My dear Boogieman, if the Bible’s enough for you, why on earth are you quoting Tertullian?
And what are you doing on Free Republic?? Wonderful we may be, but ain’t none of us composing Sacred Scripture!
BTW, the two greatest anti-idolatry voices in the early Church, Tertullian and Gregory the Great, both noted that the carved images of the Cherubim in the Holy of Holys, and the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses, were NOT against God’s law because they were NOT meant for idolatrous purposes.
So there’s your criterion: if it’s not meant for idolatrous purposes, it’s not idolatry.
And normal people understand this. Rare is the crank who would object to Christmas Nativity figurines, or carven angels found next to the “Praying Hands” on tombstones in Christian cemeteries.
“My dear Boogieman, if the Bible’s enough for you, why on earth are you quoting Tertullian?”
Apples & oranges. You take my response to a question about artwork, imagery, and then try to apply the answer to a question about commentary, the written word. They’re two entirely different things, so don’t assume my opinion on the one is the same of the other. I agree with Tertullian and he expresses the salient points on the matter better than I can, so why not quote him? I could make the case from the Bible myself but Tertullian already made it almost two millenia ago, so why go through the effort again for an internet comment board?
“BTW, the two greatest anti-idolatry voices in the early Church, Tertullian and Gregory the Great, both noted that the carved images of the Cherubim in the Holy of Holys, and the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses, were NOT against God’s law because they were NOT meant for idolatrous purposes.”
Incorrect, as already demonstrated in Tertullian’s quote about the bronze serpent that I quoted to you. That chapter specifically addressed that objection, and Tertullian was clear that only an express individual commandment from God himself was what allowed the prohibition against idolatry to be avoided in those cases. He advised us to follow the example of Moses, so if God told us to make an image, then we were free to do so, otherwise it is prohibited.
“And normal people understand this. Rare is the crank who would object to Christmas Nativity figurines, or carven angels found next to the “Praying Hands” on tombstones in Christian cemeteries.”
These kinds of arguments carry no weight for me. The kingdom of heaven isn’t a democracy, and God didn’t consult our sensibilities when He gave us the law. If God forbids us to make or use religious imagery, then that is the end of the matter. Saying “everybody else does it” is not going to sway me.