“Can you say with certainty that everyone else WILL BE tempted to idolatry simply because you feel certain that THEY WILL BE?”
It’s not an issue of whether EVERYONE will be tempted, but only if some will be tempted. Christians are admonished in the New Testament to refrain from things that may tempt their brethren who are not as strong in the faith to commit sin. We have plenty of examples of this happening in relation to Christian iconography, for example, the heresy of Mariolatry, and the cults which have sprung up, such as Santeria and Santa Muerte, which use Christian icons for unambiguously idolatrous worship, and draw the majority of their converts from the Catholic church. This is not a theoretical question, these things are happening in the real world.
So, as you say, you can’t prove a negative, but can you disprove a positive? Can you disprove this statement: “Certain idolators regularly use Christian iconography in their false worship, and they have been tempted into believing that this is proper by the Church’s acceptance of iconography in their own worship.”
If you can’t disprove that statement, then how can you justify the Church continuing to approve of practices which tempt the weak to sin gravely against God?
If you can’t disprove that statement, then how can you justify the Church continuing to approve of practices which tempt the weak to sin gravely against God?
1. Oy! The problem is not the Church's doctrine which she has made clear and I've posted here before. Whoseover becomes an objective idolater does so despite the Church's clear teaching and warning, not because of them.
2. Oy again! I don't need to "disprove a positive" but if you are positing the affirmation, you are the one who needs to put forward evidence to back up the assertion. It is not my role to come up with evidence to prove or disprove anything. I will not be doing your homework. Don't present to me half-cooked arguments for me to complete or guess because I won't.
3. Like icons, money, sex, possessions, food, health, looks, fashions, politics, ideology, are means to an end and not end in themselves. When these become ends in themselves, they become idols. By your logic we should completely abstain from them also, for clearly, the prohibition for idolatry also extends to them. Well, do you?
-Theo