What does an idol promise?
In a word, an idol promises blessing, but in general a false blessing or, at most, a mixed or penultimate blessing: either a poison pill, or a Faustian bargain, or a temporal good enjoyed for a limited time only.
I am tempted to say that an idol cannot bless, cannot impart gifts at all. But that cannot be true simpliciter. If, sometimes, demons lie behind idols, then it stands to reason that, as living beings, demons can exchange gifts for sacrifices, blessings for devotion. All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me. The false note is not that Satan’s offer is a lie without remainder but that, as always, it is intermixed with the truth; whether or not Satan can give what he offers, worship is due God alone regardless.
Others have done serious work on this topic, so I expect to be corrected in what I omit here. But on first thought, it seems to me that idols promise at least four concrete types of blessing, whether or not (like Satan) they can deliver on any of them:
Safety
Power
A future
A name
I almost included a fifth, “Beatitude,” but my instinct is that happiness is, in this context, a generic category that calls for concrete specification. In other words, each of these four types of blessing is a species of what makes humans happy, what they seek from the gods when they petition them, and so beatitude and blessing are two sides of the same coin.
What do I mean by these four variations on blessing?
By “safety,” I mean protection or deliverance from some opposing force or feared power beyond human control. Not all religion deals with salvation, but much of it does; furthermore, what one is saved from is not always known with exactitude, but remains formless and unnamed: whatever evil being or bad luck that keeps crops from growing, and rain from falling, and roofs from holding, and babies from being conceived, and marriages from lasting, and money from stretching, and so on.
By “power,” I mean the move from defense to offense. Here an idol offers not a protective wall but a weapon, not a shield but a sword, not preservation of life but the means of taking it. This is where, on an anthropologist’s account, religion becomes magic or superstition; what strength or force I lack by nature or circumstances, the gods provide in exchange for piety, prayer, or sacrifice.
By “a future,” I mean the promise of security and endurance beyond my life or the probable duration of my tribe—whether my household, clan, race, nation, or progeny. The biblical term is inheritance. This blessing is a ward against futility: the futility of finitude, time, and death, which threaten continuously to make a waste of every human life, not just your efforts or mine but all of them together.
By “a name,” I mean one’s reputation, or legacy, or heritage. Bound up with but not synonymous with one’s lineage and future descendants—the perpetual future of one’s nominal fame—this blessing increases one’s magnificence, elevates one’s personage, inflates the reverence and respect others owe the very mention of who you are and what you have done. The purported god promises a hallowing or halo effect, not just in years to come but here and now: People will recognize your name and [tremble with fear/shake with envy/give thanks/fall to their knees].
These, at least, are what came to mind yesterday morning, sitting in church. An idol promises its petitioners safety, power, a future, and/or a name. Unsurprisingly, these are echoes of God’s promises to Abraham and to his seed, the Messiah, and their fulfillment in Him and extension to all are in Him. Do idols make promises that God does not, or vice versa? Are there promises typical of false gods that I am missing? I welcome others’ thoughts.
