More on Energetic Procession about icons and authority - 2

Perry Robinson has gone off on another rambling, repetitive comment at his blog.  You'll note that numerous things he said go unresponded-to, and that's b/c I don't think such things are worth rebutting, either b/c they are redundant, unimportant, or mere naked assertions in place of arguments refuting my own previously-offered arguments.  You'll also note the screwed-up Christology he's working with, which is, it is becoming clear, is effectively monophysite.
Here's the comment:

You equate worship and veneration. I showed that veneration or honoring comes in a variety of forms.

1) But since I *don't* equate worship and veneration...
I simply identify the actions you perform in conjunction with each other to painted pictures of dead people as fulfilling the conditions of worship, and reject the convenient "but it's not our INTENTION" excuse.
2) Have I admitted to venerating the Reformers themselves in memory?  No.  To say nothing of statues of them.


The Reformed statues are religious in nature given the name Jesus below them in abbreviated form as “IHS”.

1) You'd need more proof that the IHS refers to the statues and not to the Jesus that they preached, reminding us that above all they preached Jesus.
2) You still wouldn't've proved any inconsistency on MY part since you never asked me if I would've built those statues or supported their construction.  Which I probably wouldn't've.
And since you go on to say (in another example of your being all over the place):  "I grant with the Geneva idols that no one is bowing down and rendering honor to them", it would appear you grant me the point.  Thanks!




will only bring to light the Procrustean lengths you need to go to maintain your position.

Sorry, it's not ad hoc that I would claim to judge everything by the Scripture.  Have I ever said that before?



you also noted that you would allow images of Jesus even in a church building even if not in the “worship hall.”

And you might have sthg if I'd said sthg like "...and it's OK to venerate those images of Jesus".
But, since I didn't...


Certainly the Reformed tradition has held that it is impermissible. Is it or not?

Am I "the Reformed tradition"?  I don't see how my position isn't quite clear.


And if it is, how then do you evade the objections from the Reformed that you are guilty of idolatry and breaking the second commandment?

Anyone can contact me to get the email fwded to them of my convo with one TurretinFan's friends about this very point.



But 1 Kings shows things that Solomon put in on his own apart from a command by God and yet God approved them.

This is me being consistent.
Where did anyone ever do before those images what you do before yours?  And where did God say that was OK?



Third, if you think that I need to refute them all jointly because jointly they have some argumentative force that individually they lack, you will not actually demonstrate that this is so and that my dealing with them one at a time fails to take this into account

I'll have to appeal to the reader's common sense at this point.
You keep asking where it's wrong to kiss someone or a Bible or sthg.  Yet do you ONLY kiss sthg in the practices to which I object?  Ditto for candles, incense, bowing down, etc.  Then you attempt to equivocate and ask "oh, so it's wrong to ask living persons to pray for you?"  But you do ALL of those TOGETHER.  To PICTURES OF DEAD PEOPLE.  Sorry, again, it's pretty clear this is self-serving equivocation on your part.  Either defend your practices or don't.





Romans 14 and 1 Cor 8 do not teach that it is acceptable to teach that food can be impure, but rather that one should condescend to someone who does for a time to bring them along to a proper understanding.

Right.  And the question was about unity of the church.  And the church has weak PEOPLE in it, who believe wrong things sometimes.



As I don’t think that the image of the visitation to Abraham is an icon of the Trinity

Sorry, now I'm just laughing.  Even though it says "Holy Trinity" on it in the background?  If that's insufficient, what would it take to prove it to you?  If it said: "Holy Trinity.  No, seriously, for real this is depicting the Trinity.  Really."  Would that be enough?



Just because you say it is, doesn’t show that it is.

Because *IT* says it is!  What it DOESN'T say is "A type of the Holy Trinity".



Once Rubalev for example realized this, he never again painted it and denied it was of the Trinity.

Are you familiar with the common expression "Cover your rear"?
It *says* "Holy Trinity" on it, man!  Is this point so essential to your position that you feel obligated to go to these absurd lengths to defend it?


If the icon has the depiction of “Holy Trinity” doesn’t it depend on how those who made it and use it understand such a designation?

Only if you think that words don't mean things.  More pomo talk.




Just because I can read a sermon it doesn’t follow that it is superfluous to have it preached.

It would be great if more EO would share the same obvious thoughts.  Maybe you could help me out with the catechesising of fellow church members.



Part of the minimalism you proffer depends on a denial of God sharing divine properties with his people.

