Part IV, Chapter XLV, 2

The passages of Scripture alleged to countenance setting up images to worship them, or setting them up at all where God is worshipped, are, first, two examples: the cherubim above God's Ark and the bronze serpent; second, certain texts commanding us to worship creatures because of their relation to God, as when we are told to worship his footstool; and, lastly, other texts authorizing religious honor to holy things. But before examining whether these passages prove what is claimed, I must explain what is meant by worship, and what by images and idols.

I have already shown in the 20 Chapter of this discourse that to honor is to value a person's power highly, and that we measure this value by comparing the person with others. But since nothing can be compared with God in power, to value him at less than infinity is not to honor but to dishonor him. Honor is thus, by its very nature, secret and inward, residing in the heart. Yet people's inward thoughts show themselves outwardly in words and actions; the signs of our honoring someone are called WORSHIP, in Latin CULTUS. Therefore to pray to someone, swear by him, obey him, and serve him diligently and attentively—in short, all words and actions that signify fear of offending or desire to please—constitute worship, whether sincere or feigned. And because they appear to signify honor, they too are commonly called honor.

The worship we offer those whom we regard as merely human, such as kings and people in authority, is civil worship; the worship we offer whatever we believe to be God is divine worship, whatever words, ceremonies, gestures, or other actions it may involve. To prostrate oneself before a king, if one regards him as only a man, is merely civil worship; someone who only removes his hat in a church because he thinks it God's house worships with divine worship. Those who seek the difference between divine and civil worship not in the worshipper's intention but in the words douleia and latreia deceive themselves. For there are two kinds of servants. The first are wholly under their masters' power, as prisoners of war and their descendants are: their bodies do not belong to themselves, their lives depend on their masters' will and may be forfeited for the least disobedience, and they are bought and sold like beasts. These were called Douloi, properly meaning slaves, and their service Douleia. The others serve voluntarily, for wages or in hope of some benefit from their masters, and are called Thetes, or domestic servants; their masters have no right to their service beyond the Covenants made between them. Both kinds of servants have this in common: someone else assigns their labor, whether they are slaves or voluntary servants. Latris is the general name for both, meaning one who works for another, slave or voluntary servant alike. Latreia therefore means service in general; Douleia means only the service of bondmen and the condition of slavery. Scripture uses both words interchangeably for our service to God: Douleia because we are God's slaves, Latreia because we serve him. All kinds of service include not just obedience but worship too—that is, actions, gestures, and words signifying honor.

An IMAGE, in the strictest sense of the word, is the likeness of something visible. In this sense only the fantastic forms, apparitions, or seeming appearances of visible bodies to the eye are images: for example, the appearance of a person or other thing in water by reflection or refraction, or the appearance of the sun or stars seen directly through the air. Nothing real in the things seen, or in the place where they seem to be, corresponds to these appearances; nor are their size and shape the same as those of the object. They change with variations in the organs of sight or with the use of lenses, and often appear in our imagination and dreams when the object is absent; they may take on other colors and shapes, being dependent entirely upon the fancy. These are the images originally and most properly called ideas and IDOLS, words derived from the Greeks, for whom Eido means to see. They are also called PHANTASMS, meaning apparitions in the same language. It is from these images that one faculty of human nature is called imagination. Clearly, then, no image can be made of anything invisible.

It is also evident that there can be no image of anything infinite. All the images and phantasms made by the impression of visible things have a figure; but a figure is a quantity bounded on every side. Therefore there can be no image of God, of the human soul, or of spirits, but only of visible bodies—that is, bodies having light of their own or illuminated by such bodies.

A person may also imagine shapes he has never seen, combining parts of different creatures to make a figure, as poets devise their centaurs, chimeras, and other monsters no one has seen. He can then give these shapes material form, making them in wood, clay, or metal. They too are called images, not because they resemble anything corporeal, but because they resemble certain imagined inhabitants of their maker's brain. Yet there is a likeness between these idols as they first exist in the brain and as they are painted, carved, molded, or cast in matter. In virtue of that likeness the material body fashioned by art may be called the image of the fantastic idol fashioned by nature.

