Myths, Idols, and the Source of Meaning

"At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. And he shall not look to the altars, the works of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images." Isaiah 17:7, 8

Before we begin, we must take a moment to not confuse idols with myths. A myth is (in a simple sense) man's commentary on what is there, a story that attempts to understand what is behind the sum and scale of the universe. In other words, it points to a meaning that we are separated from and must find. Conversely, an idol states that the meaning is found in itself. In this sense, an idol is a perversion of a myth: a myth points to what an idol claims to be. Though it is true that idols (and altars and groves and images) can and do come from myths, that says something about mankind, not myths. Satan will always tempt man to find meaning anywhere but in God. When that happens, all the gods and idols that myths have inspired have, in effect, divorced themselves from the meaning of the myth by making themselves to be the meaning. The counterfeit claims to be the original, which is a fallacy, and staking your confidence in the counterfeit is a higher fallacy.

When God unleashes His judgment, when His presence of pure Reality shines forth across the shadowlands, men will have nothing left to turn to but Him (and if they choose the nothingness, they are the worse for it). All that is temporal, fleeting and vain will fade away, and only He Who is eternal, constant, and perfect will remain. In getting the dead out, God brings us back to where we see that the only solid ground is Him.

"He shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands..." All the mighty gods and idols, all that you held as the highest and staked your confidence in, will suddenly become quite useless and empty because their position and power was of your own making. A creation is not higher than its creator, and if you are empty, then that which you create to give you meaning will be just as empty.

"[When God removes all, then] shall a man look to his Maker..." We have two makers in these verses: one is God and the other is man. The man realizes that all his idols found their meaning only in him: if he is empty, then they are empty. Therefore, his meaning can only be found in his Maker, Who is the Sum and Source of all things. It is He that the man turns to, when all his self-made security blankets turned out to be just as much vanity as he.