When Alexander the Great tore into Asia Minor in 334BC, then through the Middle East and Egypt, and then on into Asia he saw himself and his army as a liberating force. He was the avatar of Greek culture, with a mission to bring enlightenment to the world. Alexander, having been tutored by Aristotle, had a lively interest in empirical research, investigation, study, and knowledge. He saw himself as a semi-divine force to bring the liberation of knowledge to a benighted, superstitious, and ignorant world. Hellenism was literally on the march and its mission was to save the world.
His lesser successors continued this imperialistic foray―an endeavour which was largely successful, insofar as hellenic culture and the hellenic world view became dominant throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Greek rationalism and Aristotelian empiricism was cool.
Given this vast and comprehensive cultural and religious influence, it is somewhat surprising to read that when the Apostle Paul travelled to Athens around 300 years later the thing that struck him was not the sculpture, the art, the architecture, nor the schools of philosophy, science and medicine, but the idolatry. The city was full of idols. (Acts 17: 16) It was very similar to present day countries still under the influence of Hinduism―different deities, same concepts.
When he was invited to speak in the Areopagus, Paul lampooned the stupidity and ignorance of the Athenians. He sarcastically said that he could clearly see that they were thoroughly religious. Amongst the multitudinous objects of worship he had even discovered an altar “To An Unknown God.” The Athenians had gone so far in their superstitions that they had decided to worship ignorance. What they were devoting themselves to in ignorance, he would declare to them. Now that was truly something that would have wound up the arrogant, intellectualist Athenians.
But how could this be? How could the enlightened Greeks have become so superstitious and ignorant that they splattered the city with idols literally at every turn? After all, Athens was one of the great centres of hellenic culture and learning. Surely, one would have expected instead monuments to Reason, or the Empirical Method, or to Socratic Inquiry.
Well, think of it this way. Ancient Athens was simply more overt, transparent, and honest than modern Athens. It turns out that if you are not a citizen of Jerusalem, idolatry is the “name of the game.” Idolatry is the act or mindset that gives ultimate loyalty, authority, and devotion to something in the creation, rather than to the Creator. Once again, Paul nails the point as he describes and characterises the Unbelieving Mind:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is know about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.If you don't worship and serve the Living God, you therefore worship and serve the creature―either an actual being (man or animal) or some aspect of the created world. The ancient Athenians were simply more honest than their modern successors―they made this reality overt, and set up idols and altars at every street corner.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has ben made, so that they are without excuse.
For even though they knew God, they did not honour Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four footed animals and crawling creatures.
Romans 1: 18―23
Yet, this is a bit embarrassing―because it is so obviously superstitious nonsense. The old prophets of Jerusalem, inspired by God's Spirit, used to have a field day ridiculing the abject stupidity of idolatry and idolaters. They described a man going off into the woods, finding a tree, cutting it down, and bringing home the trunk. Half he cut up and put in the fire to warm his house and cook his supper. The other half he carefully carved and chiseled into the image of an idol. Then he bowed down and worshipped what he had made, and says, “Deliver me, for thou art my god”. (Isaiah 44: 12―17) Can you conceive of anything more dumb or stupid. The very crassness of it makes it offensive to any right-thinking person.
Nevertheless, and this is the point, the ancient Athenians were simply making outward what they had conceived inwardly. In their hearts they were worshippers of both creatures and the creation. They could see no contradition between extolling the virtues of autonomous rationalism, on the one hand, and bowing down to an image, on the other―and they were right. In principle there is no contradiction. The ancient Athenians were simply more transparent and honest than their modern descendants.
Under the influence of the Enlightenment actually physically bowing down to an image―or to anything for that matter―came to be seen as primitive and embarrassing. The Enlightenment philosophes spent much of their lives decrying and ridiculing religion—particularly as they found it within Roman Catholicism. For them religion was superstition and foolish ignorance. They had plenty of evidence to which they could point. So, having spent most of their professional careers extolling rationalism and empiricism and decrying religion, they could hardly tolerate an outward display of their own religion using the media of idols before which they would literally bow down.
But the Enlightenment was not only deeply religious, it was also profoundly superstitious. Ultimate truth was what the mind of man determined for itself―all Athenians have been agreed on that, ever since the Fall in Eden. However, in an attempt to obscure both its religion and superstition, the Enlightenment ended up extolling and reverencing abstractions and ideals. In its self-vaunted “more enlightened age”, it ended up extolling reason, rationality, evidence, inquiry, knowledge, and learning―and laid aside externalising its abstractions into personified forms and worshipping them. So, in modern Athens—which is the direct descendant of the Enlightenment—the Unbelieving Mind has changed the mode of idolatry, but kept its essence.
The gods now worshipped and revered, honoured and respected, according to current Athenian fashion are abstract ideas (love, justice, reason, truth, empiricism, materialism, dialectical materialism, scientific determinism, historicism), or vague magical superstitious constructs (life force, being itself, spirit, the god within). While not currently fashionable to make images representing these notions, the reverence and respect is as deep and pervasive as ever. An aspect of the creation is stylised, absolutised, and then, in heart and mind, reverenced. Meanwhile the superstition of ancient Athens is also everywhere in modern Athens. “Good luck” charms abound; astrological fortune telling is printed in daily newspapers and broadcast on national radio; when in trouble everyone cries out to a god of whom they are totally ignorant and at most times could not care less about—but they keep the god lurking in the background, “just in case”; Maori animistic rituals calling upon the spirits and the gods are employed officially at virtually every function of state; and everyday speech is riddled with blasphemous and superstitious expressions such as the ubiquitous “Oh, my god.” Which god exactly? It doesn't matter, for in Athens there is only one god at the end of the day.
Many within the halls of Jerusalem today find the numerous passages in the Scripture condemning idolatry somewhat old fashioned, if not downright antiquarian. This is because, unless one lives in a Hindu culture, physical idols to which acts of devotion are performed are simply not seen as obviously in modern secular Athenian culture. But they are there. The idols remain everywhere, on every hand. Paul tells us, idolatry is every act of transferring the honour due to God alone to any part of the creation. The fact that it is an intangible concept does not make it any less an act of idolatry or of superstition. Idolatry remains on every street corner in modern Athens, because it is regnant in every Unbelieving heart.
All idolatry has one thing in common: it always arises out of the devices and imaginations of the Unbelieving Mind—which presupposes itself to be the ultimate authority. Therefore, in the end all idolatry is an act and attitude of worshipping and serving Man.
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