Posted on 12/15/2013 2:24:52 AM PST by GonzoII
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In his 1999 book, Evangelical Answers – A Critique of Current Roman Catholic Apologists, Eric Svendsen claims the Catholic Church makes Mary into not just a god, but the God: Suppose someone in the United States were to pray to Mary at a certain time during the day. Suppose further that, at exactly that same moment, someone in Europe begins also to pray to Mary… suppose at that same moment hundreds of thousands of devoted Catholics all over the world begin praying the rosary… In order for Mary to hear all those prayers at once she would have to be omniscient (“all-knowing”)—an attribute that is the property of God alone. The simplest Catholic response would be to first reference Rev. 5:8: And when [Christ, the lamb] had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints… Catholics simply believe this text of Scripture. These twenty-four elders are human beings in heaven and they are depicted as “each one [having] vials of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (emphasis added). Each one of them was responding to multiple prayers from multiple people. What does that mean? It means these saints in heaven somehow have the power to do what Eric Svendsen claims to be “the property of God alone.” Obviously, it is not. We would do well to recall the words of Sacred Scripture at this juncture: “With God all things are possible” (cf. Luke 1:37). If we have faith, we will have no problem with believing God’s word over our own feeble and fallible intellects. Moreover, we also see this same ministry being performed by the angels in Revelation 8:3-4: And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth; and there were peals of thunder, loud noises, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. Not only are the saints and angels depicted as hearing the prayers of multiple people at the same time, but these prayers are then taken to God and they affect change on the earth as symbolized by the “peals of thunder, loud noises, etc.” I once had a Protestant pastor I was debating say to me when I presented this text to him, “There is no evidence that these saints and angels hear and comprehend those prayers. They just take them to God.” Obviously, the language of “being given incense” representing the prayers of the saints is metaphorical. One cannot “grab a hold of prayers” without knowing what they are any more than one can grab a handful of incense. In order for these pure spirits in heaven to “take prayers” to God, they must be intellectually comprehended and then communicated. And when you think about it, why wouldn’t they? If Jesus is in heaven at the right hand of God and “he always lives to make intercession for [us]” as Hebrews 7:25 says, would not the angels and saints want to do what Jesus does? I John 3:1-2 says if or when we get to heaven, “We will be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Why would the saints in heaven see Jesus interceding for us on earth and just sit around and watch him without joining in on the prayer? They would want to do what Jesus does and Jesus would want them to do what he does as well. That’s what “following Jesus” is all about! LET’S GET METAPHYSICAL But we still haven’t answered Svendsen’s main objection. We need to demonstrate the reasonableness of Rev. 5:8. If infinite power is required for the saints and angels in heaven to hear multiple prayers simultaneously, it is true, only God would be up to the task. Even more, God could not communicate this power outside of the godhead because that would be tantamount to creating another infinite God, which is absurd. God alone is the one, true and infinite God by nature and there can be no other (cf. Is. 45:22). So, would it require infinite power to hear the prayers of, let’s say, one billion people at the same time? The answer is no. One billion is a finite number. So it would not require infinite power. If we take a look at this universe of ours and consider that we are beings on one planet in one solar system amid billions of stars in one galaxy among billions of galaxies, we are a drop in the ocean next to the vastness of space. All the power a saint, like Mary, would need would be enough to hear just these little creatures on this one little blue dot called “earth.” We are not even in the ballpark of “infinite power” here. I have to give Eric Svendsen credit because in response to my colleague, Patrick Madrid, who made this very same argument that I just made, Eric Svendsen makes a very insightful critique: But Madrid’s suggestion creates so many consequent theological difficulties that it is difficult to believe he could be satisfied with it. One may as well argue that omniscience is not needed even by God himself since all things that can be known—no matter how many—are nevertheless limited to a finite number. In spite of Madrid’s assertions to the contrary, one must indeed be omniscient or omnipresent (or both) before he can hear more than one prayer at a time. When Svendsen says “omniscience is not needed even by God himself,” he betrays a lack of understanding of the Catholic and biblical position on this matter. Apart from a gift of grace, it would be impossible for created, human nature to be able to hear the prayers of millions at once and to be able to respond to them all. In fact, I argue it would be beyond unaided angelic power as well. God alone can do these things by nature and absolutely. St. Thomas Aquinas answers this question succinctly when he says the ability to perform actions that transcend nature comes from a “created light of glory received into [the] created intellect.” It would require infinite power to “create the light” or the grace given to empower men and angels to act beyond their given natures. Only God can do that. But it does not require infinite power to passively receive that light. As long as what is received is not infinite by nature or does not require infinite power to comprehend or to be able to act upon, it would not be beyond men or angel’s ability to receive. Therefore, we can conclude this “created light” given by God to empower men and angels to be able hear millions of prayers and respond to them simultaneously is reasonable as well as biblical. If you want much more information on this topic, check out my CD set called “Friends in High Places” available here. |
Spiritual blindness. The god of this age has blinded their minds from the truth. It takes a genuine miracle to rescue a person from the bondage of Romanism.
