Idolatry

Back to the point about Idolatry
Those ‘omni-’ terms with which some epithets given to God begin with, are in fact, ‘negative’ expressions, since they begin with a terrestrial, human bound concepts such as power (‘potentia’) or knowing (‘scientia’) or temporality and they say that ‘God’ is all ‘powerful’, all ‘knowing’ and eternal. The epithets negate the humanly grasped expressions: there is a tree, it is visible, it is present to my vision, it flowers in Spring and so on… God on the other hand is invisible, present to all places and times, capable not only of flowering but of making every tree that ever was or will be flower!
The negative expressions with which we refer to God are indeed the inversions of terms that make sense and ‘work’ in our ordinary language. An asteroid is pretty powerful and in its earth destroying capacity may be conceived a more potent than a nuclear weapon. In conceiving ‘God’ we take that power which the asteroid wields and ‘up the ante’ all the way to say that God is billions of times more powerful than the asteroid. We take the sun and say it is mighty but we say that God is infinitely more mighty (‘omnipotent’).
Hence, as long as we go down this road in attempting to describe God we do not possess a positive concept and these epithets do not add anything to the meaning of the word ‘God’. Medieval scholars such as Aquinas referred to this ‘negative’ attempt to describe God as ‘via negativa’.

The medieval scholastics came up with funny paradoxes based upon God’s omnipotence: for example, is God so powerful that he can build a rock so large that he cannot roll it up a mountain? Or can God create a particle so small that He is unable to see it? I think these paradoxes underscore the fact that ‘negative’ descripitions of God’s being lead us to.
Is there a positive way of describing God?Remember that ‘describe’ already has a connotation of ‘limiting one’s concept to a finite expression’---to sketch in, or outline (de-scribare). Perhaps it is better to say we are attempting to discover God’s Being versus defining or describing Him.
‘Discover’ is better in many ways: it does not imply that a completion of this activity could ever be achieved. True, when we see Him face to face, it may be close to grasping God’s Being, however, even then, there is still the separation of being ‘I’ and God being other, it is not commonly reckoned that we become God in Heaven but that we dwell more closely with Him.
Aquinas makes one of the few ‘positive’ attempts to speak of God---it is the idea that God is ‘esse’ or the meaning of the word ‘to be’. There is more to say on this theme, but let it suffice for now.

One question arises: is Being natural or unnatural. We must investigate what we mean by ‘natural’---is God radically other than Being as some philosophers (Levinas) have suggested? We must consider to what extent the ‘transcendent’ functions. Is there something totally transcendent to nature?

This question underlies the difference between Zen Buddhism and Judaism. In Zen Buddhism
there is no transcendence, or rather all is transcendence. In Judaism, this God ‘Yawheh’ exists, acts and functions outside of time, space, history, etc… And we discover ourselves radically immanent, within this created world of creatures that this omnipotent, and quite alien Creator has created, we must imagine for some good, at least for his good pleasure.Somehow it is this conception of God that is perhaps most ‘human’ sketch of God in the sense that the sketch of the form of god as a horse (Xenophanes) is the best a horse can do.

Man conceives of God negatively and in terms of transcendence and as something alien and radically ‘other’. Certainly people may conceive of God as a ‘grandfather’ floating in an Empyrean Realm, but this is not in accord with how these same people conduct and view their lives and the activity of matter. It is thoughtless, since the same person is afraid to fall in an elevator shaft, and yet they conceive of God as a material being violating all of the rules of matter. Oxen conceive their gods as oxen, and men conceive their gods as men. As for us, we are not concerned with the anthropomorphic depiction of God, not even in its negative theology (im-mortal, omni-present, etc…) We want to know the truth concerning ‘God’, or simply we want to know the ‘truth’. Since it follows that if God exists, this must have some bearing on truth! And vice-versa. Hence we do not applaud well meaning attempts at religious folk attempting to legitimate their beliefs with false accounts, faulty physics, and anthropomorphic projections as great as the horse and oxen. No we are searching to discover the truth of God Himself!
IdolatryWe are well familiar with many versions of idolatry: flag worship, worship of one’s state and government, brand name coveting and shopping, children’s success and beauty to name a few more prevalent forms of idolatry in the contemporary US culture. The most original form and hence the most radical form of idolatry concerns the idolatry of God Himself. Incidentally it is on this score that God most vehemently protests.

We will find examples of passionate women saying that they “adore” and “worship” the ground their lover walks on, etc… This is a hyped up emotional lie since only the true God is worthy of such praise and no mortal man is worthy of such praise (unless they all are!).
Idolatry in the most radical sense stems from attempts to define ‘God’----every attempt I at best partial and by definition can never attain to the complete goal or grasping or understanding God.

When Christians speak of God in a manner that betrays that they grasp His identity and manner of operation, they are forming an ‘idol’. Examples of this are well meaning evangelists who argue that since the Word of God is inerrant, even God is bound to adhere to it…God Himself is bound by the Bible to execute His designs. What a classic example of anthropomorphism (oxen, horses) and yet what a classic example of idolatry. Xenophanes states: “The Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black, the Thracians that theirs have light blue eyes and red hair.”
Here someone uses the Bible as technique of “forcing God’s Hand,” denying God’s freedom, and at the same time satisfying that all too human rational urge to see the paradigm through to the very end come “hell or highwater!”