What I want to say is like this: (1)There not being a scriptural precedent obviously doesn't mean to us what it means to you. (2) If all we mean by "the dead" is those who have died -- as opposed tgo meaning those who are currently not alive -- then the term loses its argumentative force, and I'm fine with it.
So your position (just asking for verification) is regardless of their current vitality, once folks have died, you cain't ask 'em for stuff. And ours is that the communion of saints is all around us, a cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded, and all that.
I don't see a brige across this. Do you?
I'm sure that we are in agreement that the dead are not gone, just not with us in the flesh anymore.
So your position (just asking for verification) is regardless of their current vitality, once folks have died, you cain't ask 'em for stuff. And ours is that the communion of saints is all around us, a cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded, and all that.
That is the crux of our difference. The verse about the cloud of wittnesses is a verse about the faith of said wittnesses being a testimony to us, not that they are all watching us. Obviously in Revelation John was able to see things on earth but the vision was both spiriutalized and confusing chronologically. But even from that Heavenly view there is no evidence of any of the citizens of heaven receiving communications from the Earth and passing them up hill.
The bigger issue is that the bible gives us prayer in an excellent form. We pray directly to the Father in the name of His Son. To put that aside or to think that needs to be supplemented is a very sad statement.
I don't see a brige across this. Do you?
There is never a bridge between fundies and RC's but we still have fun comparing notes.