Disneology #9: How to Make an Invisible Image

ASSIGNMENT 10: RIDE THE “GREAT MOVIE DRIVE” IN DISNEY'S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AND PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE INDIANA JONES SET WHERE INDY IS MOVING THE ARK OF THE COVENANT. NOTICE THAT ON TOP OF THE ARK ARE TWO GOLDEN ANGELS WITH THEIR WINGS TOUCHING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ARK. THE PLACE WHERE THE WINGS MEET IS CALLED THE “MERCY SEAT.” HEBREW THEOLOGY SAYS THAT GOD SITS ABOVE THAT SEAT. LOOK VERY CAREFULLY ABOVE THE SEAT. DO YOU SEE ANYTHING?

In Disneology #1, #2, and #7, I discussed the famous theological descriptive terms—omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, omnipresent, and immutable. Kenneth Burke, in The Rhetoric of Religion, page 22, discusses what he calls “‘negative theology,’ the defining of God in terms of what he is not, as when God is described in words like ‘immortal,’ ‘immutable,’ ‘infinite,’ ‘unbounded,’ impassive,’ and the like . . . since God, by being ‘supernatural,’ is not describable by the positives of nature.” Logically speaking, a God who created nature cannot be restricted to the laws of nature. Another negative term Judaism adds to the description of God is “invisible.” The Ark of the Covenant (as presented visually in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark) was designed to symbolically make this point.

All other gods presented at Walt Disney World are visible. The Hebrew God is invisible. Notice the following gods at WDW, for example:

• Gaia is encountered when you are greeted by some cast members in The Animal Kingdom. You will also see a sign when approaching the Tree of Life that says “Viva Gaia!” Viva Gaia means “Long live Gaia!” There is no statue of this ancient Greek goddess because you are standing on her. Gaia is the Earth goddess.
• Pegasus, the Greek Horse god, is encountered in the Great Movie Ride (in the film clip from Fantasia) at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Pegasus is the horse with wings.
• Kukulkan, the Mayan creation god, may be seen at the Mexico Pavilion in Epcot. He is the feathery serpent whose head protrudes multiple times from the columns that ascend the pyramid. As I mentioned in Disneyology #7, “Mayan creation stories begin with sky and sea, and then the creation god Kukulkan (whose pyramid . . . may be seen at the Mexico Pavilion in Epcot) speaks the word “Earth,” and the Earth rises from the sea. Following this, the thoughts of Kukulkan create mountains, trees, birds, jaguars, and snakes; finally, humans are created (first, out of mud; second, out of wood; third, as monkeys; and finally, as full-fledged humans).
• The Roman god of the sea, Neptune (also known as the Greek god Poseidon), may be seen in the Italy pavilion at Epcot. If you are familiar with the Disney film, The Little Mermaid, you will know that the little mermaid’s father is Neptune.
• The stone god and other Egyptian gods you saw in the Raiders of the Lost Ark set as you rode the Great Movie Ride in Disney’s Hollywood Studios are also quite visible.

While visiting Norway, China, and Japan in Epcot’s World Showcase, you may notice other quite visible gods (or, at least, the images of these gods).

In virtually all ages and cultures, humans have worshiped the images of their gods. This fact presented a particular theological problem for the Hebrews. Their God was invisible, as Burke said: “‘supernatural,’ . . . not describable by the positives of nature.” They reasoned that a God who created nature cannot be restricted to the laws of nature. Therefore, one way they depicted this invisible God was with the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was a chest that was believed to originally contain the two stone tablets with the engraving of the Ten Commandments. On the top of the Ark were images of two cherubim whose wings met above the middle of the Ark. There, above the meeting of these wings is where the “invisible” God was seated. Hence, God was the invisible being that hierarchically ranked above the Cherubim and was represented in the Ark by His most significant message to His People, the Ten Commandments. In the film clip in the preview to The Great Movie Ride, the Ark is called “a transmitter, a radio for talking to God.” The Ark represented not only God’s invisible nature, it represented His nature as a communicator.

That is one way to make an invisible image. The other way involves a theology that is not as well-known. It involves the Genesis teaching that God made man into his “image.” I describe some of the significance of this theology in my book, Revelation: The Human Drama. Revelation describes a Beast (whom the vast majority of Revelation scholars interpret as first century Rome). Then, Revelation says that the inhabitants of the land were forced to make an “image” of this Beast and to worship this image. Agreeing with two of the most important Revelation scholars of the past two centuries, I point out that the image of the Beast is a sort of person within a person. The image is not a stone or silver or gold image; it is a “human”—the Jewish High Priest in the late First Century a.d. Just as Adam was the “image” of God, so also is the image of the Beast a human. In Revelation, Jesus (like a second Adam) is the image of God and is set in contrast to the image of the Beast. Worshipers in Revelation are encouraged in Chapters 4 and 5 to worship both God and the Lamb.

Perhaps, the following quotation from page 88 of my book on Revelation will clarify this point:


“If, as Wellhausen claims, ‘[The image of the Beast] is the alter ego of the empire just as Jesus was called the [image] of God’ (cf. II Corinthians 4:4 and Colossians 1:15), then a living human being serves as the ‘image’ of the beast, just as the human, Jesus, serves as the ‘image’ of God. Where exactly Wellhausen derives his information that Jesus is the [image] of God, Charles does not indicate; and the explicit statement is found nowhere in Revelation. However, [in a Jewish book written between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament] Vita Adae et Evae 13-14 . . . clearly calls Adam the ‘image’ of God [and, therefore, has God requiring angels to worship Adam], and [Jewish scholar Louis] Ginzberg sees in . . . [Hebrews 1:6] the link which makes Jesus a second Adam in the fashion of Vita, hence making him worthy of worship. Thus . . . literature with which John could easily be familiar has a human serving as an ‘image,’ and therefore receiving ‘worship.’
If John is making the ‘image’ of God (Jesus) in Revelation 5 ‘worthy of praise,’ then, in antithetical fashion, he could be making the ‘image’ of the beast (the high priest) in Revelation 13 the object of (unworthy) antichristian worship. . . . Instead of an image of stone, the Jews had in the middle of their temple an amazing sign--an image that could ‘speak’ (13:15)! He was the voice of the Empire in the midst of the temple.”

How can a human be the “image” of an invisible God when humans are clearly visible? There must be an invisible characteristic of humans that is the “image” of God, while the visible characteristics of humans are NOT the image of God. Perhaps Kenneth Burke puts us on the right track when he claims that humans have two characteristics—animality and symbolicity. Our animality would be the physical characteristics of humans (similar to other animals). Our symbolicity would be that invisible characteristic that makes us different from all other animals. We communicate by using what Burke calls “symbols,” while all other animals communicate by what Burke calls “signals.” Burke calls man “the symbol-using animal.” The dedication to my book, Implicit Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke’s Extension of Aristotle’s Concept of Entelechy, reads: “To God, the Ultimate Symbol-User.” The implication is that this “symbol-using” nature of both God and humans could be taken, theologically, to be the image of God into which humans were made.