Praying to Saints August 15, 2008
Posted by Damian in Eastern Orthodoxy, Relating to God, Roman Catholicism.Tags: body of Christ, Catholicism, christ, confusing worship with prayer, Corinthians, Eastern Orthodoxy, eternal life, N.T. Wright, orthodoxy, praying to saints, Roman Catholicism, sainthood, saints, Surprised By Hope, Tom Wright
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I’m having an interesting conversation with myself about saints. A week or two back, a friend of mine made some comments on the habit of the Catholics to pray to saints. I’d never really thought about it as something heretical, but here she claimed it was exactly that. So I decided to look into it, asking around at an Orthodox blog (here and here) and browsing around some sites, as well as looking it up in some books I have that address the matter.
On the side of ‘prayer to the saints’, I find a fairly simple yet convincing argument from scripture: We as Christians are promised eternal life. Each and every one of us are regarded as an important part of the body of Christ. So, it stands to reason that we remain an important part of the body of Christ when we die. So we are simply asking members of the body of Christ to pray for us. The reason prayers go to certain saints, I liken to what happens in prayer groups I attend; when someone is ill, the person with the most medical knowledge is generally asked to say the prayer. To me this argument as strong, because of 1 Corinthians 12:
And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
And because of this, I actually wonder if I have been doing wrong my whole Christian life by not praying to the saints, if not those on the Christian calendars or books of the saints, simply to the saints as a whole, and giving them honour in our prayers.
The argument against ‘prayer to the saints’, however, is one of absence (also found in ‘Surprised by Hope’, by Tom Wright): That is, there is no such thing every presented in the bible. There is no suggestion that those of us in heaven are praying for us, and no suggestion that we should encourage them to do so. This is very straightforward, but honestly, compared to strength in the other camp, I question its validity.
The other argument against ‘prayer to the saints’ is one of glory. That is, by praying to the saints, we’re robbing God of his glory. This is an argument confusing worship with prayer. The concept behind praying to saints is that of communicating with something that is not corporeally present, not one of worship. In fact, the position of the churches on the subject, says precisely that we are asking the saints to pray for us. So I question this arguments validity. What might apply is the idea that by asking the saints to pray for us, we’re putting a middleman between us and God. But we ask our friends to pray for us, and never wonder that they are interfering with our relationship with God. So I question that as well.
I have to say, I’d like to know what the early church fathers had to say on the matter. But for now, I suspect that prayer to the saints is something that Christians should be doing, because it is involving a part of the body of Christ many of us have hitherto been ignoring.
No, the argument is that attempting to communicate with the dead is strictly forbidden. It is anything but an argument from silence.
Furthermore, why can’t you pray to some Christian who is alive now and across the planet? Why are only the dead able to hear you if we have such great unity in the body?
It seems to me “prayers to the saints” is another way to justify alienation from the saints God actually brings into our lives: Rather than asking for help from our real friends (who might rebuke us or otherwise irritate us), we opt for some version of Caspar.
Mark,
Thanks for commenting!
As I said, are we Christians not blessed with eternal life? How then, is this communication with the dead? The context of the old testament prohibitions on communication with the dead are ones of divination (which is forbidden), and certainly prayer to the saints is not that.
And I think you can pray to Christians alive now and across the planet. Prayer in general should encompass communion with the church and with God. Just as you ask for help from your real friends who might rebuke or otherwise irritate us.
Interesting topic. Let me say that, at very least, the term “praying” is problematic. Not in an objective sense, but in the sense that it sounds like something reserved for God. It’s similar (yet on an admittedly different scale) to say that honoring the lives and deeds of the saints is “worshiping” the saints: by chance “worship” has come to mean something greater than veneration, but if the word “worship” were a little less specialized, it might be used of the veneration of saints and would produce a knee-jerk reaction not dissimilar from the one most Protestants give when they hear of “praying to the saints.”
