Day 277: Agnosticism and Graven Images (2127-2141)

• It’s Day 277!!

• AGNOSTICISM

• There has been a rise in atheism and agnosticism in our day

• Which makes sense with so much confusion in our world, someone might not even be at the place where they are willing to say that they know God exists or doesn’t exist

• It’s an “I don’t know” situation

• “YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A GRAVEN IMAGE…”

• We Catholic Christians have images in our churches and our homes 

• We have paintings and statues

• It is really clear and obvious that the Bible says we are not supposed to make any graven images

• So what is with the images?

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you so much for bringing us here to this moment, to this Day 277. Thank you. Also Lord, thank you for bringing us to a place not knowing, past being uncertain, past being I’m not sure, or even, Lord God, in the midst of uncertainty, in the midst of not being sure, thank you for bringing us to a place where we can declare, God I know you are, and God I know you are good. Thank you for bringing us to this place of faith so that we are not merely stuck in that place of not knowing. Lord God, you surround us with beauty. Help us to see you in beautiful things, but not to stop in those beautiful created things. But look through them to see you, Lord God, in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• AGNOSTICISM

• Paragraph 2127 says, “Agnosticism assumes a number of forms. In certain cases the agnostic refrains from denying God; instead he postulates the existence of a transcendent being which is incapable of revealing itself, and about which nothing can be said. In other cases, the agnostic makes no judgment about God’s existence, declaring it impossible to prove, or even to affirm or deny.”

• The agnostic says, “I don’t know. I get that this all came from somewhere. But, we have no idea what that thing, what that being, what that person, if it even is a person, what that is.”

• The person is being honest in thinking that you can’t have something come from nothing

• You can’t have a universe come from nothingness

• If there is a creation, there must be some kind of creator

• But they stop there

• The other type of agnostic says that it is impossible to invalidate the claim that God exists 

• The type of measurement is limited if the agnostic cannot see, taste, touch, or use their senses then it must not be real

• Paragraph 2128 says, “Agnosticism can sometimes include a certain search for God, but it can equally express indifferentism, a flight from the ultimate question of existence, and a sluggish moral conscience. Agnosticism is all too often equivalent to practical atheism.”

• Jesus says, “Anyone who knocks, the door is going to be open.”

• So if you are an agnostic seeking, you are going to find

• That is what Jesus says

• BUT…

• You can also be an agnostic because you are indifferent

• This agnostic may say, “I don’t really care, and I don’t really want to know. If I did know then I would have to change and I don’t know if I want to do that.”

• There could be many different reasons

• We all have those same reasons in our own hearts

• We are here studying the Catechism 

• We may see some of the Commandments and think, “I don’t really know if I want to know. Do I really want this?”

• So we are no different in that sense

• We are also tempted toward practical atheism

• “YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A GRAVEN IMAGE…”

• Paragraph 2129 says, “The divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy explains: ‘Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure…’ It is the absolutely transcendent God who reveals himself to Israel. ‘He is the all,’ but at the same time ‘he is greater than all his works.’ He is ‘the author of beauty.’”

• This is the completely, absolutely transcendent God who reveals himself to Israel and says, “Do not try to capture me in representative form. Do not try to capture me by making an idol to me. Do not make a graven image.”

• So this is the big question

• We Catholics have statues, paintings, art all over our Churches and homes

• So are we breaking this First Commandment?

• Paragraph 2130 says, “Nevertheless, already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze serpent, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim.”

• God instructed the people to not make graven images, and then instructed them to make images

• Paragraph 2131 says, “Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons-of Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new ‘economy’ of images.”

• The iconoclasts wanted to destroy the images

• The iconoclastic heresy said that we should not have images at all

• The seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea says that in becoming one of us, God has revealed Himself in human form

• Since God revealed Himself in the Incarnation, this changes the making of graven images

• We can actually express artistically the image of the Son of God

• We can also have the images of the Mother of God and other aspects of what we believe

• Paragraph 2132 says, “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.’ The honor paid to sacred images is a ‘respectful veneration,’ not the adoration due to God alone: Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.”

• When we venerate images, touch the statue, kiss the holy card, it passes to the prototype

• We Catholics have never ever ever been tempted to worship a statue

• We have never passed by a holy card and thought it was an idol

• They are REMINDERS

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike’s example of his niece and his Bible…

• The expression of affection increases and cultivates affection

• We are meant to love God more and more by having more and more affection for Him

• The idea behind veneration of images is not adoration or worship

• When we see this image, we ponder it, look upon it, maybe even reach out and touch it

• There is an expression of affection that is meant to amplify and grow my affection

• If you have been raised Catholic, you have never been tempted to adore or worship an image

• That veneration has become so natural, just as natural as loving to have a picture of your family in your house

• It’s as simple as that

• These are the people that are my family

• These are the people that I love

• Whether that be your mom and dad, your siblings, your grandparents, or our Lord Himself, Our Mother, Mary’s husband Joseph

• All of these

• They are reminders

• Veneration is an expression of affection that grows our affection

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you in the future!!