Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be anthropomorphizing the inanimate objects by attributing that they are not at ‘fault.’ The bottom line is that because certain inanimate objects are used for evil, they ought to be despised and ground into dust. Would you say that God and Moses were in error to despise the Golden Calf?
Thanks for discussing this so far!
What I was using was a kind of figurative anthropomorphism, and of course objects themselves are not blameworthy in a moral sense (although they can be causes of evil things). Do you not consider the golden calf, the matter at least, a part of God’s creation, and so requiring respect insofar as it is a part of God’s creation? This does not mean that we can’t grind it up, and indeed we should if it increases our likelihood of or ease in sinning, and we should will to destroy it if it is being used as an idol.
But the matter itself, even in the form of a gold calf, or nuclear missile, is not evil, and I would say it is inherently good at least insofar as it has existence. It is the bad intentions of the creator of the calf or missile, or the bad intentions of those worshiping the calf or launching the missile, or the evil that we see being made easier because of the calf or missile’s existence in the form of a calf or missile, or the evil results of the matter’s existence and subsequent misuse, that we consider bad, not the calf or missile itself. Or perhaps it is what the matter symbolizes in that form (the golden calf representing a false god), and it is the meaning behind that symbol that should be hated, at least where that meaning is a falsehood.
For example; let us say we have a page of a book in one room, and a golden calf in another. On the page of the book in the one room are written the words “The calf god is real and will bring us out of the desert, as opposed to Yahweh”; these words are symbols that represent a meaning that is false. Something false should be hated insofar as it is false, as it is not a part of the truth, and does not have being. If we have a literate ancient Israelite, who sees the words on the page, and then sees the golden calf, and tells us “these two mean the same thing”, then the golden calf, like the words on the page, has become a symbol of a falsehood. The symbol might have a new meaning assigned to it, but that isn’t as easy as destroying the symbol, which is the better option in the case of the golden calf (and in the case of any idol).
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Please note, my objection is to the idea that there was a circumstance where hating inanimate objects was a good action. Despising, at least from a google search, seems to be a more emotional state than an act or will, so if by despising we mean ‘feeling strong anger or frustration towards’, I do not think we are unjustified in at least sometimes despising inanimate objects (if despising does not mean hating, and can coexist with respecting the object).
I can be wrong in what I say above, and please correct me if I am in any way contradicting Church teaching on this matter. I am attempting to follow Church teaching, as the Catechism states we should “respect the integrity of creation”, and that there is a “goodness of creation”, and I do not see why this respect or goodness would exclude inanimate objects.*
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