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Q 55: What is the second commandment of the Law of God?
A 55: The second commandment is, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image.” (Ex. 20.4; Deut. 5.8)
Carved images serve a variety of purposes. They localize an unseen deity and thus serve as a reminder of its supposed existence and presence. They provide a focal point and context for worship, as it is common in pagan religions to practice rituals in or upon material expressions of unseen deities. Those practices thus accomplished, a worshiper may come away with a sense of having satisfied what the deity most requires by paying homage to it in some prescribed manner.
Carved images not only minimize God, and thus falsely represent Him Who alone is truth; they also minimize and falsely represent the life of faith. For all these reasons, it is not difficult to see why God forbids the use of carved images of any kind, whether of false deities or of the one true God.
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