The reformers' attitude to images
So, what did the Reformers make of images? The divergence opposing Luther to Karlstadt shows that they differed in their positions. Whereas Luther never advocated the destruction of images, Zwingli justified it in Zurich. In Romandy, the reformer William Farel[1] preached the reform escorted by activists ready to burn images, hang crucifixes down, smash altars.
Where did Geneva's reformer, Calvin, stand? He did not denounce devotional images as bad in themselves (and thus did not advocate their destructions) but observed that they were immaterial to salvation and that they could indeed be dangerous in that they were always liable to reinforce superstition, and, incidentally, that the early churches did not have images in their places of worship. According to Calvin, the only images suitable in Christian places of worship are the sacraments instituted by Christ, namely baptism and the Lord's Supper (Eucharist). In The Institutes of the Christian Religion (book 1 chap. 11), he infers from the Decalogue's prohibition the assertion that God could not allow representations of Himself. When He shows Himself, it is in the shape of a sign, a cloud, a flame, a dove, precisely to stop Christians from adoring him under that form. Christ is not represented by the brush but by the word in predication. According to which, in Calvin's eyes, to allow oneself to be absorbed by an image “as if some divinity were actually before them” is to plumb the depth of stupidity. Calvin, who was acquainted with Humanism and who was not without literary ambitions of his own saw to it that artistic activity was not dismissed altogether: “I am not, however, so superstitious as to think that all visible representations of every kind are unlawful. But as sculpture and painting are gifts of God, what I insist for is, that both shall be used purely and lawfully, - that gifts which the Lord has bestowed upon us, for his glory and our good, shall not be preposterously abused, nay, shall not be perverted to our destruction.” (Institutes I, 11, 12).
Thus leaving the door open to art, religious art at that, Calvin did no less ban images from places of worship. In his view experience had shown that the gap is easily breached between the admiration of the image and the adoration of the idol. This said, he never called for the destruction of any image whatsoever, it being understood, he wrote in a letter in 1562, “that God never asked for idols to be smashed, other than to each individually in their home, and in public to those upon whom he has bestowed authority”. Furthermore, Calvin (no innovator in this) resumes the patristic[2] theme of humanity created in God's image (cf. Genesis[3] 1: 26). For him, God's true image is therefore to be sought not in stone or wood but in living people. Humans – be they ever so ignorant, poor or marginalised by society – should be recognised as God's image. This, to Calvin, is the foundation of morality: “God has always wanted to make clear that human life was precious to him” (Sermon 125 on Deuteronomy). By focussing one's worship on a material representation, one risks, Calvin says, to turn away from the only image of God to be found on earth: the human person as such.
It is perhaps not entirely surprising that the complexity of such a discourse was not fully grasped on the ground and that some of Calvin's disciples, probably with the best intentions at heart, went on to see the destruction of devotional images as an act of deepest faith.