Since my objection rests on what God directly said in the OT, it would be God, not me, offering this "minimalistic" position.  I think He'd be in a position to know whether and to what extent He's sharing "divine properties" with His people.



we don’t give worship and devotion to saints so your analogy at best

It sure looks like it.  It's in fact indistinguishable therefrom, outwardly, and you've admitted in this comment that intention is actually meaningless in this question.  The obvious conclusion to draw, then, is...


If they are “fakes” then why do object to icons being “fakes” but somehow the “fakes” you make of Jesus would be permissible and unobjectionable?

The "fakes" argument was one YOU introduced, and which I have merely counter-rebutted.



Second given that Scripture indicates that God appointed apostles, prophets and teachers (1 Cor 12:28) and given that whomever hears the ones Christ sends, hears Christ, (Mat 10:40, Lk 10:16) the Reformed will be without divinely sent teachers.

That's strange, I don't remember denying that
1) we're w/o apostolic teaching
2) we're w/o teachers
3) we're w/o prophets.
If you can quote me, though, please do.



Nor will be of any use to appeal to Scripture since the formal canon of Scripture that you employ depends on these “witnesses.”

Sorry, it doesn't.  It depends on God Himself.



Given that the witnesses do not all agree on the canon, even if they did

Are you listening to yourself?  This is one of my main problems with EO arguments - you're constantly (and apparently unknowingly) using double-edged arguments and not asking your own position the same questions.  You have no agreement within your own church about the Canon of Scr, and you certainly have no agreement about the Canon of authoritative *S*acred *A*postolic *T*radition.



This is why your appeal to the many fathers of the faith in the scriptures won’t help your position since we’d need a criteria to find out from all the conflicting witnesses on the canon to figure out which works were canonical to know if the “fathers of the faith” mentioned in various books were in fact so.

I'm just sitting back, waiting for you to answer your own question.



If your principle were adequate, it would entail rejecting your own judgment too since the principle of rejection is error and your own judgment has erred.

It's not a principle to which I hold, so your reductio is not a reductio at all, but a strawman.



First, you never seem to lay out where I am confusing two categories or what the two categories in fact are.

Obviously, the category error is conflating my judgment as considered to be somehow infallible versus my judgment as all I have and yet trusting God to have given the means to, thru sufficient and sufficiently thorough searching, find sufficient truth.



There is no legitimate inference from I can’t help but think x, to, x is true anymore than there is from x is intuitive, to, x is true.

And why do you think that this isn't a problem for you as well?



As for your remark about presuppositionalism and solipcism, nothing I stated could even possibly imply solipsism.

If you're calling into question any inference from my thought to access to truth, then I don't see how you're not.



As for Matt 18:17,it is true that it is about church discipline, but since church discipline will include theology, the church is ascribed the power to judge and not individuals.

And yet the command also exists that every individual is to test teaching according to the Scr.  So BOTH are true, and Matt 18:17 is talking about the local church.



It doesn’t imply that the judgment of said individuals as to what the Constitution means, even if correct, amounts to having the force of law.

But it SHOULD if said judgment is correct.
That's normativity, even if the majority doesn't accept it.  That's what you only acknowledge when it suits you.



the right of private judgment.

Protestants also wrongly speak of private judgment as if it were a right.  It's not really a right but more an unavoidable necessity and also something we're commanded to submit to the Scr.  So to say "the right of private jdgmt" doesn't really have anything going for it; you're wrong to ape those Prots in saying it.



Either religion has a foot in the social and political sphere and we get wars

Which describes the history of the Roman Papacy as well as the Byzantine Empire quite well.



In any case, since I distinguish between levels, epistemological and normative, there is no regress in having an infallible judge and interpreter.

W/o telling us why, you act like the issue of private interp is removed if you put an infall interper between Scr and the individual.  Why do you do that?



As for Montanism, if for the sake of the argument you do not grant that it is heterodox, then I can use Tertullian’s own articulated criteria to show that he is outside the church, namely what was deposited in all the churches as apostolic to exclude Montanism.

You're not dealing with my point, and I know why - your position has no hope of answering it.
If you get to pick and choose from what early church writers wrote, then you don't get to assume "Orthodox/Catholic" and "Montanist as separatist" categories - you need to PROVE them.  But if the Montanist gets also to pick and choose for its own support, then we have a great big problem.
One that's easily solvable by appeal to the Scr as final authority, but that's the one thing you can't do.



Secondly, people at the time who judged him to be outside the church didn’t beg the question because they weren’t selecting material post facto.

