Posted on 08/30/2003 6:54:36 PM PDT by Destro
How an Icon Brought a Calvinist to Orthodoxy
By Robert K. Arakaki
A Journey to Orthodoxy
Conciliar Press - It was my first week at seminary. Walking down the hallway of the main dorm, I saw an icon of Christ on a student’s door. I thought: "An icon in an evangelical seminary?! What’s going on here?" Even more amazing was the fact that Jim’s background was the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination. When I left Hawaii in 1990 to study at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I went with the purpose of preparing to become an evangelical seminary professor in a liberal United Church of Christ seminary. The UCC is one of the most liberal denominations, and I wanted to help bring the denomination back to its biblical roots. The last thing I expected was that I would become Orthodox.
Called by an Icon
After my first semester, I flew back to Hawaii for the winter break. While there, I was invited to a Bible study at Ss. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church. At the Bible study I kept looking across the table to the icons that were for sale. My eyes kept going back to this one particular icon of Christ holding the Bible in His hand. For the next several days I could not get that icon out of my mind.
I went back and bought the icon. When I bought it, I wasn’t thinking of becoming Orthodox. I bought it because I thought it was cool, and as a little gesture of rebellion against the heavily Reformed stance at Gordon-Conwell. However, I also felt a spiritual power in the icon that made me more aware of Christ’s presence in my life.
In my third year at seminary, I wrote a paper entitled, "The Icon and Evangelical Spirituality." In the paper I explored how the visual beauty of icons could enrich evangelical spirituality, which is often quite intellectual and austere. As I did my research, I knew that it was important that I understand the icon from the Orthodox standpoint and not impose a Protestant bias on my subject. Although I remained a Protestant evangelical after I had finished the paper, I now began to comprehend the Orthodox sacramental understanding of reality.
After I graduated from seminary, I went to Berkeley and began doctoral studies in comparative religion. While there, I attended Ss. Kyril and Methodios Bulgarian Orthodox Church, a small parish made up mostly of American converts. It was there that I saw Orthodoxy in action. I was deeply touched by the sight of fathers carrying their babies in their arms to take Holy Communion and fathers holding their children up so they could kiss the icons.
The Biblical Basis for Icons
After several years in Berkeley, I found myself back in Hawaii. Although I was quite interested in Orthodoxy, I also had some major reservations. One was the question: Is there a biblical basis for icons? And doesn’t the Orthodox practice of venerating icons violate the Ten Commandments, which forbid the worship of graven images? The other issue was John Calvin’s opposition to icons. I considered myself to be a Calvinist, and I had a very high regard for Calvin as a theologian and a Bible scholar. I tackled these two problems in the typical fashion of a graduate student: I wrote research papers.
In my research I found that there is indeed a biblical basis for icons. In the Book of Exodus, we find God giving Moses the Ten Commandments, which contain the prohibition against graven images (Exodus 20:4). In that same book, we also find God instructing Moses on the construction of the Tabernacle, including placing the golden cherubim over the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:17–22). Furthermore, we find God instructing Moses to make images of the cherubim on the outer curtains of the Tabernacle and on the inner curtain leading into the Holy of Holies (Exodus 26:1, 31–33).
I found similar biblical precedents for icons in Solomon’s Temple. Images of the cherubim were worked into the Holy of Holies, carved on the two doors leading into the Holy of Holies, as well as on the outer walls around Solomon’s Temple (2 Chronicles 3:14; 1 Kings 6:29, 30, 31–35). What we see here stands in sharp contrast to the stark austerity of many Protestant churches today. Where many Protestant churches have four bare walls, the Old Testament place of worship was full of lavish visual details.
Toward the end of the Book of Ezekiel is a long, elaborate description of the new Temple. Like the Tabernacle of Moses and Solomon’s Temple, the new Temple has wall carvings of cherubim (Ezekiel 41:15–26). More specifically, the carvings of the cherubim had either human faces or the faces of lions. The description of human faces on the temple walls bears a striking resemblance to the icons in Orthodox churches today.
Recent archaeological excavations uncovered a first-century Jewish synagogue with pictures of biblical scenes on its walls. This means that when Jesus and His disciples attended the synagogue on the Sabbath, they did not see four bare walls, but visual reminders of biblical truths.
