Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Idolatry (commentary by Swiss Theologian Emil Brunner)


"The God of the “other religions” is always an idol. The religious forms of the imagination always follow the law of secularization, either in the form of making finite-idolatry in the ordinary, poly­theistic sense, in which the idea of God is dissolved into an abstraction. If the secularization, the blending of God with nature and man, is the first phenomenon, then the failure to give glory to God, or self-seeking, is the deepest motive of all the “other religions”."
Emil Brunner

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
 Romans 1:21-23 NIV/NLT