???  Selecting material post facto is the very definition of begging the question!



You write that no evidence against the Montantist prophetesses could count since they are infallible. This would be true if in fact they were infallible, but in terms of knowing this examples of error would count against their claims to infallibility.

If we presuppose their infallibility, what place do you have to count error against them?  Rather, since they're infall, YOU as fallible individual agent, even if there are more than one of you in agreement, are automatically wrong b/c they're infall and you're not.  This isn't that hard to understand.



You ask if Origen was an infallible interpreter how would I know he was in error? I think you have mistaken my position for asserting that individual church fathers are infallible under any and all conditions.

It's an IF question.  I know that's not what you in fact blv.  That's not the point.  Answer it, please.


If the true church recognized the Protestant canon, then this will be an actual historical society of people, which society would that be?

The people of God.  Did you forget that I hold to the existence of the invisible church?  Like I said, if you ask me to be more specific, I'll just ask you to identify the specific locality of the 7000 who’d not bowed the knee to Baal in Elijah’s time.



Hence John 10 won’t help you here since we’d need a document written by people that listed said books as inspired and we’d need to know that said people were elect.

Or we could simply recognise that the Bible doesn't give us that data and neither does history.  And proceed to acknowledge the impossibility of the contrary.


Second, can you name any figure in church history who was in fact elect?

1) I can't name anyone at any time who was in fact elect.  God hasn't chosen to reveal that info, for pretty obvious reasons.
2) Just b/c you're elect doesn't mean you'll definitely hold the correct Canon of Scr.



Fourth, it isn’t clear that all true believers have the same kind of experience of self authentication and inner witness about all of or the same books.

1) For once we can totally agree.
2) Know what else isn't clear?  That all true believers have the same kind of experience of self-authentication and inner witness about all of or the same TRADITIONS or COUNCILS.



I don’t know how you could discover that the Orthodox do not have a closed canon. I’ve been Orthodox for ten years and I’ve always thought they did.

Kallistos Ware disagrees with you.  I'm going with a bishop rather than some blogger, sorry.



You write that we act like the icons or the saints are gods. Well, we don’t have orgies to them like the pagans (or the Israelites did with the golden calf), we do not mix them with pagan images of Zeus and such.

Begging the very question at hand - ascribing religious piety and devotion to created things rather than the Creator is sort of one of the central definitions of paganism.



With respect to Revelation 3 and 19, when I point out the difference is in the intention, you point to the OT. But the context is Revelation and not the OT.

Perhaps you could point out where intention is made a meaningful caveat in the NT, then.



Second, the intention in the case from Is 8:19ff is quite relevant since the intention is to conjur up a spirit which is in direct violation to biblical commands.

It's amazing you can say that with a straight face.  Bowing down and performing religious actions before pictures of dead created people is ALSO in direct violation to biblical commands, but you show no concern for that!
In fact, a little later you say:
"First, I am not advocating the making of images as disobedience but it is somehow permissible because my intentions were good."

1) I know you don't grant it, but that's kind of the point of this convo.  I'm trying to reach you, but when you're stubborn like this, it's your own fault.  Let the reader judge whether the OT thinks it's OK to bown down to pictures of dead ppl and talk to them.
2) Sounds like you've conceded the point that intention, good or not, is immaterial.  I'm glad to have that out of the way!  Thanks!




But there are biblical examples of prayers offered for the dead or of the saints being involved in some way with the prayers brought before God (2 Tim 1:16ff, Rev. 6:9, 8:3-4).

Wow, you're approaching near Dave Armstrong-level exegesis!
2 Tim 1:15 You are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. 16 The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains

Please prove that the house of Onesiphorus was dead.

Rev 6:9 When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained;10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

Testimony obtained WHILE LIVING.  Unless you think they were under persecution after they were dead or something.
This is prayer not offered from Earth - it's offered by the dead saints.  I've never denied dead saints can pray, even that they pray for the living.  I don't know, maybe they do.  But we're not supposed to contact them.

Rev 8:3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.

And how do you know the prayers were offered to the angel and not to God?
Looks like a whole lot of fail, sorry.



Further, Paul speaks of the saints as intercessors and I don’t see why such a power ceases at death but perhaps you do

Never said that.  Where does Paul say it's OK to contact the dead?



The example of Aaron and the golden calf doesn’t work either since it was supposed to be an image of Yaweh as a regional fertility deity.

And the text says that where exactly?  Aaron says "THIS is the Lord your God Who brought you up".  I'd say you have the burden of proof on this one.