I was also struck by the fact that the concept of the image of God is crucial for theology. It is important to the Creation account and critical in understanding human nature (Genesis 1:27). This concept is also critical for the understanding of salvation. God saves us by the restoration of His image within us (Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:49). These are just a few mentions of the image of God in the Bible. All this led me to the conclusion that there is indeed a biblical basis for icons!
What About Calvin?
But what about John Calvin? I had the greatest respect for Calvin, who is highly regarded among Protestants for his Bible commentaries and is one of the foundational theologians of the Protestant Reformation. I couldn’t lightly dismiss Calvin’s iconoclasm. I needed good reasons, biblical and theological, for rejecting Calvin’s opposition to icons.
My research yielded several surprises. One was the astonishing discovery that nowhere in his Institutes did Calvin deal with verses that describe the use of images in the Old Testament Tabernacle and the new Temple. This is a very significant omission.
Another significant weakness is Calvin’s understanding of church history. Calvin assumed that for the first five hundred years of Christianity, the churches were devoid of images, and that it was only with the decline of doctrinal purity that images began to appear in churches. However, Calvin ignored Eusebius’s History of the Church, written in the fourth century, which mentions colored portraits of Christ and the Apostles (7:18). This, despite the fact that Calvin knew of and even cited Eusebius in his Institutes!
Another weakness is the fact that Calvin nowhere countered the classic theological defense put forward by John of Damascus: The biblical injunction against images was based on the fact that God the Father cannot be depicted in visual form. However, because God the Son took on human nature in His Incarnation, it is possible to depict the Son in icons.
I was surprised to find that Calvin’s arguments were nowhere as strong as I had thought. Calvin did not take into account all the biblical evidence, he got his church history wrong, and he failed to respond to the classical theological defense. In other words, Calvin’s iconoclasm was flawed on biblical, theological, and historical grounds.
In my journey to Orthodoxy, there were other issues I needed to address, but the issue of the icon was the tip of the iceberg. I focused on the icon because I thought that it was the most vulnerable point of Orthodoxy. To my surprise, it was much stronger than I had ever anticipated. My questions about icons were like the Titanic hitting the iceberg. What looked like a tiny piece of ice was much bigger under the surface and quite capable of sinking the big ship. In time my Protestant theology fell apart and I became convinced that the Orthodox Church was right when it claimed to have the fullness of the Faith.
I was received into the Orthodox Church on the Sunday of Orthodoxy in 1999. On this Sunday the Orthodox Church celebrates the restoration of the icons and the defeat of the iconoclasts at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in AD 787. On this day, the faithful proclaim, "This is the faith that has established the universe." It certainly established the faith of this Calvinist, as the result of the powerful witness of one small icon!
Robert Arakaki is currently writing his dissertation on religion and politics in Southeast Asia at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He attends Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.
You got that one completely backwards!
Augustine's Filioque heresy
We've been over this before. St. Augustine did not invent the filioque. It was a common theological term in the west and in Alexandria for at least 200 years prior to the First Council of Constantinople.
It was Augustine's view of a totally depraved and guilty mankind that necessitated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
The "guilt" of Original Sin is a manner of speech. It refers to our being born without grace (surely you do not believe that little children come into the world with the life of God within them?). Original sin is a state of being. It is passed on by human generation in that because all men were in Adams loins, so all men contracted his punishments of death of the body and soul.
We do not view mankind as totally depraved.
The Immaculate Conception is necessitated by the total opposition of Blessed Mary to Satan, and her need to provide Christ a body without the corruption of Original Sin, both the lack of grace and concupiscence - the disorder of sensual desires placing themselves above and out of the control of human reason. St. Thomas Aquinas says of this: "But the Blessed Virgin Mary was nearest to Christ in His humanity: because He received His human nature from her. Therefore it was due to her to receive a greater fulness of grace than others." (Summa, Pt. III, Q. 25, Art. 7). The Immaculate Conception is intimately tied up to our view of the unbesmirched human nature of Christ, which was derived from Blessed Mary.
Capping off this general spirit of Western heresy is Augustine's heretical validation of the baptism of heretics
The validity of Baptism given outside the Church was not invented by St. Augustine, but is part of the Apostolic faith. 150 years before St. Augustine, Pope St. Cornelius was defending this truth against Firmilian and St. Cyprian, the Council of Arles in AD 314 defend it against the Donatists, and Pope St. Siricius defended it in the case of baptism by the Arians. When St. Augustine entered into controversy with the Donatists, his actions were approved by Pope St. Innocent I because they were in conformity with what was believed by all.
