44 theory
figure2.2.the broken corpse of her Son, who is the broken image of God, his father—
although, as the scripture is careful to say, “none of his bones have been bro-
ken”? How could you destroy an image that is already that much destroyed?
How would you want to eradicate belief in an image that has already disap-
pointed all beliefs to the point that God himself, the God of beyond and above
lies here, dead on his mother’s lap? Can you go further into the self-critique
of all images than what theology explicitly says? Rather, should it not be better
to argue that the outside iconoclast does nothing but add a naı ̈ve and shallow
act of destruction to an extraordinary and deep act of destruction? Who is more
naı ̈ve, the one who sculpted this pieta` of the kenosis of God, or the one who
believes there are believers naı ̈ve enough to grant existence to a mere image
instead of turning spontaneously their gaze to the true original God? Who goes
further? Probably the one who says there isnooriginal.