Veneration vs. Worship: A Lesson in the Humor of Casuistry

When Romans Catholics and Eastern Orthodox say, "We are not worshiping Mary," and "We are not worshiping icons," the tragic reality is that too many will do X but call it Y. It is like watching them pour water into a cup while they insist on saying, "No, you are misled, I am just pouring water into the space above the cup, and it is only an accidental property of my pouring that it goes into the cup, and really the metaphysical substance of the cup is the matter itself, not the space qua space of the cup, and I am not pouring the water into the substance of the cup. You have been deceived into thinking I am pouring water into the cup." 


All one can say to this is, “Thy cup runneth over.”


They retort, “Sir, you must be one of those deceived Protestants. In truth, I am not ‘pouring’ the water. We reserve a distinction that pouring is only true pouring when the pouring device has either a lip on the side or a spout. Clearly neither of those conditions are being met here in this plain glass, so there isn’t even a possibility of ‘pouring.’ This could arguably be classed as a ‘controlled spilling,’ as one obscure school of paradoxical thought has argued, but certainly not ‘pouring.’ Frankly speaking, I would argue it isn't even a ‘controlled spilling,’ for spilling etymologically implies an absence of intention, or perhaps some sort of intention of recklessness, and so a ‘controlled spilling’ would be a contradiction in terms. 


“All that is happening is that my will is formally engaged in tipping the cup, and since my will is not causative of either gravity or fluid dynamics, the fact that water ends up through an impersonal casual chain of events entering into the cup could not be attributed to my agency which extends only to the tipping. Only persons can pour, and it would only be a metonymy that one could be said to pour when really it is just a personification of impersonal forces acting on the water. So again I'm not pouring water into the cup. The same action in a weightless environment would have utterly different accidents, so there is clearly nothing essential to my action of tipping the cup that can be metaphysically confused with pouring, for as a realist I would never lie and say I'm not tipping the cup for it is clear to the senses that I am tipping it (you dishonest and deceived Protestant nominalist).”


In other words, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are not “worshipping” Mary or icons. They are merely “venerating” them. They rest their case.


-The Reformed Ninja

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