In a broader sense, image includes any representation of one thing by another. An earthly Sovereign may thus be called the image of God, and a subordinate magistrate the image of an earthly Sovereign. Often in Gentile idolatry little attention was paid to whether a material idol resembled the idol in the worshippers' fancy, yet it was still called its image. An uncut stone, for instance, has been set up as Neptune; many other forms bore little likeness to the shapes people imagined for their gods. Today we see many images of the Virgin Mary and other saints that differ from one another and correspond to no single person's fancy. Yet they serve the purpose for which they were erected: merely to represent by name the persons mentioned in the story, to whom each viewer attaches a mental image of his own making, or none at all. An image in the broadest sense, then, is either a likeness or a representation of something visible, or, as is usually the case, both together.

But in Scripture the term idol extends further still, to signify the sun or a star or any other creature, visible or invisible, when it is worshipped as a god.

Having explained worship and images, I shall now consider them together and examine the IDOLATRY forbidden in the Second Commandment and elsewhere in Scripture.

To worship an image is voluntarily to perform outward acts signifying honor either to the material of the image—wood, stone, metal, or some other visible creature—or to the phantasm in the brain for which the material has been formed into a likeness or representation; or to both together, taken as a single living body composed of material and phantasm as of body and soul.

To uncover one's head before a person of power and authority, before a prince's throne, or in some other place designated by him for that purpose in his absence is to offer that person or prince civil worship. It signifies honor to the person, not to the seat or place, and is no idolatry. But if the person doing this supposed the prince's soul to be inside the seat, or addressed a petition to the seat, that would be divine worship and idolatry.

To petition a king for what he is able to do for us, even if we prostrate ourselves before him, is merely civil worship, for we acknowledge in him no power beyond the human. But voluntarily to petition him for fair weather, or for anything else only God can provide, is divine worship and idolatry. On the other hand, if a king compels someone to do so by the threat of death or another severe bodily punishment, it is not idolatry. Worship that the Sovereign commands for himself under the terror of his laws does not signify that the person who obeys inwardly honors him as a god, but that the person desires to escape death or a wretched life. What does not signify inward honor is no worship and therefore no idolatry. Nor can it be said that the person who complies gives scandal or puts a stumbling block before his brother. However wise or learned that person may be, others cannot infer from such an act that he approves of it, only that he acts from fear, and that the act is not his own but the Sovereign's.

To worship God in a particular place, or while facing an image or a particular place, is not to worship or honor that place or image. It is to acknowledge it as holy—that is, to acknowledge that the image or place has been set apart from common use, for that is what holy means. It implies no new quality in the place or image, only a new relation through its appropriation to God, and thus is no idolatry. No more was it idolatry to worship God before the bronze serpent; for Jews away from their country to face the Temple in Jerusalem when they prayed; or for Moses to remove his shoes before the burning bush on the ground belonging to Mount Sinai, where God chose to appear and give his Laws to the people of Israel. That ground was holy not by any inherent sanctity but because it was set apart for God's use. Nor is it idolatry for Christians to worship in churches solemnly dedicated to God for that purpose by the authority of the king or another true representative of the Church. But to worship God as animating or inhabiting such an image or place—that is, to worship an infinite substance as dwelling in a finite place—is idolatry. Such finite gods are only idols of the brain, nothing real, and Scripture commonly calls them Vanity, Lies, and Nothing. It is also idolatry to worship God not as animating or present in a place or image, but for the sake of being reminded of him or of some of his works, when the place or image has been dedicated or set up by private authority rather than by those who are our Sovereign Pastors. For the Commandment is, “You shall not make for yourself any graven image.” God commanded Moses to set up the bronze serpent; Moses did not make it for himself, so it did not violate the Commandment. But Aaron and the people made the golden calf without authority from God, and that was idolatry: not only because they held it to be God, but because they made it for religious use without warrant either from God their Sovereign or from Moses his lieutenant.

