Icon Veneration is CLEARLY an Accretion!

[BBAS 64]

Good Day,

I know this is over an hour long, But Gavin does an amazing job of laying out the history (or lack there of) for this practice in the historical church.

Enjoy!

 

[HTacianas]

Good Day,

I know this is over an hour long, But Gavin does an amazing job of laying out the history (or lack there of) for this practice in the historical church.

Enjoy!

The veneration of icons has been brought up to an Ecumenical Council, voted on, and decided. It's a dead issue.

 

[concretecamper]

Good Day,

I know this is over an hour long, But Gavin does an amazing job of laying out the history (or lack there of) for this practice in the historical church.

Enjoy!

I guess this fella is out of His Church unless he repents from his silliness.

Nicea II

ANATHEMAS CONCERNING HOLY IMAGES

1. If anyone does not confess that Christ our God can be represented in his humanity, let him be anathema.

2. If anyone does not accept representation in art of evangelical scenes, let him be anathema.

3. If anyone does not salute such representations as standing for the Lord and his saints, let him be anathema.

4. If anyone rejects any written or unwritten tradition of the church, let him be anathema.

 

[Jonaitis]

I guess this fella is out of His Church unless he repents from his silliness.

Nicea II

ANATHEMAS CONCERNING HOLY IMAGES

1. If anyone does not confess that Christ our God can be represented in his humanity, let him be anathema.

2. If anyone does not accept representation in art of evangelical scenes, let him be anathema.

3. If anyone does not salute such representations as standing for the Lord and his saints, let him be anathema.

4. If anyone rejects any written or unwritten tradition of the church, let him be anathema.

I suggest watching the video. He quotes and discusses Nicea II.

 

[ozso]

The veneration of icons has been brought up to an Ecumenical Council, voted on, and decided. It's a dead issue.

How many Ecumenical Councils were there and when was the last one? And why can't there be another?

But then again as of the 1054 Schism, the Church/Ecclesia/Assembly is no longer under one roof

 

[concretecamper]

I suggest watching the video. He quotes and discusses Nicea II.

I skimmed it, but why waste time looking at a video from an excommunicated person?

 

[BBAS 64]

I skimmed it, but why waste time looking at a video from an excommunicated person?

Good Day,

While there you go.... Nicea II was discussed at great length and you just missed it.

He is under no Church discipline that I am aware of... so you point is moot.

 

[ozso]

I skimmed it, but why waste time looking at a video from an excommunicated person?

What do you mean by excommunicated? He's always been a Protestant Baptist according to what I read about him.

Besides, recorded history is recorded history, no matter who recounts it.

 

[concretecamper]

Good Day,

While there you go.... Nicea II was discussed at great length and you just missed it.

He is under no Church discipline that I am aware of... so you point is moot.

True. If he was never a member of Christ's Church, he cannot be excommunicated.

 

[BBAS 64]

True. If he was never a member of Christ's Church, he cannot be excommunicated.

Good Day,

You assert "if" I will leave that up to Him to answer.

You assume way to much here.... so I will leave it here.

In Him,

Bill

 

[concretecamper]

Good Day,

You assert "if" I will leave that up to Him to answer.

You assume way to much here.... so I will leave it here.

In Him,

Bill

I don't assume. I just use facts.

 

[The Liturgist]

I suggest watching the video. He quotes and discusses Nicea II.

Forgive me, but who is Gavin compared to St. John of Damascus, St. Theodore the Studite, and the other Holy Iconodule Fathers including those of the Seventh Ecumenical Synod?

Also, the fact that the Oriental Orthodox venerate icons, that icons dating to the second century have been found, and two of the most important icons, Christ Pantocrator and the Ladder of Divine Ascent, at the Monastery of St. Catharine in Sinai, date from the sixth century, and we have others dating from the fourth century, is sufficiently compelling.

Also for me personally the fact that Muslims tend to destroy Christian icons (for example, when Al Qaeda conquered the Christian town of Maaloula, they destroyed all the icons in the churches and a statue of the Virgin Mary, and held twelve nuns hostage) is enough to compel me to venerate them in solidarity with my persecuted brethren of the Middle East and in opposition to Islam.

