The Shroud of Turin and Images of Christ (Part 10)

The last argument against the abrogation of images of Jesus position is that Jesus can be pictured by the existence of the Shroud of Turin which is claimed by many to be the authentic burial cloth of Jesus which could be images of Jesus’ specific features1. This argument can be formulated in a more powerful way against my position by stating it in the following way: God brought about the death, burial, and resurrection which left an image of Jesus and if God can leave an image of Jesus for us then it is implausible for us to condemn images of Jesus. However, it should be noted that even proponents of arguments like this do grant that the shroud has not been proven to be authentic. Moreover, it is hard to see how we could ever verify that this is actually Jesus Christ. Because it is unclear whether or not the shroud is portraying Jesus then this cannot be used to defeat my argument. In other words, an unclear argument does not defeat a position that is reasonably established like the abrogation of images of Jesus position. Furthermore, because my arguments for the abrogation of images of Jesus position carry enough epistemic weight then we have a priori reason for doubting that the shroud is an image of Jesus. Hence, we have no good reason to think that this argument defeats the abrogation of images of Jesus position.