The Gentiles worshipped Jupiter and others as gods, though perhaps they had once been living people who had done great and glorious deeds; and they worshipped various men and women as children of God, supposing them to have been begotten by an immortal deity and a mortal person. This was idolatry, for they made these figures into gods for themselves without authority from God, either in his eternal Law of Reason or in his positive, revealed Will. But although our Savior was a man whom we also believe to be immortal God and the Son of God, that belief is no idolatry: it rests not upon our own fancy or judgment, but upon the Word of God revealed in Scripture. As for the adoration of the Eucharist: if Christ's words “This is my Body” mean that he himself and the apparent bread in his hand are the same, and not only that, but that every apparent morsel of bread consecrated by priests ever since, or to be consecrated hereafter, is one of so many bodies of Christ that are nevertheless all one body, then such adoration is no idolatry, for our Savior authorizes it. But if that text does not mean this—and no other can be cited for it—then, being worship instituted by human beings, it is idolatry. It is not enough to say that God can transubstantiate bread into Christ's body. The Gentiles too held God to be omnipotent, and on that ground might just as readily excuse their idolatry by claiming, as others do, the transubstantiation of their wood and stone into God Almighty.

Those who claim that divine inspiration consists in the supernatural entry of the Holy Ghost into a person, rather than the acquisition of God's grace through doctrine and study, seem to me caught in a very dangerous dilemma. If they do not worship those they believe inspired in this way, they fall into impiety by failing to adore God's supernatural presence. But if they worship them, they commit idolatry, for the Apostles would never allow themselves to be worshipped so. The safest course is therefore to believe that the dove's descent upon the Apostles, Christ's breathing upon them when he gave them the Holy Ghost, and the conferral of the Holy Ghost by laying on of hands are signs God has chosen to use, or appointed others to use, of his promise to assist these persons in studying to preach his Kingdom and in conducting themselves so that they edify rather than scandalize others.

Besides the idolatrous worship of images there is also a scandalous worship of them: this too is a sin, though not idolatry. Idolatry is worship by signs of inward and genuine honor, whereas scandalous worship merely appears to be worship. It may even accompany heartfelt inward loathing both of the image and of the fantastic demon or idol to which it is dedicated, arising solely from fear of death or some other grievous punishment. Yet it remains a sin in those whose actions others look to as guiding lights, for people who follow their example cannot help stumbling and falling in matters of religion. The example of those whom we do not regard, by contrast, has no effect on us; it leaves us to our own diligence and caution, and so does not cause our fall.

The Scripture passages said to permit people to set up and worship images, or even to set them up in places where God is worshipped, fall into three groups. First are two examples: the cherubim over God’s Ark and the bronze serpent. Second are texts commanding us to worship certain created things because of their relationship to God, such as his footstool. Finally, other texts authorize religious honor for holy things. But before examining whether these passages prove the claims made for them, I must explain what worship, images, and idols mean.

I have already shown in Chapter 20 of this book that to honor a person is to value that person’s power highly, and that we measure its value by comparison with others. But nothing can be compared with God in power. Any value we place on him short of infinite does not honor him; it dishonors him. Honor by nature is therefore private and inward, in the heart. But people’s inner thoughts show outwardly in words and actions. These signs of our honor are called worship, or cultus in Latin. Thus praying to someone, swearing by someone, obeying, and serving with care and attentiveness—in short, any words or deeds that show fear of displeasing someone or a wish to please them—are worship, whether sincere or pretended. Because they seem to show honor, they too are commonly called honor.

The worship we give those we believe to be merely human, such as kings and other authorities, is civil worship. The worship we give someone or something we believe to be God is divine worship, whatever words, ceremonies, gestures, or other actions we use. Bowing down before a king is only civil worship if we think he is only a man. But someone who merely removes his hat in church because he believes it to be God’s house performs divine worship. Those who try to distinguish divine from civil worship by the words douleia and latreia, rather than by the worshipper’s intention, deceive themselves. There are two kinds of servants. The first are entirely under their masters’ power: prisoners of war held as slaves and their children. They have no control over their own bodies; their lives depend on their masters’ will, and the slightest disobedience can cost them their lives. They are bought and sold like animals. They were called douloi, meaning slaves, and their service was called douleia. The second kind serve voluntarily for wages or in hope of some benefit from their masters. They were called thetes, or household servants; their masters have no claim on their service beyond what their Covenants specify. Both kinds of servants have their work assigned by someone else, whether they are enslaved or serve voluntarily. Latris is the general name for both, meaning a person who works for another as either a slave or a voluntary servant. So latreia means service of every kind, while douleia means only the service and condition of a slave. Scripture uses both words interchangeably for our service to God: douleia because we are God’s slaves, and latreia because we serve him. Every kind of service includes not just obedience but also worship—actions, gestures, and words showing honor.

