That's one of the problems with tradition. Whose tradition? The East? West?
Yours in the Lord,
jm
Hi JM!
A number of people here, myself included, are former Calvinists who've converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. I've read your OP thoroughly and it brings up specters of my former self, when I used those same arguments.
Not being familiar with the sources you cite, I won't directly engage with them. Every historian writes with purpose and a particular method and angle--there really is no purely unbiased history.
I did, once, spend a fair amount of time reading Calvin's institutes. But I have little interest in engaging with him either.
We can go in circles for centuries (and obviously, people have) about the interesting historical footnotes over who said what, who believed what, which person wrote to which other person, which emperor deposed which bishop, etc. But in the end none of this will sway anyone's POV. You'll come back, as you did in your OP, to whether an issue (today, icons, some other day, any of hundreds of other issues) is "Biblical." So I'd like to engage your presuppositions, since I shared them (mostly, I'll guess) once.
First, the issue of politics and its role in shaping doctrine. I'll just say that this is something you'll just "have to get over." I mean, study it, try to understand it. But ANYONE can cite politics to prove almost ANYTHING in Christian history really was imposed by someone in a position of power. Yes, emperors and princes and queens meddled in the affairs of the Church. Yes, bishops and monks and pastors and popes meddled in the affairs of the State. And yes, for large swaths of history, the two were often so tightly coupled as to be almost indistinguishable. It continues today in America, with large sects of evangelicalism marching lock-step with whatever the Republican party says, and large sects of mainline Protestants marching in lock-step with whatever the Democrat party says.
Yes, the 7th Council was political. So was the 6th. And the 5th. And the...well, 1st. Regional councils were political. Contemporary deniers of the Trinity will point to writings of the Fathers that are ambiguous, or in some places seem to subordinate the Son to the Father, or the Spirit to the Son, or whatever. They will point out that "orthodox" seemed to fluctuate depending on who was in power. One guy exiled Arius, another exiled Athanasius. And yeah, Constantine presided over the council that eventually settled it--well, sort of settled it. Constantine did NOT force anyone to his way of thinking in some Da Vinci Code sort of way, but yeah, he was involved.
But then look at the Reformation. Did the German princes rush to protect Luther because they all had inner spiritual reformations? No. Tensions were high between Germans and Italians. Many wanted their own local control. They wanted the Pope to back off his claims to their land, etc. The Reformation was HIGHLY political. Calvin was in, then out, then in by decision of the Geneva city council. How about the Westminster Confession of Faith? Was that not political? It was authorized by the British parliament at a time when the puritan party had some influence--then was tossed out when it ran afoul of the king.
My point is, you can dismiss the Church's formal endorsement of icons as political. I can dismiss the entire Reformation as political. Skeptics can, and do, dismiss all of Christianity and probably all other religions as just being products of politics and power.
So where does that leave us?
Second point...you are proceeding under the assumption that you are appealing to Scripture, while we are appealing to Tradition. Man, I persisted in that same way of thinking for a good long while myself. But the reality is, you are no less bound to tradition than we are. They are just different traditions.
- Your canon of the Old and New Testaments is traditon
- Your particular view of sola scriptura is a tradition
- Your hermeneutical methods are traditons
- Your definition of "tradition" is a tradition
- Calvin, whom you so frequently cite, was interpeting Scripture according to his philosophical traditions
The list really could go on indefinitely. Look at how you responded to the point that, in the OT, God commanded images to be placed into the temple and used in worship. It's the same argument I used. Basically, "Well, in the OT, God commanded his people explicitly, but in the NT, God does not command the use of images--therefore we cannot use images." It's the conclusion that we need to focus on. Basically, this Puritan-style hermeneutic says "whatever is not commanded in the text, explicitly, is forbidden." Maybe you call it the "Regulative Principle of Worship." I did. I now call it "The Puritan-Calvinist Tradition of Interpreting Scripture and Applying it to Worship." You'll note that many other sola scriptura Protestants say "Whatever is not commanded, is allowed, so long as it doesn't contradict the text." Thus, Lutherans, Anglicans, and others happily have icons, art, statues, whatever--while others will not tolerate even the cross itself as a symbol, because there's no verse in the NT saying "thou shalt place a cross upon thy steeple."
You have one tradition, they have another. Which is right? I used to engage in those debates endlessly with other Protestants, each of us thinking our belief came from the Bible, while the other guy was stuck in a tradition.
So, before engaging further in the nuances of icons, perhaps you can tell me why you accept the traditions you hold about Scripture and how to interpret it. From whom did you learn them? Why did you trust those sources and not others? To which authority can you appeal, that defined THE one, correct definition of sola scriptura AND the way in which to apply it to worship?
Why do you accept a Puritan-style approach to sola scriptura, and not a Lutheran-style approach to it? if you can answer that, then we can start getting down to the real reasons you either do, or don't, accept icons.