have taken on full fledged idol worship. THIS is why god commanded them not to be even made in the first place and certainly not to bow down to them.

and to the person saying the graven images aren’t “venerated” they certainly are according to the catechism and the code of canon law:

"2132 The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,” and “whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it.” 70 The honor paid to sacred images is a “respectful veneration,” not the adoration due to God alone: "

Catholics do not ever venerate God - that would be utterly wrong. We venerate the Saints, but God their Creator & Lord (& ours) we adore as Alone God, Alone The Holy One, Alone Most High, Alone Most Blessed. So the quotation is perfectly true, & not in the slightest an objection to what people are defending. It is not possible to confuse God with His creatures - the Eucharist is our sure defence against that. (I got that last point from an author who was not even a Catholic, but an Anglican.)​

as for stating my translation is “fishy” well that is untrue too, there is nothing fishy about it. graven images means carved images, that’s the meaning of the word so a photo of your family would not fall into that. anyway i don’t set up photos of my family and burn incense or candles and bow befeore them.

in deuteronomy it is a three part commandement, don’t make them, don’t bow down to them, don’t worship them. catholics make them and place them throughout their churches, bow down to them to pray, and venerate the graven image which to me is awfully close to breaking the commandment if not full blown.

what does it add to bow before statues and light candles and pray? i mean we clealy see the problems it causes with some problems especially in africa, india, and mexico and south america.

The abuse of a thing does not destroy its use, or the Bible would have to be forbidden: it has justified many wickednesses; it still does. If people insist on receiving poison from what is holy & good, that is no fault of the Church.** “The unlearned and unstable” misused the letters of St Paul when they were almost fresh from being written.**​

the commandment doesn’t say don’t make graven images and worship them as gods. it says don’t make them, or bow down to them, or worship them. or is the key word there.

**"[A]s gods" is part of the meaning of the verb translated “worship”. One does not usually need to say that lions are mammals - for being a mammal is part of being a lion; no lions are reptiles, birds, fish, insects. **​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Yes it is fishy.

KJV: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

NASB: You shall not make for yourself [a]an idol,** or any likeness of what** is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

ESV: 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.

RSV: You shall not make for yourself a graven 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

New Jerusalem Bible: You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth.

The NIV(?) translation you offer avoids this awkward prohibition against any likeness, by changing the text.

How does “any thing” not in some way include:​

• notes
• coinage
• photos
• paintings
• statues
• etc.
• **etc. **
  **“Any thing” does not mean “any thing as long as it is Catholic, but not if it is Protestant” If the translation is accurate, the OP is as much - & as little - a violator of the commandment as we are. **

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

well worship is for god alone clearly, so anyone worshiping a photo or anything other than god alone would be guilty too, let’s not split hairs here and twist the discussion.

##** Here in the UK, people are called by Divine attributes or titles all the time:**

• Her Majesty the Queen (may she live for ever)
• His Grace - a title of some clergy
• Excellency - ambassadors
• Worship - some mayors & judges
  There was also
• All-Highest - Kaiser Wilhelm II before WW1**The Kaiser BTW was a Lutheran - not an RC. **
  I don’t think mayors & judges are the Almighty, despite their title. Some words have a variety of meanings; they are cultural artifacts, as much so as bricks or stones or flags. So they are influenced by use - “wicked” is a perfect example of this. Splitting hairs is necessary.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

i give zero credibility to “veronica’s veil” or the shorud of turin, absolutely zero. they are stories, middle age frauds. simple as that.

you have to look at it from the other end, here’s god himself commanding do not make graven images or anything in heaven, on earth, or in the sea, do not bow down to them, or worship them. then as a catholic is sit there and bow down and pray before graven images of jesus, mary, the saints etc… you have to understand why a man like me would have a difficult time understanding why.

and as someone who has seen the idolatory these statues and bowing before them firsthand in churches in mexico and south america where idolatory is rampant. it makes me wonder what they’re adding to the faith when they seem to directly go against god’s commandment.

**How does looking at people show what they intend ? Would looking at Jesus have shown Him to be God Incarnate ? If any of us had been at the Cross, we would not have seen God - we would have seen only a crucified (& probably foul-smelling) Jew. There was no kingly dignity for Him then, but only disgrace, agony, & the stench of death. **​

Veneration of holy images cannot be seen - only the outward acts, not the inward piety, are visible; & those who object to the holy images, are going to see only idol-worship. That does not make it idol-worship.