To ask that when Thomas falls down before Jesus and renders worship (or anyone else in the NT for that matter), is the worship passed on through his human nature to his divine person or not?

Oh, right, you're not stating a position implicitly in this question.  Please.
And you know, I've asked you at least one question in response.  Where's your own answer?



In fact I cited exactly where you were, self confessedly, confused about the Incarnation.

Yes, but you keep harping on it as if you need to cynically bolster your own confidence and that of your readers.  It is nothing less than pathetic, honestly.
Further, given your own ridiculous questions and your ignorant and inane repetitions thereof, you have no room to talk.



Jesus assumes human nature into his divine hypostasis. The divine hypostasis isn’t thereby made into something else than it was previously.

Monophysitism.  Thanks!



The assumption of human nature into the divine person doesn’t alter the person as such.

Except now the divine person has a human nature.
You know, except for that.  Tiny details.



“Again, though Christ died in human terms, it is the divine Person who is said to have been crucified.” http://vintage.aomin.org/CHALC.html
Now is James White wrong too? Is James confusing person and nature too?

Sorry, I don't see the problem.  NATURES don't get crucified, after all.  Nor do NATURES receive worship.  PERSONS do.  NATURES don't DO anything.  PERSONS do stuff.
And Jesus is one person, with two natures.  Each are truly His nature.  His divine nature means that He's God.  His human nature means He's man.  To speak most correctly of Him, as we're (well, as *I'm*) trying to do here, we should always refer to him as the God-man after His Incarnation.  I'm sorry this elementary element of Christology escapes you.


The woman kissed his feet (Lk 7:38) and last I checked, his feet were created. The worship given to the physical created thing is passed on to the divine person.

Jesus' PERSON HAS PHYSICAL FEET since the Incarnation, since Jesus the Person has a human nature.  It's like talking to a wall, sheesh.


Now if the statement is false, either there are two persons after the incarnation or the divine person of the Trinity is changed after the union into something he wasn’t previously

Yes - the Person took on a human nature.  Previously Jesus was God.  Now He's the God-man.


Not only do you then have to start doing some fancy foot work on the doctrine of immutability and impassability

You know what?  You're right - the Incarnation is NOT mysterious at all!  It can be rationally explained at every level.  How silly of me to think that God taking human flesh might be a tad difficult to explain.




You claim, but do not demonstrate that I am arguing the act of kissing is separate from the context.

You just did it!  Amazing.



This is why I gave you the example of the Arian controversy so you could see how I divvy things up.

Yes, but I don't accept your reasoning behind this question-begging divvying.



I pointed out that representing the teaching of a given body by what any given member claimed was not a standard that even the Reformed could live up to. You replied with a question of which Reformed body claims infallibility, succession, etc? I don’t think you understood the point since the infallibility that I think is a divine power had by Christ’s church doesn’t necessarily extend to each member, and certainly not in every day conversations.

Obviously, the point was that trying to apply the internal critique to my position fails b/c my position doesn't make equivalent claims of itself as yours does.



I’d need to go to normative documents or representative sources.

1) You mean to your private interp of what those documents say.
2) Many of which were written by individuals anyway.
Just goes to show the objective reader how ludicrous your position's claims are.


The only way one could think that assuming human nature would change the divine person per se or in and of itself

No, it reveals your monophysite outlook.  What is divine about the Person?  His NATURE.
And when He takes on a HUMAN NATURE ALSO, what are we to say?



Existing in them does not alter the Son qua hypostasis of Son.

Which I wouldn't claim.



since if the “God” part of the phrase “God-man” refers to nature and person, then Christ must be the person of the Father and the Spirit since they are God as well or they must not be God as well or they must be different Gods.

Um, why would anyone buy this gibberish?



Uhm because they are wrong since (in some cases) what they say contravenes infallible judgments of the church.

Uhm which you have access to via the very clergy we're questioning.



First if a bishop makes a factual error you can check, then you should believe the facts

Sounds like fallible private individual judgment to me.  Why appeal to that only when it's convenient to you?



If Scripture says that God cannot be seen, then the doctrine of the beatific vision is false.

There's no "If".  1 John 4:12, 1 Tim 6:10, John 1:18.
Or maybe you're wrong to limit this to mortal existence, which the whole biblical context makes clear.
Or maybe you're wrong not to recognise that these refer to the Father.  Jesus can be seen, obviously, as John 1 and Hebrews make clear.  Your biblical ignorance on this issue is fairly stunning.