Jason Engwer is a Protestant apologist who runs the site, Triablogue. He used to interact with me from 2002-2010 or so and then promptly stopped. I continue to critique his material, if I think there is educational value in doing so. Maybe one day he’ll decide to start dialoguing again, but if not, no skin off my back. I’ll continue to do what I’ve done these past [nearly] 33 years as a Catholic apologist.
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I am responding to Jason’s article, “If somebody prays for you, does it follow that you can pray to him?” (7-9-23). His words will be in blue.
Obviously not. Yet, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox often act as if passages in the church fathers about how the saints pray for us are evidence that those fathers believed in praying to the saints. Or let’s say that somebody lives a thousand miles from you, but is part of the same denomination you belong to. And that denomination has set aside a particular day to pray about something. Let’s say it’s praying for missionaries. So, that person is praying with you for missionaries, in the sense that you’re both praying for them on that day. Does the fact that he’s praying with you prove that you can pray to him?
This reveals a rather basic misunderstanding of what Catholic and Orthodox invocation of saints is in the first place. It comes down to the definitions of prayer and petition and intercession. It’s true that Catholics will sometimes talk about “praying to a saint.” I have done it myself. But we understand what we are talking about (whereas Jason doesn’t). Everyone uses “shorthand”-type expressions all the time. So when an informed Catholic refers to praying to saints, what he almost always means in the final analysis, is “asking a saint to intercede to God on his / her behalf.”
Protestants tend to define any interaction whatever with departed saints as “prayer” and think it is fundamentally wrong because they wrongly assume that prayer only has to do with direct human-to-God communications and discussions or verbal discourse. And they tend to equate it with worship as well. They assume that we can’t ask or petition departed saints to pray (i.e. intercede) for us (i.e., pray to God on our behalf). I don’t know why, since Jesus Himself taught that the rich man could make two petitionary requests to Abraham (Luke 16), and Abraham never rebuked him (as a good Protestant would) for doing so.
They might object that both were in the afterlife, in Hades / Sheol. And so they were. But that doesn’t overcome the false Protestant belief that no one can (whether on the earth or in Hades) ever petition any dead saint to intercede with God on their behalf. Jesus says we can, and that ought to be good enough for any Christian. But for some odd reason it isn’t. Protestant extrabiblical tradition trumps even Jesus in their minds, I guess.
But if we want someone on the earth petitioning a dead saint then we have King Saul doing that with the prophet Samuel. The Bible says that Saul “knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground, and did obeisance” (1 Sam 28:14). Saul then petitioned him:
1 Samuel 28:15 (RSV) “I am in great distress; for the Philistines are warring against me, and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams; therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do.”
Did Samuel say, “what are you doing!? Don’t you know that you can’t petition a dead man?” Nope. He gave an answer, which was “no” (just as God can refuse our prayers if they aren’t in line with His will):
1 Samuel 28:16-19 . . . “Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has turned from you and become your enemy? [17] The LORD has done to you as he spoke by me; for the LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand, and given it to your neighbor, David. [18] Because you did not obey the voice of the LORD, and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Am’alek, therefore the LORD has done this thing to you this day. [19] Moreover the LORD will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines; and tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me; the LORD will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.”
Rightly understood, Catholics don’t pray to saints, thinking that they can and do answer under their own power. It’s understood that they (including the Blessed Virgin Mary) go to God on our behalf, and we ask them because we are applying the biblical principle, “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (Jas 5:16). So we do go to fellow human beings who are still alive on the earth and ask them to intercede for us. Protestants would, for example, ask the late great Billy Graham to pray for them because (implicitly) they were thinking that his prayers might have more effect (as in Jas 5:16).
Catholics do the same, but we apply it to dead saints and angels, too. And we do because we know that they are very aware of earthly events, and watch us like (as the Bible says) spectators in an arena. See my article, “Witnesses” of Hebrews 12:1 (Communion of Saints) [1998]. This is our understanding. We don’t think, “I’m gonna go pray to my friend Bill who lives in Pittsburgh because he’ll be able to answer my prayer.” Rather, we go to him and ask him to intercede to God on our behalf, just as Protestants do all the time. Isn’t this obvious? Why then, does Jason make the dumbfounded statement: “Does the fact that he’s praying with you prove that you can pray to him?”
Would you go into your bedroom, say a prayer to this man who lives a thousand miles away, and expect him to hear the prayer? No, you wouldn’t. If you prayed for him, would it make sense for somebody to conclude that you must have no objection to praying to him as well? No. In that sort of everyday experience, we make the relevant distinction between praying for an individual and praying to him, praying with somebody and praying to somebody, being prayed for by somebody and praying to that person.
