Images: You Can’t Live Without Them

Last updated on: August 29, 2015 at 11:12 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

Images: You Can’t Live Without Them 2015-08-29T11:12:24-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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An image of Constantine making the Benedict Option possible by making an Image.

A school like The Saint Constantine School makes art, music, poetry, and literature central to education. Is that practical? Shouldn’t we center on the “facts?” Why bother with all these images and words when we could just give the bottom line?

This isn’t my favorite Bible verse (John 1:14 anyone?), but I love it for its oddness and relevance to life: “Ah Lord God,’ I cried; ‘they are always saying of me, “He deals only in figures of speech.” ”

Anybody who teaches hard topics, the Trinity, the myths of Plato’s Timaeus, and the mystery of the rules of the game called “cricket,” understands this complaint. We try to compare the very complex to something less complex and if we are not careful our listeners complain. They tire of images: why don’t we just “tell it like it is.” Why do we need images?

It is then we must remind them that “images” or parables or figures of speech are all we have for everything. The words I write are images or produce images in the mind. The image of Constantine in this post is not Constantine, but it makes us think of Constantine the good Emperor as does the word “Constantine.” In fact, the man named “Constantine” could not read the English word for his name. He used Greek letters!

Idolatry is the besetting sin of humanity because we cannot escape images and some images are so powerful we worship them. When an image becomes an idol, it is the ultimate perversion of a good thing. We break creation when we confuse the creature with the Creator. Some think if they destroy all images, paintings, sculptures, or objects of art, that they can get rid of idolatry, but this is naive. Those same people will bow before the script of their holy book or confuse the image of a person with the reality of God.

We all do this when we pretend that our analogies, parables, or figures of speech about God are God. We should not invent our own images about God: He has given us the best images. We are capable of confusing even those simple explanations of the deep truths, but other analogies or images will only confuse us into grotesque error. Humanity can make idols of true theology and then more foolish humans smash those idols and forget the truth. They raise false theology up and worship their ideas as idols.

The Christian worships God in the images He commands, but we know He is always more than our words and more than the images in our mind. When I was a little boy, I thought God was like my Dad because my Dad is a very good man. This was good for my eight year old self and helped bring me to God, but God is not my Dad in any way. The analogy works . . . just as the simple emoticon of a “smiley face” reminds me of a face even though it looks very little like an actual face.

The simple truth that all our thinking is short of the glory of God reveals another important truth. We are the very image of God and to see any human is to see the closest image of God the cosmos contains. When Planned Parenthood sees a baby and thinks “parts,” Planned Parenthood shows spiritual blindness. The image of a baby should bring piety and awe, not a desire to destroy the image for profit. They smash the image of God, not because they are destroying an idol, but because like all iconoclasts, they hate God. The sight of the fetus reminds their souls of God and the wickedness is repulsed and so they destroy the very image of God.

They are like the vulgar who must deface a cathedral because their shallow souls cannot grasp, build, or even imagine the sublime image of the Cathedral. The crudity is the only image their secularism, their facile atheism, has left to them.

God is the only full reality and all of Creation is an image of His reality. We create images of those images when we make art, write, or do any craft. Those images are not worthy of worship, God alone is, but because they are made by His children, the very best are worthy of honor. I strive tonight to say one beautiful word, produce one great image in words, to remind anyone reading this, to remind myself, that there is a God, there is virtue, wisdom, and joy.

God, help me to see even if through an image.

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