A musing on those who take exception to WLC on images

[RamistThomist]

From another thread,

Candidate: "I take exception to the WLC on the forbidding of making mental images of the Son of God because I don't think it's possible to think of Jesus without having a mental image of a man in your mind."

I had a Reformed convert to EO bring this up to me. While I agree with the answer Rich gave in the other thread, I was wondering about the historical context. Late Medieval Roman piety would often imagine the "wounds of Jesus" and to existentially identify with them, or something like that (mysticism resists rational explanation). I see the divines as cutting that off at the pass.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

This came up again in the great awakening; Edwards and Robe against Ralph Erskine and I think Fisher also. Any way, the literature would be
John K. La Shell, Imaginary Ideas of Christ: A Scottish-American Debate. Ph. D. Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1986.
John K. La Shell, “Imagination and Idol: A Puritan Tension,” Westminster Theological Journal, Fall 1987.
Ralph Erskine, Faith no Fancy.

 

[Andrew P.C.]

It's interesting to think about this, because we have images of Christ as early as the 3rd century. Now, I am not saying this is the normal way of things, but the early church had a different take on images then 17th century puritans. The early church abhorred the idea of images and idols for reasons involving paganism. Since, after the 1st century, the majority of the church was Gentile, most (if not all) Christian converts were previous pagans.