fact of the covenant as the inner ground of creation must interpret creation as capable on its own—that is, outside the contours of the covenant—of bringing forth only the most varied idols, which for all their variety are, in their true worth, all equally vain. These idols in turn can be liberated from their reprobation only by Christ’s act of self-surrender on the Cross, where they are reduced to nothing before the One who alone was truly rejected and made reprobate. Less radical, but similar in