Idolatry III

So are we guilty of having other gods or not, that is the question. What is the positive and negative import of this command? What sphere of applicability does this commandment pertain to?

Let's go to the Heidelberg Catechism:

Q. What does the Lord require
in the first commandment?

A. That I, not wanting to endanger my very salvation,
avoid and shun
all idolatry, magic, superstitious rites,
and prayer to saints or to other creatures.

That I sincerely acknowledge the only true God,
trust him alone,
look to him for every good thing
humbly and patiently,
love him, fear him, and honor him
with all my heart.

In short,
that I give up anything
rather than go against his will in any way.

This answer is divided up into 1) the "negative force" of the command, the 2) "positive force," and 3) a summary. Every "though shall not" carries with it a range of things that are included or implied by the command itself. The command functions as a synecdoche of the whole. The negative force seems to prohibit any meddling in religious practices that does not directly pertain to God himself. The implied "positive force" is the range of injunctions that are included in the command. For example, "do not hit your mother" would imply, "be kind to your mother." The positive force is the opposite of the negative force. All our religious allegiances, practices, reverence, worship, etc., ought to be directed to the one true God and ought to be done to the extreme measure (with all my heart).

The summary is funny, but it gets back to what I had mentioned earlier, that idolatry seems to be a stepping stone towards all other immoral behavior. The catechism summarizes, "have no other gods besides me," as "do everything you can to stay within God's prescriptive will." How does the catechism jump from "don't have other gods besides me," to "do exactly what I want you to do all the time"? Is breaking even a minor law always simultaneously breaking the first commandment? If you take the catechism literally, then yes.

How and why? I'm not sure, but I'm going to take a stab at it. Say that I steal a car for no purpose other than because I want the car. I've broken the Eighth Commandment. By breaking the commandment, I've intentionally resisted and contradicted God's rule for my life. In this situation, I not only reject God's rule, but I've rejected God himself. To reject God's rule is to deny that God's moral standard has bearing on my life. The only person who has the audacity to do such a thing is the person who, if even for an instant, denies that God is God. I cannot simultaneously believe that God is the creator of the universe who holds my tiny life in his merciful hand and then intentionally spurn that hand. Either I'm crazy, or I have no fear of God. If I have no fear of God, then I do not know God and I've rejected him as God. Therefore, I've broken the first commandment.

Think of it this way. Imagine that the we lived in a dictatorship under a man who had absolute control of the entire country and could give the death sentence at a mere whim. In this culture, remember that spitting upon the feet of a man is considered the greatest offense to his honor. And say that this man, with all his pomp, occassionally bestows upon his small nation the pleasure of his presence as he parades through the capital city on foot amid throngs of his people. Now, say that an angry person who dislikes the dictator pushes his way towards the dictator and spits on his feet as he passes. Either 1) he wishes to die and does so intentionally, 2) or he does so for the sheer fact that he desired to do so, but he does not expect to die. In the first case, the man is clearly mad. In the second case, the man has demonstrated that he does not truly believe that the leader of his country is a dictator. Either he thinks that there's a greater power out there that will rescue him for his intollerable action (another god), or he thinks that this dictator will simply dismiss the insult and move on. In that case, he has mistaken the dictator for someone else. Any way you look at it, the man is either mad, or he has gotten the question wrong as to who has the ultimate authority in that country. When we sin, we spit on the feet of a benevolent dictator.

There is a second way in which stealing the car is a violation of the first command. The fact that I'm rejecting God's moral rule means that I've preferred a law (or moral system) which allows me to steal the car. Only gods can impose moral systems on humans. Therefore, either I've exchanged God for another god, or I've made myself the god of my own life. In either case, I've broken the first commandment.