God opens the minds of who He will. I certainly don’t understand and have to admit to getting frustrated at why He doesn’t open the minds of some. I think to myself “it’s right there in front of them Lord, why don’t they see?” Thankfully He knows better than I and His ways are above my ways.
the illusions of those who dis Mary.
Yep
On Pay-Per-View
O...
K...
But nothing you posted here mentioned any speed at all.
(How long is a 'moment'?)
My argument assumes two things:
1. A knowledge of biology at about the ninth grade level.
2. Honest responses, not pedantic ones.
Honesty does not always present accuracy.
THAT is what I am striving for. Someone makes a statement that seems incredulous to me; I may have not had the access to the information the statement maker has had.
I would like clarification.
I don't want to assume stuff not in evidence.
What is important to me is that people I converse with display at least a modicum of honesty and sincerity in their words, a rarity here.
If you don’t know the answer to a question why would you not be honest enough just to say you don’t know? When you say, “I can.....” the collary is “Why don’t you?”
Does what you say matter to YOU?
And that is an answer in itself.
I have looked over your recent posts. They are invariably snarky, short, and devoid of any rational argumentation. They are indicative of a great deal of prejudice and bile, and a very low quality of thinking.
I leave my best game at home when I cruise these Catholic/PROTESTant threads.
It's not needed.
Would you ever ask a close friend to pray for you or someone you love? Just sayin’
It’s not as simple as eisogesis. The RC’s have been challenged and they have provided scripture. That is commendable. Now it is a matter of determining if their scripture applies to Mary. Obviously, Mary is not mentioned in their scripture. Nor is any other clearly former human being.
It is more an interpretive task, and eisogesis is an issue, but I’d place analysis and interpretation before it.
“It is more an interpretive task, and eisogesis is an issue, but I’d place analysis and interpretation before it.”
When you start with a preconcluded belief and then go to the Bible and read that belief into anything that sounds similar, concluding it supports the elephant that followed you into the room, you are engaged in eisogesis. ie. Praying to saints, praying to Mary, etc.
When you start with God’s Holy Word, study it to understand language, sentence structure, context, historical context, etc. to rightly divide its meaning, you are engaged in interpretation. You are willing to accept what God has revealed in His Word, authoritatively, determining your beliefs and accepting what it teaches.
Doing the first is what mormons do with their “see and say” method of “interpretation”. They see a similar word and then infuse it with the meaning they started with.
Whether someone laid out the evidence first or the other way around is beyond our answering, since we weren’t there.
What we can do is take the evidence, analyze it, and then come up with our biblical interpretation. Adjusting that interpretation to fit our preconception rather than simply dealing with what’s there is the type of eisegesis that I’m most familiar with...after the fact rather than before the fact. Before the fact is really hard to pin down.
“Whether someone laid out the evidence first or the other way around is beyond our answering, since we weren’t there.”
There is no record in Holy Writ of any Christian praying to a departed saint.
No commands to pray to departed saints.
No exhortation to pray to departed saints - or angels either.
No non-Biblical, but Christian writings during the first 100 years of the Church of praying to departed saints.
No secular writings of the era reporting that Christians practiced this.
No sacred art depicting such a practice.
No secular art depicting such a practice.
It is a total argument from silence until you see pagan practices appear between 100-200 ad.
So, no, it is not beyond our answering, if we can read Scripture and history.
bump
I, of course, am talking about the passages they use in Revelation. Those have existed since John wrote them.
Historical writings are not God-breathed. The only God-inspired writings are Old & New Testaments in my view.
“The only God-inspired writings are Old & New Testaments in my view.”
Agreed. My point is that there is absolutely no evidence in the Holy Bible, nor in documents outside the Bible that praying to departed saints existed as a belief of Christianity until a hundred years after Christ at the earliest. Zero evidence to support praying to departed saints ever existed as a belief of the early Church, or as part of an Apostolic Tradition. It is a total argument from silence.
In Revelation, proponents of this later pagan belief bring that belief to the passages and do violence to the context.
Reading a pagan belief that never existed into a passage is eisogesis.
Ignoring context, historical background, language, etc., is interpretation.
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