In its strictest sense an image is the likeness of something visible. In this sense only the apparent forms of visible objects presented to our sight are images. Examples include the appearance of a person or another object in water, produced by reflection or refraction, and the appearance of the sun or stars when seen directly through the air. These appearances are not real things in the objects seen or in the places where they seem to be. Their size and shape are not the same as the objects’ and can change with changes in the organs of sight or with lenses. They often appear in our imagination and dreams when the object is absent, or they take on different colors and shapes, since they depend only on the imagination. These are the images first and most properly called ideas and idols, words taken from Greek, in which eido means “to see.” They are also called phantasms, Greek for “appearances.” From images like these comes the name imagination for one of our human capacities. Clearly, no image can be made of an invisible thing.

Clearly, too, there can be no image of an infinite thing. Every image or mental appearance formed by the impression of a visible thing has a shape, and every shape has boundaries in every direction. So there can be no image of God, the human soul, or spirits. There can be images only of visible bodies: bodies that produce light or are lit by something else.

People can also imagine shapes they have never seen by joining parts of different creatures, as poets do when they make centaurs, chimeras, and other never-seen monsters. They can then give these shapes material form in wood, clay, or metal. These too are called images, not because they resemble any actual body, but because they resemble imagined beings in their makers’ brains. The original imagined idols in the brain resemble the idols painted, carved, molded, or cast in material. That similarity lets us call the crafted object an image of the idol formed in the imagination by nature.

In a broader sense, “image” includes anything that represents one thing by another. An earthly Sovereign may thus be called the image of God, and a lower-ranking magistrate the image of an earthly Sovereign. Gentile idol worship often paid little attention to whether the physical idol looked like the imagined one, yet the object was still called its image. An uncut stone has been set up as Neptune, and many other figures looked nothing like the shapes attributed to their gods. Today, too, we see many images of the Virgin Mary and other saints that look nothing like one another or any single person’s mental picture. Yet they serve the purpose for which they were set up: their names alone identify the people mentioned in the history, and each viewer supplies an imagined likeness of his own, or none at all. Thus, in the broadest sense, an image resembles something visible or represents it, or, as most often happens, does both.

Scripture uses the word idol even more broadly for the sun, a star, or any other created thing, visible or invisible, when it is worshipped as a god.

Having explained worship and images, I will now consider them together and ask what idolatry is forbidden by the Second Commandment and other passages of Scripture.

To worship an image is voluntarily to perform outward acts that show honor to any of the following: the image’s material, whether wood, stone, metal, or another visible thing; the mental image it was shaped to resemble or represent; or both combined into a single living being, with the material as its body and the imagined thing as its soul.

Removing one’s hat before someone powerful or before a prince’s throne, or in another place the prince chooses to stand for him when absent, is civil worship of that person. It shows honor to the person, not the seat or place, and is not idolatry. But if someone believed the prince’s soul lived in the seat, or addressed a petition to the seat, that would be divine worship and idolatry.

Praying to a king for things within his power, even while lying prostrate before him, is only civil worship. We recognize only human power in him. But voluntarily asking him for fair weather, or anything else only God can provide, is divine worship and idolatry. On the other hand, if a king forces a person to do this by threat of death or other severe physical punishment, it is not idolatry. Worship of himself that a Sovereign commands under threat of his laws does not show that the person obeying inwardly honors him as God. It shows that the person wants to escape death or a miserable life. Something that does not show inward honor is not worship, and therefore is not idolatry. Nor can one say that this person sets a bad example or puts a stumbling block in a fellow believer’s path. However wise or learned the person compelled to worship may be, no one else can conclude from the act that the person approves of it, only that he does it out of fear. It is the Sovereign’s act, not his own.