I was talking to one of my Catholic friends about prayer to saints when he, like you, explained that it’s no different from asking your friends to pray for you. As you said, Catholics and Orthodox believers – modern ones, anyway – don’t typically believe that the saints themselves directly intervene in the affairs of men but that they petition God to act; since the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous availeth much, it’s only natural to expect that the prayers of the preeminently righteous, saints of heaven on our behalf should avail even mucher!
All this said, I don’t personally pray to saints. I doubt it’s really a matter of having the right person or the right number of people praying for you. If it’s something God in His infinite wisdom deems good for us, a simple prayer of submission will be enough, since God will withhold no good thing from His children. I find it hard to believe that God has a volume meter – “Try it again! Is that all you’ve got? Louder this time!” – so I’m not sure even having living friends praying for you “gets God to move” on our behalf. He’s not a puppet or a merchant trading in miracles for prayers. As I see it, friends should pray for the most part for comfort, wisdom, and strength during the ordeal and let God handle it as He more wisely sees fit; comfort, wisdom, and strength aren’t things the saints can give me, so there’s not much to benefit from them.
But, as always, I could be wrong. Thanks for the interesting post!
Notwithstanding the protestant reasons for not praying to saints or asking for their intercession, it is an important part of the Christian tradition and, for many, an important part of prayer life. Many have testified to the value of this practice over the centuries, saying that it is good to study the lives of saints and to seek their intercessory prayers. I think it makes more sense in traditions in which we seek union with God, than it does in protestant traditions that express our aims as Christians in other ways.
I have noticed in your postings that you feel some attraction to the ways of Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism. Have you considered embracing either of them? They offer extremely deep and rich resources for a life of faith.
Steve,
You’re right about the term ‘praying’. It certainly has its connotations, at least to protestants; Catholics and Orthodox seem to have a different understanding of prayer, that is less specific.
I agree with you about God not responding to more prayer nor to more fervent prayer. A simple prayer is enough.
However, I think that shared prayer – that is, praying for the church and the world at large – is as much a communion of the saints (that is, living and dead) as it is communion with God. That is, its goal is to bring the body of Christ together and together with Christ , rather than to fill up a prayer meter.
Notice, in this perspective, prayer to saints becomes vital, as without communion with departed saints, the body of Christ is not united in Christ.
This is all conjecture on my part – not coming from a background that prays to saints, I don’t do it in the same way Catholics or Orthodox do, but since learning about prayer to saints, I’ve begun to include the departed saints in my prayers.
Ken,
You’re right in about prayer to saints making less sense in the more individualistic protestant traditions than in others, I feel.
As for embracing Orthodox Christianity or Roman Catholicism, I have considered it, but it will take more consideration than I have given it so far. I’m currently attending Anglican services, which are a midway point between the two. I agree they offer much, but I’m not one for openly accepting a full tradition until I’ve investigated it fully. Hence, a tradition like the Anglican allows me to worship in a liturgical, somewhat traditional fashion while I investigate.
Thanks for commenting guys.
Personally, I have the common knee-jerk reaction to the idea of praying to saints that most Protestants would. Having observed this practice in action during a lot of my schooling years, I think that your arguments, in theory, have some good reasoning behind them but don’t really represent how the ordinary population puts this kind of activity into practice.
Asking the saints to add their prayers to God on your behalf is all very well but without some critical analysis of the logic behind this, it quickly devolves into something which appears to my eyes as idol worship. People cease to pray to God and start to pray to Saint whoever to give them this or that.
To me, this is part of the reason why both Judaism and Islam avoid representing God in visual imagery (plus in Islam’s case, the Prophet) as it can lead people into losing focus on what’s really important-the Presence of the Divine in action and thought rather than a material representation. This is not to say that things akin to idolatry don’t happen in these religions, but that’s just the nature of humankind-to seek out a physical expression of belief.
It’s not the idea of paying respect to venerated people that is objectionable, its the way in which this practice can be distorted that bothers me.
Seone,
Very good points. I agree that the theory of praying to saints is often not translated into good practice. But nevertheless, I don’t think that malpractice is a reason to ban such actions . I’d go so far as to say that the protestant divide between the living and the dead does violence to the scriptural concepts of the body of Christ, and this should be corrected in some manner in protestant thought.
