The Cathodox claim that the honor paid to an image passes on to the prototype, and that this doesn’t just apply to the true image of God found in every man’s soul, but even to lifeless images. But can a hand-made picture be a true image of God? I’ve seen apologists like Alex Sorin and others try this line of questioning with Protestants, and it actually trips them up. They’ll ask, “Does God receive honor through images?” and the protestants will answer, “No.” Then the Cathodox will say, “All right, let’s put your idea to the test. I’m going to give you an image of Jesus and I’m going to tell you to step on it or spit on it. Would you do that?” Then the protestants always say, “I guess I wouldn’t do that. No, that wouldn’t feel right.” And the debater goes, “Hahaha! So you do think that to spit on or desecrate an image of Jesus would be dishonoring to him! That means you do believe the honor paid to the image passes on to the prototype, or that we either honor or dishonor him through these images.”
It’s a pretty clever argument, but you can ask any of us that question, and you know what we would all say? We would say that even an image of Christ (like the Brazen Serpent, which is a type of Christ) ought to be destroyed if idolatry is being committed with it. There is a Biblical precedent for destroying even holy, miracle-working images if people are committing idolatry with them! In fact, even the Cathodox would admit it’s possible to commit idolatry with an image of Jesus. For instance, they don’t believe you should be offering animal sacrifices to icons of Jesus. They would say such an act is an idolatrous perversion of Christianity.
But more to the point, the Christian response to this not-so-clever question is this: God never claimed that man-made object as His own. He never said, “That’s My image, that’s Me, don’t destroy it.” In fact, He said the opposite:
Isaiah 42:8 – I am the Lord God; that is my name. I will not give my glory to another, nor my praises to graven images.
He specifically says He refuses to attach His glory and praises to ANY graven images! You do not bring honor to God by making an image of Him in a physical form. Jesus did not receive honor by taking a physical form. On the contrary, it was degrading to him. A physical form does not make God visible.
Isaiah 40: 17-25 – All the nations are as nothing and are counted as nothing. To whom then will you liken the Lord, and with what likeness (ομοιωμα) will you compare Him? Has a craftsman made an image (εικων), or a goldsmith, having melted gold, portrayed it? Has he fashioned it as a likeness (ομοιωμα) of Him? For a craftsman selects a piece of wood that will not rot; he cleverly seeks how he may set up his image (εικων) so that it will not be shaken. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? Who holds the circle of the earth, and those who dwell in it are like grasshoppers? Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in, He who gives rulers over to nothingness? He has made the earth as nothing. For they shall certainly not plant, nor shall they sow, nor shall their root be fixed in the earth; He has blown upon them and they have withered, and a whirlwind shall take them away like stubble. “Now then, to what will you liken Me, that I should be exalted?” says the Holy One.
He doesn’t want to be worshiped through a lifeless block of wood. You are the ones who have ascribed worth to this thing. You are the ones who have attached God’s name to it. He wouldn’t care if you destroyed it, except that, after seeing all the idolatry being committed with your images, at this point He actually DESIRES that you destroy it!
2 Kings 18:4 – He removed the high places and smashed the memorial stones to pieces, and cut down the Asherah. He also crushed to pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel had been burning incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan.
You see, it’s not actually true that the honor paid to an image automatically passes to the person it depicts, because the person being depicted has to actually care about the picture first. In the same way, if somebody made a picture of me and then smashed it, I wouldn’t care. I can tell you, the Apostles would not care at all if somebody made a picture of them and then stepped on it. No Apostle would come around and say, “What? You just smashed my picture! How dare you!” That would never happen. And if that’s true about the Apostles, it’s much more true about God. You can make a picture of Him that He hasn’t claimed for Himself, and someone could smash it, and He would no more care that you smashed it than that you made it in the first place.
If you want to give honor to God, you have to find out how He wants to be honored. God has never asked that we make wooden images of Him, let alone bow down to the works of our hands as if they were holy. If we worship God according to our own preferences and imaginations, we risk insulting Him accidentally! Even in human affairs, this happens all the time. A person might try to honor a guest by doing something that is customarily done in their culture, and accidentally do something offensive. For instance, I once introduced myself to someone by telling them my name, and they replied, “Oh, I like that name! My dog is named Luke!” In their mind, they were bringing honor to me by telling me that their favorite animal shares my name. But they didn’t realize that they were degrading me by comparing me to something far inferior to me, an irrational animal. They accomplished the exact opposite of what they intended by telling me I share something in common with a dog!
Similarly, the Cathodox worship God in a carnal, irrational way, not realizing that God rejects their form of worship. God is a spirit, and those who wish to worship God MUST worship Him in spirit and in truth, which means we worship him in an incorporeal way, not with physical images.
“God is a Spirit.” But when He says this, He declares nothing else than His incorporeal Nature. Now the service of that which is incorporeal must needs be of the same character, and must be offered by that in us which is incorporeal, to wit, the soul, and purity of mind. Wherefore He says, “they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” For because both Samaritans and Jews were careless about the soul, but took great pains about the body, cleansing it in various ways, it is not, He says, by purity of body, but by that which is incorporeal in us, namely the mind, that the incorporeal One is served. – John Chrysostom, Homily 33 on John, commentary on John 4:23-24
When a person smashes an image, it is not necessarily because they hate the person being depicted. There can be different motivations for destroying an image. For instance, if I were to see an image of Mary (where they say, “That’s Mary,” but it’s an immodest or degrading depiction) and I were to smash that thing, they would falsely accuse me of just hating Mary. But is that true? No. Actually, I think they are dishonoring Mary, and I am honoring Mary by destroying this immodest picture they associate with her. Smashing the image is how I honor Mary because that depiction of her is inaccurate and degrading.
A true Christian has a higher conception of God than the Cathodox do. That’s why I refuse to degrade the worship of Him by bowing to a painting. I think of my God as being very glorious, not a block of wood. So if somebody says a block of wood is God or makes God visible, I’m gonna have to smash that thing.
Even the Cathodox would agree that God doesn’t want to be worshiped through just ANY image, but through an “accurate” drawing, or an “approved” image, one that meets THEIR standards! But they haven’t stopped to ask themselves whether God considers ANY hand-made thing to be an image of Himself. He doesn’t. The only TRUE image of God, which is “approved” by Him to be served, is the one found in every man, since man is the image of God. Even then, the image of God is not found in the body, but in the soul!