Iconic Perception

February 15, 2017

Class Reading: From Nature to Creation

“By iconic I mean a perceptive approach to things in which others are not reduced to the scope of utilitarian and instrumental aims. In this mode of perception, people are called to open themselves to the integrity and sanctity of the world, what William Blake once called the world’s holiness” (p.71).

In this section, Wirzba reinterprets the traditional notion of iconography, applying it practically to how we understand the world around us. Iconic perception is a paradigm opposed to idolatry. Where idolatry focuses solely on the self, iconography focuses on the archetype or divine that exists past the icon. It overwhelms us, taking us deeper than we can comprehend, further than we can take ourselves for that is the very nature of the divine or the infinite – it cannot be comprehended by the finite. Christians seem so quick to relegate the world as profane, mundane, wild, unknown, and at best useful. I wonder how much of that comes from fear of what is not known. If icons lead us past what is seen into what is unseen, then they lead us into what we do not know and do not understand. It is an act of faith to move from the present to the transcendent and I think similarly it is an act of faith to view the world around as something beyond a resource. Viewing the world with “sanctity” requires sacrifice, an unknowing of the paradigm we have been taught from infancy. It requires us to acknowledge that we are not the only beings created by God.