You are ignoring 2 fundamental points. 1st, neither Luther nor I has said that putting any trust in something other than the true God is sinful. Note his word "entirely" (toto) & my "ultimate." 2d, whether or not a person says or even believes that he/she puts final trust in the true God or something else is not the question - as Janice has already pointed out. Of course no respectable churchgoing member in a respectable churchgoing culture is going to say "What I really trust in when the chips are down is my investments" but that doesn't mean that he/she doesn't.
& note that I haven't used the word "idolatry" there. Call it something else if you wish, but it's convenient to have a single word for the basic sin of violation of the 1st Commandment or what Paul calls worshipping the creature rather than the creator & to extend the concept of "idollatry" - latria of an eidolon, worship of an image - a bit to cover the more general case is reasonable, & is in fact long-established usage.
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: Don Winterstein
To: asa
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 8:49 AM
Subject: [asa] Improved view of idolatry
Luther: "...To have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely trusts."
Murphy: "What is really fundamental is where we put our ultimate trust...."
By these standards there is probably little or no idolatry among God-believers in America: Very few of them, if asked, would claim that their ultimate trust is in their wealth or in anything or anyone but God. Yet Christian pastors and teachers are forever pointing to multitudes of things and saying that people are making idols of them. The apostle Paul may have started this practice by saying, "...Their god is their stomach...." But who would say in all seriousness that they put their ultimate trust in their stomach? And then there's Ezekiel 14.
So is a "god" merely something that people pamper or focus on or work on excessively? What's excessive? So we're supposed to feel guilty about having a good meal and maybe overeating a bit? What's overeating?
To make progress on these concepts we need to distinguish between idolatry as used in a literal sense and idolatry as used in a figurative sense: Idolatry as practiced among OT Jews generally was literal idolatry. Idolatry as practiced among NT Christians is figurative, and the term as used by Christian teachers is almost always figurative.
Why is this distinction important? Without recognizing the true nature of idolatry in the OT, and how it differs from what Christian teachers ordinarily call idolatry, one cannot deeply comprehend OT history or understand God's extreme condemnations of idolatry through prophets. In the more extreme writings God comes across like a cuckolded husband with an outsized ego.
The "hole model" of human needs nicely illustrates the distinction--hole model as in, "man has a God-shaped hole," implying that humans are incomplete without God. We can say that humans also have an air-shaped hole, a food shaped hole, ..., and an ego-shaped hole, this latter meaning that people need to have their personal identity reinforced (via love, compliments, etc.). All these holes represent legitimate human needs, and satisfying them is not in itself sin or idolatry.
The God-shaped hole can be filled only by God or gods. It cannot be filled by other humans, material possessions, entertainment, sports or anything else. And only when a person fills his God-shaped hole with a god other than God can he have committed literal idolatry.
The demands of the God-shaped hole can be suppressed or ignored, however; and people can use possessions, etc., to suppress it. Suppressing or ignoring it, however, is not the same as filling it; and the sin of suppressing or ignoring it is rather less consequential than the sin of filling it with the wrong god. It may rouse God's anger for people to wash their car on Sunday morning instead of going to church, but it's unlikely to make him come across with the rage of a cuckolded husband.
Suppressing the demands of the God-shaped hole is thus idolatry in the figurative sense, in the sense that people blot out their need for God or gods by paying excessive attention to creatures other than spirits.
Integral to this understanding is the identification of idols with demons: People are not so thick-headed as to worship a wooden pole as god or a block of stone as god if they really thought that the wood and stone were the sum and substance. Rather, the wood and stone were devices that brought worshippers into communion with demons. And demons were as capable of filling their God-shaped holes as God himself. Thus demons were competing head-to-head with God and often winning. This was true idolatry, and God found it intolerable for his people to engage in it. Hence the Babylonian captivity, which cured it.
The identification of idols with demons is not scripturally easy, but it is possible because of Deuteronomy 32:16-17 and Psalm 106:36-37. Much more common are passages like Isaiah 44:9-20: Prophets again and again accused people of gross stupidity and ridiculed them for worshipping wood and stone. But those accusations largely fell on deaf ears, because the people knew there was something there that went far beyond wood and stone. Something that was satisfying. Something that filled their God-shaped hole even though it was not God.
And these gods, unlike God, were easy to access and please. So you're going to make your child pass through fire? See how goood that makes you feel, when the god lives in your God-shaped hole!
Don
----- Original Message -----
From: George Murphy
To: George Murphy ; ASA list
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] D'Souza vs. Hitchens - Surrending the debate
...
3) The issues of [idolatry] & worship are closely connected but not in the way some people think. What is really fudamental is where we put our ultimate trust - who or what we look to as the source of our lives & of whatever good we may have. & that is what the 1st Commandment is really about. Luther explains this well in his treatment of the 1st Commandment in the Large Catechism. (The following is from http://www.bookofconcord.org/largecatechism/3_tencommandments.html .)
The First Commandment.
Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
1] That is: Thou shalt have [and worship] Me alone as thy God. What is the force of this, and how is it to be understood? What does it mean to have a god? or, what is God? 2] Answer: A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart; as I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. 3] If your faith and trust be right, then is your god also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust be false and wrong, then you have not the true God; for these two belong together, faith and God. That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.
4] Therefore it is the intent of this commandment to require true faith and trust of the heart which settles upon the only true God, and clings to Him alone. That is as much as to say: "See to it that you let Me alone be your God, and never seek another," i.e.: Whatever you lack of good things, expect it of Me, and look to Me for it, and whenever you suffer misfortune and distress, creep and cling to Me. I, yes, I, will give you enough and help you out of every need; only let not your heart cleave to or rest in any other.
5] This I must unfold somewhat more plainly, that it may be understood and perceived by ordinary examples of the contrary. Many a one thinks that he has God and everything in abundance when he has money and, possessions; he trusts in them and boasts of them with such firmness and assurance as to care for no one. 6] Lo, such a man also has a god, Mammon by name, i.e., money and possessions, on which he sets all his heart, and which is also the most common idol on earth. 7] He who has money and possessions feels secure, and is joyful and undismayed as though he were sitting in the midst of Paradise. 8] On the other hand, he who has none doubts and is despondent, as though he knew of no God. 9] For very few are to be found who are of good cheer, and who neither mourn nor complain if they have not Mammon. This [care and desire for money] sticks and clings to our nature, even to the grave.
10] So, too, whoever trusts and boasts that he possesses great skill, prudence, power, favor, friendship, and honor has also a god, but not this true and only God. This appears again when you notice how presumptuous, secure, and proud people are because of such possessions, and how despondent when they no longer exist or are withdrawn. Therefore I repeat that the chief explanation of this point is that to have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely trusts.
The term "idolatry" is sometimes understood only in its most obvious sense, the worship of statues &c. As I pointed out before, that is not the way Ezekiel 14:3 sees it. What you have there is the realization that the basic question is what you set your "heart" on, not whether it is a physical representation of some putative god or goddess. But use of the term "idolatry" is not essential. Instead we can simply use Paul's phrase, "worship the creature rather than the creator" (including creatures of our imagination) for vilation of the 1st Commandment.
...
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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Received on Mon Nov 5 08:39:56 2007
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