 

[ozso]

Forgive me, but who is Gavin compared to St. John of Damascus, St. Theodore the Studite, and the other Holy Iconodule Fathers including those of the Seventh Ecumenical Synod?

Also, the fact that the Oriental Orthodox venerate icons, that icons dating to the second century have been found, and two of the most important icons, Christ Pantocrator and the Ladder of Divine Ascent, at the Monastery of St. Catharine in Sinai, date from the sixth century, and we have others dating from the fourth century, is sufficiently compelling.

Also for me personally the fact that Muslims tend to destroy Christian icons (for example, when Al Qaeda conquered the Christian town of Maaloula, they destroyed all the icons in the churches and a statue of the Virgin Mary, and held twelve nuns hostage) is enough to compel me to venerate them in solidarity with my persecuted brethren of the Middle East and in opposition to Islam.

It would be far more educational and beneficial if you addressed some key issues brought up by Gavin Ortlund.

The primary of those key issues is that icon veneration is mandatory. That non-vereration is Anathema. If you just address that one point, it would be very helpful.

 

[jas3]

It's nice to see Gavin getting some recognition on this forum. I disagree with him on many things, but he's very thorough, careful, and well-reasoned in his arguments.

A few other videos people might be interested in, related to Gavin's original video:

Craig Truglia (Eastern Orthodox apologist) response:

Trent Horn and Jimmy Akin (Catholic apologists) response:

Suan Sonna (Catholic apologist) response:

Craig Truglia, The Other Paul, New Kingdom Media, and Barely Protestant (Eastern Orthodox + 3x Anglican) criticism of Horn and Akin's response:

Gavin Ortlund response to Craig Truglia:

Two more videos to be posted in the next post (the forum caps the number of embedded media links to 5 per post).


Personally, I've watched Craig's initial response (very short, just some clips from an interview he did with Gavin a while ago), Trent and Jimmy's response, Suan's response, and Craig and the Anglicans' criticism of Trent and Jimmy's video, and I plan to watch the rest of these. My impressions:

• Craig's original video raised some good points, it'll be interesting to see Gavin's response.
• Trent and Jimmy did a fairly disappointing job on this one. Jimmy basically conceded Gavin's argument and said there was nothing wrong with icons being an accretion, while Trent gave a more solid defense, but still didn't focus as much on the historicity of icon veneration.
• Suan did a much better job in much less time. If you only watch one of the Catholic responses, watch this one for the strongest arguments.
• Craig and the Anglicans had some salient criticisms. They pointed out that from the Catholic and Orthodox position, you can't concede that icon veneration isn't an apostolic practice, because that's what was defined at Nicaea II, and you also can't say that anathemas don't matter and icon veneration is optional. That said, about halfway through the criticism became sort of mean-spirited and unprofessional, and this has been a consistent issue I've noticed with younger Orthodox apologists.

 

[jas3]

Gavin Ortlund response to Trent Horn and Jimmy Akin:

Craig Truglia interview with Fr Steven Bigham on icons (indirect response to Gavin's videos):

Interestingly, I noticed that Gavin seems to have changed the thumbnail to something less clickbait-y since Jimmy criticized him for his original thumbnail. I think Jimmy's criticism was out of place and was due to his unfamiliarity with Gavin's channel (Trent interacts with him far more often) but you can see the original thumbnail in the thumbnail for Trent and Jimmy's video.

 

[The Liturgist]

It would be far more educational and beneficial if you addressed some key issues brought up by Gavin Ortlund.

The primary of those key issues is that icon veneration is mandatory. That non-vereration is Anathema. If you just address that one point, it would be very helpful.

