What is Worship?

Part I, Part II, Part III

This is an article on the nature of worship. References are to Jaroslav Pelikan's five-part marathon history of the development of Christian doctrine. Reference 4:45 would mean book 4, page 45.

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Historical attempts at differentiation

Now, I must admit that as far as my central questions are concerned, Pelikan’s monographs offered me no new insights, though they frequently employed the terms “worship” or “adoration” and “veneration” – and even attempted to differentiate between them. Well, the monographs didn’t need to as they were books on the development of dogma, not books on basic theological questions. The author must presume that the readers know the answers to elementary theological questions, like “What is worship?” (or as for my other article, “Why is doctrine important?”). I didn’t. I don’t.

It truly was a challenge to sail through the 2,000 pages on the lookout for clarity, especially when the author often used “worship” and “veneration” interchangeably (see, for example, 2:96-99, 106). This was very odd. Why would he do that? I doubt that a theologian of his caliber would not distinguish between them in his private thinking, so it must be presumed that he was trying to faithfully follow the belief of his sources as it chronologically developed.

For early on in the chapter “Images of the Invisible” in the second volume we get the first (yet still minimalist) definition of worship: it is “paying honor” (2:103). The definition, though welcome, is unfortunately not very helpful, for it does not explain what “paying honor” means – and surely one can “pay honor” to both God and people, so “paying honor” belongs to veneration as well as to worship.

But later, a need for clarification and distinction becomes clearer. Eastern theologians made it clear that “it was one thing to pay proper respect [τιμή] to the saints, quite another to address worship [προσκύνησις] to them, and yet another to portray them in worshipful images” (2:112). But this distinction too, though welcomed, remains one of mere terminology, for “paying proper respect” and “addressing worship” are not defined.

Eventually the question that bothers me was raised in a straightforward manner. The italics are mine:

The orthodox “were obliged to set forth a theory of worship that would protect the uniqueness of the worship of the true God and yet permit other acts of reverence”.

When iconoclasts argued that “there is only one kind of worship, not many kinds,” the orthodox replied that “this is true of the worship of adoration [λατρευτική]” but that the worship of mortals “was nevertheless permissible by analogy and derivation from the single worship of God”. There was a “worship of adoration, which we pay only to the God who is by nature adorable”, but there was also a worship paid to “the friends and worshipers of God” for his (God’s) sake, because of “their derivative divine nature; this included both angels and saints”.

“Adoration pertained only to God, but either by love or by reverence or by law one was also bound to other to whom one paid worshipful respect. This distinction was grounded in biblical evidence about worship paid to creatures by men whose adoration of the one true God was beyond reproach.” (2:126.)

But even the distinctions above pertain only to the object of the reverential act, not to the act itself.

But as said, “adoration” in its technical sense as distinguished from “veneration”, could be offered to God alone. Saints could be venerated and even glorified, but only God could Anselm of Canterbury (who thought God was present even in the holy cross) “adore, venerate, and glorify” (3:132). One theologian said that “[e]ven though the saints are [sometimes] called ‘gods,’ they are not worshiped; only Christ is called ‘God’ and is worshiped” (3:55). “Believing in Christ,” said another theologian, meant “venerating and loving the Logos” (whereas “believing Christ” meant simply affirming “that he speaks what is true”) (3:4). If the “preexistent Son of God incarnate” was not in Jesus, “the worship of Jesus would be idolatry” (3:248).

“[W]hile the worship paid to the icons was one of honor rather than of adoration,” explained Cyril of Alexandria, “the worship paid to the Eucharist was one of adoration rather than merely of honor, because the presence in the Eucharist was that of the Lord himself” (2:291). If Christ, who was present in the Eucharist, was not true God, “there would be no reason to venerate the elements [of the Holy Communion] as the worship of the church did” (3:200). The elements were “adored”, but “such worship, addressed to a mere symbol of the body of Christ, would be idolatrous” (4:55).

Idolatry is precisely what it was (and is), according to Protestant critics of the practice.

But everyone agreed on this point, however: we are not to “adore or worship anything except the true God” (3:68) and “[t]he catholic faith is this … that we worship one God in Trinity” (3:19).

As for veneration, of all the saints Mary was “the woman who uniquely deserved to be venerated”, said Bernard of Clairvaux (3:162), one of her most ardent devotees. Her unique relationship with Christ was the basis of her uniqueness.

“Expressions of devotions” or “devotional expressions” to her (3:171), and in her honor, could include, say, the praying of the rosary and the commemoration of events in her life, like her birth, the “immaculate conception”. It was fitting that “veneration and prayer” should be addressed to her – which Pelikan calls “such worship of the Virgin” (making my head spin because of yet another “liberal” use of the word “worship”).

Not every theologian even during the Middle Ages was happy with the growing cult of Mary, but most were (3:178-179).

Yet Mary was not God. “The absolute necessity for a qualitative distinction between Christ and Mary,” Pelikan explains, “served as a restraint” (4:40; also 3:165-168) on the tendency of going too far, on “possible excesses of devotion” (3:176).

In search of concrete criteria

If find these “possible excesses of devotion” very interesting. Not from a (Protestant) polemical point of view, but from the point of view of establishing possible criteria for distinguishing between “true worship of God only” on one hand, and “idolatry” and “proper veneration of the saints” on the other. You see, there must be a way to differentiate and evaluate.

Let me expalin. In science, there is such a thing as “pseudo-theory”. Pseudo-theory is a theory or belief system, which cannot be refuted. It cannot be refuted, not because it is a “perfect theory”, but simply because it is eternally flexible: whatever you throw at it is absorbed and interpreted in its favour.

Marxism has been thought to be one such theory. Literally whatever you say in attempt to criticize it, it can respond by saying: “Well of course, that’s exactly what we should expect if Marxism was true.” If you say “White” it will reply, “Of course, white is what was to be expected.” But saying “Not-white” will give you the exact same reply, “Of course, not-white supports our theory.” How can one argue constructively with such responses?

Some social sciences, too, like sociology and social psychology, are sometimes dangerously close to being (at least partly) pseudo-scientific or mere tautology, as Alisdair MacIntyre has shown (After Virtue 1981). And the theory of evolution has been receiving a lot of flak lately for precisely its pseudo-scientific aura.

But the point here is not this or that theory of science, but only to acknowledge that the “cult of the saints” too, in order to make any sense, needs some criteria for knowing when “veneration” has become “excessive” (and in what way) or when it has turned into “idolatry” (worship of creature). Without such criteria the practice of veneration saints is “pseudo-scientific”, so to say.

“Superstitions and excessive credulity in the cult of saints” (4:248), it goes without saying, is to be shunned, but this advice is totally useless if it is not explained what such “superstitions” and “excessive credulities” could possibly be!

Well, what could they be?