This validty in and of itself is not to be confused with the absence of grace given by Baptism taken outside the Church by adults. The grace is restored when communion with the Catholic Church is restored.
It is this sort of simplistic error that makes the arguments of people like Mr. Valentine not be taken seriously.
As for the Shroud of Turin, it may be authentic or it is probably an artistic recreation of the actual Mandelion, the way blessed icons are copied ad infinitum.
The shroud IS the Mandelion, unfolded. See "The Turin Shroud" by Ian Wilson.
Creating replicas of holy icons and the like is a common practice.
In saying this I do not mean to say it is a forgery. A replica would not have been intended to be a forgery but a substitute.
It could also be the original and the sudden appearance and mysterious origin (we don't know beyond a certain date where it was stored) indicates it was the stolen Mandelion taken by the murdering, thieving crusaders from the Orthodox Church in Constantinople. As such, there was an aura of shame behind how it wound up in the West so it was kept hush.
Now another mystery is where did the true cross found by St. Helen and Constantine and rescued from the Zoroastrian Persians end up after the sack of the Great City by the Pope's Crusaders?
Sure he is. I have been reading his stuff on the net for years and years.
But whose picture did I post? LOL.
Augustine's "double procession" theory was the origin of the filioque, in his De Trinitate.
Most everyone agrees with this, Hermann, except you. Try a google search for "double procession".
Darn close. Actually baptism, for us, is to confer membership in the church, not to "wash away" anything. Baptism is not a magical act which can eliminate any kind of "original sin". It is a sacrament which unites us to the church, and symbolizes a rebirth in Christ.
There is no guilt inherited or "stain" of original sin in the Orthodox church. These are the remnants of Augustine again...it is, imo, the work of the evil one to distort our coming knowledge of God's love for us, to make us think that we are some corrupt, depraved beings. When you take away that divine love, you can help people to stay away from Christ, again, imo. You (all) can argue with me about this, but before you do recall that "God is love", and "the greatest of these is love".
Of course we are sinful and none of us can resist sin, but in coming to Christ, we can experience God personally - especially God's love for us. There is nothing more sweet and reassuring than this experience, which I have found in the Orthodox church - along with the knowledge of my incredible lowliness before God's majesty.
"403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam's sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the "death of the soul".[291] Because of this certainty of faith,the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.[292]
404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man".[293] By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.[294] It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act."
Hermann, it sounds to me like you do have a doctrine of original sin, in spite of your words above.
Well then I guess the great majority of Orthodox Christians are also insane, as it is a commonly and widely-held belief in my church. That would mean, then, that your pope is seeking to be part of an insane asylum, I suppose, when he seeks us out and speaks of unity with us. Hope that makes you feel comforted.
I think this is a better explanation.
"In Latin theology, the divine Persons were considered as the simple inner relations of the unique essence of the Godhead: hence, if the very existence of the Spirit is determined by its relations to the Father and the Son, the doctrine of the Filioque - or procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son - becomes a logical, dogmatic necessity, for the Spirit cannot be said to be distinct from the Son if he does not proceed from him.
Eastern theologians, on the other hand, remained faithful to the old "personalism" of the Greek Fathers. The doctrine of the Filioque appeared to them, consequently, as Semi-Sabellianism (to use the expression of Photius). [Sabellianism is a heresy dating from the second century attributed to a certain Sabellius, who taught that the divine Persons are simply "modes" or "aspects" of a unique God.]
Consubstantial with the Father and the Son, because proceeding from the Father, the unique source of the Deity, the Spirit has his own existence and personal function in the inner life of God and the economy of salvation: his task is to bring about the unity of the human race in the Body of Christ, but he also imparts to this unity a personal, and hence diversified, character. It is with a prayer to the Holy Spirit that all the liturgical services of the Orthodox Church begin, and with an invocation of his name that the eucharistic mystery is effected."
And here, hopefully, you can see why this is so important to us. It is part and parcel of our entire liturgy, with the epiklesis we so strongly defend.
Nope.
Oh yeah, big time.
Protestant.
Yeah, right! That's why they had to invent Sola Sciptura!
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