Idolatry And Love

There are some in Christianity who think that spiritual feelings for anything other than God is idolatry. Out of that consideration are attacked such things as romantic love, the arts and appreciation of nature. I seek to contend with that.

One cannot directly look at the sun for a prolonged period of time without going blind. But one can see the Sun in its reflections in puddles, rivers and oceans. From that perspective it becomes possible to know what the Sun looks like without going blind.

God himself is invisible; but the logic of God is found in God’s handiwork. Understanding the creation leads to understanding the creator. This will be found in nature; this will be found in the beloved; this will be found in the art that the creatures produce.

All of these then stand to enhance one’s understanding of God. This is especially the case with romantic love. The Beloved becomes the masterpiece of God; and by fathoming the Beloved one fathoms God.

Love, then, can become a path toward understanding of the divine. And there is nothing idolatrous or sacrilegious about it.

E.E. Cummings said that the final secret is man, but I think that the final secret is the woman. I find women much more interesting than I find men. Unfortunately we see many women in feminism disowning the good feminine qualities and becoming an inferior imitation of men. This is wrong. If I wanted to be with a man I’d be gay. In many respects I see women as being better than men, and they should joyfully embrace this difference and be unabashedly the best women that they can be.

So the romantic attitudes are not idolatrous; they are a way to understand and experience the divine. And that makes them congruent with God and not contradictory to God.