I’m not going to answer you on idols, as I’m going to post on idolatry at some point in the future. Suffice to say, I think that the Torah laws on idolatry were very specific in their context, and I’m not sure that the analogy that has taken place in modern Christianity for idolatry is a valid one.
I think the lines are quite important; for example, Icons in Orthodox tradition are created in worship, and thought to be sacramental in nature. Protestant thought would judge this as idolatry, but I’m not convinced from the biblical text.
But that’s not something that needs to be discussed in a comment
.
Thanks for commenting!
As always, I appreciate your candor and open mind to things outside of your upbringing as I am also on that same track.
That being said, I wanted to make you aware that the person who posted above did not write that post. He copied it verbatim from http://www.chick.com/reading/books/218/218_04.asp
I thought that it looked a little like a copy and paste fundamentalist “e-tract” and sure enough I copy and paste and a Google click more and I found the last several chapters copied directly from the site. You may want to delete it, as it isn’t really edifying to the conversation, and if anything else, it’s blatant plagiarism.
Ben,
Thanks for drawing that to my attention. I hadn’t replied to the comment as it didn’t seem to edify, as you say, but felt deleting it was unnecessary until you pointed out the plagiarism.
Thanks for coming and reading here. I see from your site you have a great deal of interest in Orthodoxy, as do I – I’ll keep tabs on your posts, and I’d appreciate it if you let me know any thoughts on any of my posts that you read.
Damian
I have been brought up in a traditional, Indian Orthodox Church and we are big supporters of praying to the saints. In fact, we just had a huge feast for Saint Mary. I have no problem with communicating with the departed because Jesus did the same thing during His transfiguration and I don’t see anyone accusing Him of divination. But I do have two questions in my quest to find answers about praying to the saints…
1) Are saints omnipresent or have they taken on other God-like qualities in order to hear and pass on the countless prayer requests offered up on a typical Sunday? For example, I am sure that in my church alone, there will be multiple people praying to St. Thomas, St. Gregorios and St. Mary…and I am sure that that is happening simultaneously at some point somewhere else in the world. How do we know they can hear us?
2) I know Christ in interceding on our behalf for sure, but what evidence do we have that the “saints” we have declared are actually in heaven after all? I mean God looks at and judges the heart, right? So what if the saints we, as a church, declare as saints…aren’t in heaven? Or maybe the viewpoint is that the church is pretty infallible in its declaration of saints because that is guided by the Holy Spirit…i might have answered my own question, but I look forward to your response.
Sabu,
1) I think the question of omnipresence is a good one. I doubt very much that the departed saints are omnipresent, or that they have taken on God-like qualities. There is no scriptural evidence that the departed are any different than us. So how do we know they hear us? I don’t think we do. However, in a metaphysical sense, I don’t think heaven is best thought about as directly above us, but more “out-of-phase” so to speak, hence, might it possible for one to be ‘omnipresent’ here, and yet ‘unipresent’ there? We don’t know much about heaven, and so we can’t know for sure. I think in this case, the guidance of the apostolic fathers counts for much.
2) You are right that we have no evidence that the saints we pray to are in heaven at all. I wouldn’t line up behind the ‘church is infallible’ line – I’m not Catholic or Orthodox, and hence think all man is fallible, including those that comprise church leadership (although, being fallible, I may be wrong about that). None but God know the hearts of man. But the fact is we’re stepping out in faith, asking for the help of those who loved God, to pray for us on our behalf to God, and I think this will be honoured by God regardless of our human flaws in judgement.
I hope I answered your questions, Sabu. Thanks for coming and commenting on my little journal! Godbless.
I’d like to throw out there a few more verses that might (I say might) be used to support this, that I came across in another discussion:
Revelations 6:9-10 (The souls…They called out in a loud voice)
Revelations 8:3-4 (…the prayers of the saints)
Hebrews 12:1 (…since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses)
I don’t feel the latter two can be looked at to defend the position of praying to saints, but the first I think suggests that the dead can pray.