Worshipping God in a particular place, or facing an image or a particular place, does not mean worshipping or honoring the place or image. It means recognizing it as holy, or set aside from ordinary use. That is what holy means. It implies no new property in the place or image, only a new relationship through dedication to God. It is therefore no more idolatrous than worshipping God before the bronze serpent, or than Jews outside their country facing the Temple of Jerusalem while praying, or than Moses removing his shoes before the burning bush on the ground of Mount Sinai. God had chosen that place to appear and to give his laws to the people of Israel. The ground was holy because it was set apart for God’s use, not because holiness was an inherent quality of it. Nor is it idolatrous for Christians to worship in churches formally dedicated to God for that purpose by a king or another true representative of the Church. But it is idolatry to worship God as though he lived inside an image or a place. That would put an infinite substance in a finite place. Such finite gods are merely imagined idols with no real existence; Scripture commonly calls them vanities, lies, and nothing. There is also idolatry when people worship God while using a place or image to remind them of him or his works, if it was dedicated or set up by private individuals rather than by our Sovereign pastors. This remains true even when they do not think God lives or is present in the place or image. The commandment says, “You shall not make for yourself any carved image.” God commanded Moses to set up the bronze serpent. Moses did not make it on his own authority, so it did not violate the commandment. But Aaron and the people made the golden calf without God’s authority, and this was idolatry. It was idolatry not only because they regarded it as God, but because they made it for religious use without authorization either from God their Sovereign or from Moses his deputy.

The Gentiles worshipped Jupiter and others as gods. Perhaps these had once been living people who did great and glorious things. They also worshipped various men and women as children of gods, believing they had been conceived by an immortal deity and a mortal person. This was idolatry: they made these beings into gods for themselves without authority from God, whether in his eternal Law of Reason or in his explicit revealed will. Our Savior, however, was a man whom we also believe to be immortal God and the Son of God. Believing this is not idolatry, since we base it not on our imagination or judgment but on God’s Word revealed in Scripture. As for worshipping the Eucharist: if Christ’s words “This is my body” mean that he himself and the apparent bread in his hand are his body, and, beyond that, every apparent piece of bread ever consecrated by priests since then or to be consecrated hereafter is one of Christ’s bodies while all remain one body, then such worship is not idolatry, since our Savior authorized it. But if that text does not mean this—and no other text can be cited for it—then such worship is a human institution and is idolatry. It is not enough to say that God can turn bread into Christ’s body. The Gentiles too believed God was all-powerful. On that basis they could just as easily excuse their idolatry by claiming that their wood and stone were transformed into Almighty God.

Some claim that divine inspiration means a supernatural entry of the Holy Ghost into a person, not the gaining of God’s grace through teaching and study. I think they face a very dangerous dilemma. If they do not worship the people they believe inspired in that way, they are impious, since they fail to adore God’s supernatural presence. If they do worship them, they commit idolatry, for the Apostles never allowed anyone to worship them in that way. The safest course, then, is to understand the dove descending on the Apostles, Christ breathing on them when he gave them the Holy Ghost, and the granting of it through the laying on of hands as signs God chose or ordained to signify his promise. He promised to help these people as they studied to preach his Kingdom and to help them behave in a way that would guide others rather than set a bad example.

Besides idolatrous worship of images, there is worship of images that sets a bad example. It too is a sin, but it is not idolatry. Idolatry uses signs of genuine inward honor. Worship that sets a bad example only appears to be worship. A person may inwardly and sincerely hate both the image and the imaginary demon or idol to which it is dedicated, and act only out of fear of death or other severe punishment. Yet this is a sin when done by people whose actions others look to for guidance. Those who follow their lead are bound to stumble and fall in matters of religion. The example of people we pay no attention to, however, has no effect on us. It leaves us to our own care and caution and so does not cause our fall.