A striking
illustration of the Hebraic point of view in theology is to be found in the
prophetic teaching about idolatry. Belief in the universal rule of Jehovah the
creator, which we find already in Amos, does not seem to have led immediately
to the inference that other gods were simply non-existent; and in the end a
pure monotheism was attained by arguing not directly the unreality of heathen
deities, but rather their ineffectiveness or impotence. They are “things that cannot
profit or deliver”, Thus when their nonentity is finally declared, the
declaration takes the curious form of identifying the heathen god with the mere
inactive piece of good or stone of which his image was fashioned. Prophets and
psalmists simply deride the idols as lifeless bits of stuff: they do not
denounce them as symbols of false ideas. They do not seem even to consider the
possibility of the idol symbolizing anything at all. (Oliver Chase Quick, Doctrines
of the Creed: Their Basis in Scripture and Their Meaning To-day [London:
Nisbet & Co. Ltd., 1938], 69)