---

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

If it is a sin only to make images, then God sinned by creating us in His image, right?

Don’t forget the Incarnation ​

And God required Solomon to sin when He required Solomon to make images of the cherubim, and He commanded Moses to sin, when He told him to make a bronze snake and display it on a pole.

I have also never heard of a Catholic giving burnt offerings to a statue, anyway - where on earth are you getting this from? (Candles are not “burnt offerings” - they are timing devices. The idea is that you are supposed to stay there and pray until the candle burns out. If you have to leave early, other people can come and pray for you, until your candle burns out. Some people piously believe that their guardian angels finish their prayers for them. But the candle is not intended as an “offering.”)

But if a candle is a “burnt offering” then to whom or to what are you offering, when your electricity goes out and you use emergency candles?

 

[adrift]

*“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. **You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or ***worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

it says pretty clearly don’t make them, don’t bow down to them, and don’t worship them. it seems like a clear commandment, yet in the catholic church i see people, bowing down to them, lighting candles before them, rubbing them, praying before them. i just don’t know how to justify it. how does god go from forbiding making graven images for thousands of years to allowing rampant graven images adorning his church and having people bowing before them?

i’

Don’t make what?
Don’t bow down to what?
Don’t worship what?

You shall not make for yourself an idol

Idol

1: a representation or symbol of an object of worship ; broadly : a false god

In order for it to be an idol, it must be thought of as a god. If you can show that Catholics believe that the statues are gods than you would be right but we don’t think they are gods and your argument falls apart.

 

[FCEGM]

**How does looking at people show what they intend ? Would looking at Jesus have shown Him to be God Incarnate ? If any of us had been at the Cross, we would not have seen God - we would have seen only a crucified (& probably foul-smelling) Jew. There was no kingly dignity for Him then, but only disgrace, agony, & the stench of death. **​

**Veneration of holy images cannot be seen - only the outward acts, not the inward piety, are visible; & those who object to the holy images, **are going to see only idol-worship. That does not make it idol-worship.

---

This bears repeating.

 

[FCEGM]

so because jesus was incarnate as a man (of which we really have no idea what he looked like he certainly wasn’t the blond haired blue eyed european he’s displayed as). that means that making graven images is now o.k.? again that’s quite a leap.

Your answer betrays the shallowness of your understanding. It is not the physical appearance of Jesus that allows for images of Him or of those who by grace have become images of the Image of God; it is the very fact of God the Son becoming MAN. We were presented in God’s Mercy with the Living Icon of Himself and from that flows the sacred imagery of Him and the works of His grace in those transformed by Him.

 

[mlchance]

You shall not make for yourself an idol…

Emphasis added.

Not all statues are idols. None of the statues in a Catholic Church are idols.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Soutane]

**How does looking at people show what they intend ? Would looking at Jesus have shown Him to be God Incarnate ? If any of us had been at the Cross, we would not have seen God - we would have seen only a crucified (& probably foul-smelling) Jew. There was no kingly dignity for Him then, but only disgrace, agony, & the stench of death. **​

**Veneration of holy images cannot be seen - only the outward acts, not the inward piety, are visible; & those who object to the holy images, **are going to see only idol-worship. That does not make it idol-worship.

---

Amen.Amen.Amen.

 

[Soutane]

ChristIsLord,are you really a Catholic?Were you taught nothing about your faith?Did you not receive basic catechesis,or weren"t you listening? No direspect intended but I am honestly curious.

 

[adrift]

ChristIsLord,are you really a Catholic?Were you taught nothing about your faith?Did you not receive basic catechesis,or weren"t you listening? No direspect intended but I am honestly curious.

You won’t be getting an answer for he said in another thread.

only in your mind, i stopped posting because the discussion devoled into the usual strawmen and ad hom attacks. somehow the words no longer mean graven image, somehow the words do not bow before them means something else. it’s all double speak, the words are clear. when the discussion goes to comparing watching t.v. and going before a graven image, lighting candles, kissing them, venrating them, and praying before them all common sense has been thrown out and there’s no more point in participating.