Idolatry. Causes and Consequences

 IDOLATRY, Causes and Consequences

True Christian religion teaches that God made man, false religion the exact opposite, man made God in his image. With this as our starting point let us study the causes and consequences of the sin of Idolatry. 

"And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen." Romans 1:23-25.

Idolatry is worshipping the creature instead of the Creator. The Catholic Church teaches that “Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship,” explains the Catechism of the Catholic Church. "Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc.”

Idolatry is caused by two factors: our disposition before God and our relationship with demons. The latter is a very saddening because it takes place when a person connects himself or herself to the enemy through impure and unholy practices, in simple terms get enslaved by demons or an evil spirit. 

Under the first cause, men are led into idolatry by a disordered affection or veneration of a creature beyond measure. This cause is indicated in Wisdom 14:15: 'For a father being afflicted by bitter grief, made to himself the image of his son who was quickly taken away; and him who then had died as a man, he began now to worship as a god . . . ', and 14:21: 'Men serving either their affection or their king, gave the qincommunicable name to stones and wood'.

Secondly, men through their natural love for artistic representations: especially men who can not distinguish between a presentation and a prototype. Some people are simply not able to transcend to the original or model on which something is based or formed. They remain in the presentations and begin to worship presentations. We see this everyday, seeing statues of men are confused for reality and sometimes worshipped as gods. Hence we read in Wisdom 13:11 "An artist, a carpenter has cut down a tree proper for his use in the wood . . . . . . and by the skill of his art fashioneth it and maketh it like the image of a man . . . . . and then maketh prayers to it, inquiring concerning his substance and his children or his marriage'. I need to mention here here that An artist an his work is not limited to woodwork, it includes any form of any art work: pictures, music, video etc. A Catholic should know the true meaning and use of art during worship: images and figures of saints at prayer should not hinder one from knowing God but infact facilitate spiritual knowledge. One is expected to transcend beyond them, beyond stories of saints and even prophets in the Scripture in order to avoid the sin Idolatry. Equally my fellow pentecostal brothers or sisters should in our modern time seek to transcend the sound of the drum beat and lights that enable them to pray, and connect through these means with the Heavenly Father. Some people go to Church for art, for good music or decorations, candle lights and in the end fail to know or reach God. Holy images and worship songs are not an end in themselves they simply facilitate a spiritual journey. The end and goal of worship and holy objects is getting there, God the Creator. 

An essential difference exists between idolatry and the veneration of images practised in the Catholic Church, viz., that while the idolater credits the image he reverences with Divinity or Divine powers, the Catholic knows "that in images there is no divinity or virtue on account of which they are to be worshipped, that no petitions can be addressed to them, and that no trust is to be placed in them. . . that the honour which is given to them is referred to the objects (prototypa) which they represent, so that through the images which we kiss, and before which we uncover our heads and kneel, we adore Christ and venerate the Saints whose likenesses they are"

The third disposition which is a cause for Idolatry happens when men by their ignorance of the true God begin to worshipcreatures: some men fail to give due excellence to God, due reverence to God because they simply do not know who the true God is. Lack of knowledge cause people to attribute divine worship to certain creatures especially those that excelling in beauty or virtue or wonder. Wisdom 13:1-2:' . . . . . neither by attending to the works have [men] acknowledged who was the workman, but have imagined either the fire, or the wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the great water, or the sun and moon, to be the gods that rule the world'. Need be mentioned that primitive men have always been relegated to this level, and so were the early Greek philosophers. The cure for this problem is knowledge not deliverance or prayers. Know the true God. 

Now, all that I have mentioned above may not be as dreadful as this last cause. Men become idolatrous because of through the influence of demons who offer themselves to be worshipped by them. When a person repeatedly sins he subjects himself or herself to evil spirits or demons that usually in the end become his gods. This is the case in the Bible and history of the children of Israel. This is what happened to King Solomon. And the Psalmist says (Psalm 95:5): 'All the gods of the gentiles are devils'.

The worship of one God is inculcated from the first to the last page of the Bible. However, it appears that this has been the most difficult thing to do. The Animism, Totemism, Fetishism of the lower races; the nature-worship, ancestor-worship, and hero-worship of civilized nations are all idolatrous acts. They all come of the causes that indicated above: they result the confusion and failure to know that the Creator is not a creature. Inability to grow spiritually creates false teachings that man made God. All we need is the clear light of reason or revelation to know the difference.

In your private study of the Bible look at Genesis 31:19-34. 30:53. Exodus 32. Numbers 25:1-3. Judges 2:11ff. The Consequences of Idolatry are that whenever the children of Israel did this evil in the eyes of God, a swift retribution overtook them; they were given into the hands of their enemies, they became slaves. May the Prophet of prophets, Christ the Judge, repeat from the seat of judgment the words He spoke on the Cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". And now that you know do the right thing. #Diary #Nonde