In connection with the 2017 Reformation anniversary, the author asks whether the reformers' focus on the word of God (sola scriptura) challenges the use of images of God. This applies to figurative speech as well as to visual depictions of God. In view of the analysis of the concept of God and the religio-historical spectrum of the various notions of God, the author investigates the meaning of the prohibition against images of God in the Old Testament and surveys the diverse approaches to the ban on images in ecclesiastical history and in various denominations. The actual meaning of the prohibition is that the human being in its ungodly self-assertion should not create either intellectual or physical images of God. Nonetheless this does not affect the basic permissibility of figurative speech and notions of God because the bible itself features these. Furthermore, the triune God revealed himself in view of salvation history under the conditions of creation, ultimately in Jesus Christ as the definitive representation of God (Joh 14,9).The author illustrates that the various depictions of God used in the bible have their criterion in the image of the perfect community of love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: "God is love" (1 Joh 4,8.16).This image in its concrete depictions can overcome one-sided Christian notions of God and enables an appropriate relationship between God and human beings, which also includes an appropriate relation of word and image.

Enthalten in:
Kerygma und Dogma; 2016/4 Zeitschrift für theologische Forschung und kirchliche Lehre (2016)

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Serie / Reihe: Kerygma und Dogma

Personen: Haudel, Matthias

Schlagwörter: Gottesvorstellung Bild Religionsgeschichte Bilderverbot Bildsprache