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Aren't Statues and Images Idolatry?

The Short Answer

Idolatry means worshipping something other than God. Catholics do not worship statues, and never have. The commandment against “graven images” forbids making images to worship as gods, not all religious art: God Himself commanded Moses to make golden cherubim for the Ark. And since God became man in Jesus Christ, the invisible God has a human face that can be shown. A statue or icon is a reminder that turns our attention to the person it represents.

Many Christians, especially in Reformed and evangelical traditions, worship in churches with no images at all, out of a sincere concern to obey the Ten Commandments and to give God undivided worship. That concern is right. Here is why Catholics believe images, rightly used, do not compete with it.

What the Church Does and Does Not Claim

The Church does not claim:

The Church does claim, quoting the ancient Fathers and the Second Council of Nicaea (787), that “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,” and “whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it” (CCC 2132).

Why Catholics Believe It

The commandment forbids idols, not all images

The commandment reads: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them” (Exodus 20:4–5). The second half explains the first: the prohibition is against making images to bow down to and serve as gods.

We know this because God Himself soon commanded images for His own worship. “And you shall make two cherubim of gold,” He told Moses, to stand over the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18). Solomon’s Temple was carved “with carved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers” (1 Kings 6:29). When the people were bitten by serpents, God told Moses: “Make a fiery serpent, and set it up as a sign; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live” (Numbers 21:8). Jesus later compared Himself to that very image: “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14).

God has shown us His face

In the Old Testament, God was not seen, so He could not be pictured. But in Jesus Christ, the invisible God became visible. St Paul calls Christ “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). As the Catechism puts it, “By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new ‘economy’ of images” (CCC 2131).

St John of Damascus, who defended icons in the eighth century, made this his central argument. Once God “became in truth man for our salvation,” lived among us and was seen, we may depict what was seen. When Christians honour an image, he wrote, “we fall down and worship not the material but that which is imaged,” and he quoted St Basil the Great: “the honour given to the image passes over to the prototype” (Exposition of the Orthodox Faith IV.16).

What about relics?

Catholics also honour relics: the bodies or belongings of saints. This too is ancient. When St Polycarp was martyred around 155, the Christians of Smyrna gathered his bones, which they held “more precious than the most exquisite jewels,” and planned to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom each year (Martyrdom of Polycarp 18). Scripture records God working through such things: a dead man came back to life when he touched the bones of Elisha (2 Kings 13:21), and cloths that had touched St Paul healed the sick (Acts 19:11–12). Relics are honoured because the bodies of the saints were temples of the Holy Spirit and will rise again, not because the objects have power of their own.

Common Objections

”Catholics bow and kneel before statues. That looks like worship.”

Gestures take their meaning from what is intended. People bow to a monarch, stand for a national flag, kiss a wedding ring or lay flowers at a grave, and no one thinks they are worshipping. Catholics kneel before a crucifix to adore Christ, whom it represents, and bow before a statue of a saint out of respect for that saint. As the Catechism says, the movement toward the image “does not terminate in it as image” (CCC 2132).

”Israel did turn images into idols.”

It did, and the Bible is honest about it. King Hezekiah “broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel had burned incense to it” (2 Kings 18:4). The bronze serpent had been commanded by God, but later people began to worship it, and so it was destroyed. This shows exactly the Catholic position: images are good when they point to God, and wrong when they are treated as gods. The answer to misuse is right use, not no use.

”Didn’t the early Christians reject images?”

Some early writers were wary of images, especially in a pagan world full of idols. But Christian art goes back a long way: the catacombs of Rome have paintings of Christ as the Good Shepherd, of biblical scenes and of the saints from the third century. When a fierce dispute about images arose in the eighth century, the Second Council of Nicaea (787), recognised by both Catholics and Orthodox, defended their veneration.

In Summary

The commandment forbids worshipping images as gods. It does not forbid sacred art, which God Himself commanded. In Christ, the invisible God has shown us His face, and Christians may depict Him and His saints. Catholics venerate images and relics, but worship God alone: the honour given to an image passes to the person it represents.

See also Do Catholics Worship Mary? and Why Pray to the Saints Instead of Straight to God?

This article follows the method St Robert Bellarmine used in his Controversies*: state the question fairly, clear away misunderstandings, make the case, then answer each objection. Bellarmine’s own Controversies include treatises on images and on relics of the saints. See How We Answer Objections.*

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