I am really not interested in addressing a single issue raised by Gavin Ortlund, because as I see it this issue was settled definitively as a result of the consensus that exists between the Oriental Orthodox, who were not at Nicaea II but have always been iconodules and in opposition to iconoclasm, and the Chalcedonian churches that were at Nicaea II. The debate was resolved, and the horrible loss of cultural heritage brought about as a result of iconoclasm in Scotland, England and various places in Continental Europe under Calvin, Zwingli, the Puritans, and so forth, and more recently in the Middle East and former Armenian lands with the destruction of Armenian cross statues, the entire subject is just not one I am willing to discuss. Especially since even a great many Presbyterian churches in the 19th century under the Scoto-Catholic movement and related architectural initiatives embraced iconography, resulting in the commissioning of many exquisite stained glass windows for churches built in a beautiful Perpendicular Gothic style, and a great many splendid organs, which the iconoclasts also were opposed to.

 

[Malleeboy]

Just highlighting that Ortlund was supportive of Icons and pictures for artistic or didactic usage.
His issue was with the anathemas for not doing icon veneration and some of the poor biblical and patristic arguments in Nicea 2.

 

[jas3]

I listened to Gavin's responses to Craig and Trent/Jimmy today. Main takeaways:

• Craig's argument that Christian condemnation of a practice indicates that there were supporters of the practice doesn't make sense when there are no sources speaking of the practice positively
• Trent's argument that Christian writers were only condemning the pagan use of images is an evasive tactic that isn't supported by the text
• Jimmy had a really bad take on the direction of Gavin's channel
• Gavin wasn't sure how to respond to the point about Oriental Orthodox use of images and expressed interest in interviewing an OO priest on the subject

There wasn't a lot new here that wasn't already pointed out in Craig's criticism of Trent and Jimmy's video. Gavin notably didn't respond to any of the points Suan Sonna made though, even though he said he thought Suan's video was very well done. I get that he has limited time to make responses to people (he also mentioned he wouldn't be responding to William Albrecht who has also made a couple of response videos to Gavin) but I really thought Suan had the best response out at the time Gavin made his counter-responses and would have liked to see some more substantial points addressed. Instead he spent a third of his response to Trent and Jimmy pointing out that he's allowed to defend Protestantism and a quarter of his response to Craig insisting that he wasn't making an argument from authority.

 

[The Liturgist]

Just highlighting that Ortlund was supportive of Icons and pictures for artistic or didactic usage.
His issue was with the anathemas for not doing icon veneration and some of the poor biblical and patristic arguments in Nicea 2.

And my issue is that who is he to take issue with an ecumenical council? Coherently one should either accept the seven accepted by the Eastern Orthodox, plus additional synods such as the Photian Synod and the Palamist Synod, which a small minority of Eastern Orthodox count as additional Counciosk or else one should accept all of the councils Rome accepts, or one should accept only the first three, in accord with Oriental Orthodoxy, or the first two, like the Church of the East, or else affiliate with a specific established Protestant denomination that has confessions of faith or articles of religion which at a minimum include the Nicene Creed of 381.

However, I don’t see much of a use for nitpicking the individual councils themselves, or seeking to cause a controversy for Eastern Orthodoxy because Nicaea II anathematizes those who do not engage in iconodulia. I would note that the anathemas of Nicaea II are extremely difficult to violate short of intentional acts of iconoclasm or iconolatria. If we look at iconograpjy in the Roman Catholic Church, it tends not to be venerated in the intense way as liturgical icons from the Eastern Orthodox, but rather much of the time is venerated simply by virtue of being present while people reverently worship Christ our God in the churches where it is installed.

For example, I would argue the Western icon par excellence is the stained glass window, but these generally cannot be kissed or even easily accessed. Rather, these icons are venerated by appreciation, like those icons painted on the domes or other ceilings of Eastern Orthodox temples.

 

[abacabb3]

Positive cases in favor of iconodulia are good. Saint Gregory of Nyssa is a pretty explicit early source within the established Church affirming the practice. Some of the early sources "against" iconodulia really aren't. For example, St Irenaeus doesn't take issue with images or adorning them, but with "other modes according to the gentiles." The clear implication is that there is approval for the former but not the latter.

The main thing is in the catacombs there is pretty clear evidence that the artists intended the Good Shepherd to be prayed to: Ante-Nicene Iconodulia in Plain Sight

It's one of those things you can't unsee once you see it.