Icon, Never Idol

An icon points beyond itself. An idol is what it becomes the moment it is taken for the thing. Same object; the difference is entirely in the holding.

The canon takes a calculated risk every time it writes anything down. Articulating something infinite into a form makes it visible and simultaneously reduces it, and any articulation inevitably falls short of what it points at. The risk is taken deliberately — as the Creator did with us — and it comes with one condition: that the articulation eternally remain an icon pointing beyond itself, and never become an idol (Word Tools, Do Not Concretize the Absolute, Idolatry (of the word and of the doctrine)).

The switching condition is the instrument. Nothing about the object changes. A page is an icon when it is used to see through; the same page becomes an idol the instant it is treated as the thing itself. Which means the question is never is this formulation good enough but how am I holding it right now (Limit Statement, Everything Is Current Best Understanding).

The canon supplies the practical corollary: a teacher is only a guide, and a guide is only a guide — there to help someone toward their own deepening relationship with what is breathing them (Guide, Keeper Without Keeping, Servant Leadership).

And then the measure, which is this page's real contribution. Anything representing the Way is not the Way; it is a local embodiment that shares in its nature to some varying degree of faithfulness. That turns a binary into a gradient. The question stops being is this true or false and becomes how faithful is this rendering, and what would make it more so — which is what makes improvement possible rather than only replacement, and is the ground the whole practice of current best articulation stands on (Current Best Articulation, Instantiation, Prototype, LIØNSBERG Is A Prototype, Not The Eternal Essence).

The canon then applies it to itself: this body is not the Way, only an instantiation of it at some degree of faithfulness — and what everyone is striving toward is the most faithful prototype, not the final one (Truth To ØNE, Errors To Us).

Also called: icon not idol · varying degrees of Faithfulness Stands on: Word Tools · The Ineffable · Instantiation · Gnosis Opens onto: Idolatry (of the word and of the doctrine) · Do Not Concretize the Absolute · Current Best Articulation · LIØNSBERG Is A Prototype, Not The Eternal Essence · Limit Statement · Prototype · Truth To ØNE, Errors To Us · Essences, Renderings, And Ineffable Referents In play: the Workshop — held over everything this body writes, including this page Sources: LIØNSBERG Wiki Books/Martial Arts Guide/1.11 Non-Propositional Knowing (unmarked; listed in the canon's audit as material to card, never carded) · The Sacred Warrior Guidebook — Prolegomenon, §How The Way Is Known (unmarked) · lionsberg.wiki: Rediscovering The Way - A Guide For The Warrior Spirit Open: The degree of faithfulness is offered as a measure and no way of assessing it is given — nothing says how two renderings would be compared, or by whom. · The canon's related pages treat icon and idol as a binary; the gradient is this chapter's addition and is not carried anywhere else.