Of course everyone does, and that includes us Catholics. Saints in heaven have far greater awareness than we do on earth. It’s best to “go straight to God” in prayer, unless there happens to be a person more righteous than we are in the immediate vicinity, who is willing to make the same prayer request. Then the Bible recommends that we ask them to intercede, rather than asking God directly. And this includes the dead righteous, who are far more alive and almost infinitely more righteous than we are (having been perfected by God’s grace and proximity to Him). I didn’t claim this; the Catholic Church didn’t invent it. It’s in the Bible. If someone wants to be biblical, it would include this practice. See: Bible on the Power of Prayers of the Righteous [11-16-22].
St. John stated: “when he appears we shall be like him” (1 Jn 3:2), and our Lord Jesus said, “in the resurrection they . . . are like angels in heaven” (Mt 22:30). St. Paul teaches the same:
1 Corinthians 2:9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,” (cf. Is 64:4)
1 Corinthians 13:9-10, 12 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; [10] but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. . . . [12] For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully,
1 Corinthians 15:51-53 Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, [52] in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. [53] For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.
Thus it looks like the saints in heaven will possess very great knowledge and that would quite plausibly include awareness of our petitions and the will and ability to go to God and intercede for us or for our requests.
And Protestants aren’t the only ones who make those distinctions. Catholics and Orthodox do as well. They have to. They couldn’t function in everyday life without doing so.
Exactly! Duh! Then why are we engaged in this ridiculous discussion? Jason isn’t even internally consistent, in his rush to trash anything Catholic.
But when they get into discussions about praying to the saints (and angels), they often act as though all of these distinctions can be disregarded.
Do we? Maybe the proverbial old lady in a babushka and purple tennis shoes at a church picnic may talk in such a way, but I have never seen an educated Catholic, let alone a priest or scholar or apologist talk like this.
Supposedly, citing a church father’s reference to how the saints pray for us or with us or how we pray for them is sufficient to prove that the father believed in praying to the saints. To make the situation worse, some of the patristic sources who refer to something like the saints’ praying for us or with us say elsewhere that we shouldn’t pray to the saints.
Yeah, some did think that. So what? One can always find some exceptions among the Church fathers on any given topic. That has no effect on Catholic theology, as individual fathers’ opinions are not part of the magisterium.
So, even if we thought that the saints’ praying for us or with us implies the acceptability of praying to them (which it doesn’t), . . . Maybe what an advocate of praying to the saints has in mind is that the saints’ praying for us or praying with us is evidence that they have the ability to hear us. But their praying for us and with us doesn’t inherently involve hearing us, as my illustrations in the opening of this post demonstrate (a person who lives a thousand miles away can pray for you and with you without hearing you). And an ability of the saints to hear us would only get you part way to the conclusion that you can pray to them.
Well, it actually does imply invocation of saint. If they are praying for us (as even many Protestants concede), that certainly shows that they are aware of our problems, and if so, there is good reason to think that they would also be aware of a petition that we might ask of them.
the fact would remain that these church fathers didn’t follow that line of reasoning.
Again, so what? So “some” Church fathers dissented from the overall consensus. That proves nothing. It’s no disproof at all of the Catholic theological system.
To the extent that we’re considering what view these historical sources held, not what view we think they should have held, we have to make the distinctions I’ve referred to.
Yep. Everyone familiar with the patristic and biblical data does. Yawn . . .
I doubt that many Protestants, if any, would deny that angels can sometimes hear us, such as when they’re carrying out activities near us on earth, but it doesn’t follow that Protestants believe in praying to angels.
They should, since it’s taught in the Bible:
Genesis 19:13, 15, 18-21 “for we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it.” . . . [15] When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.”. . . [18] And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; [19] behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me, and I die. [20] Behold, yonder city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there — is it not a little one? — and my life will be saved!” [21] He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.
Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament wrote about this passage:
[T]here is nothing to indicate that Jehovah suddenly joined the angels. The only supposition that remains, therefore, is that Lot recognised in the two angels a manifestation of God, and so addressed them (Genesis 19:18) as Adonai (my Lord), and that the angel who spoke addressed him as the messenger of Jehovah in the name of God, without its following from this, that Jehovah was present in the two angels. [the angels distinguish themselves from God in Genesis 19:13 above]
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary states: “His request was granted him, the prayer of faith availed . . .”
Lot petitioned an angel (Gen 19:20) and his request was granted (Gen 19:21). How is this any different from a prayer? Therefore, it is asking a petition of someone other than God by a man on earth, and the fact that it was granted and that the angel did not tell him, “you must petition / pray to God only!” proves that it was perfectly proper to do so.
After you pull out all of the weeds that shouldn’t have been cluttering up the discussion, there isn’t enough left to make a good argument for praying to the saints and angels.
Scores of articles on my Saints, Purgatory, & Penance web page prove otherwise from the Bible. It would be a fun discussion if Jason would ever interact with those, but he has chosen not to, so . . .
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Photo credit: see full information for this 2012 book of mine.
Summary: Protestant anti-Catholic Jason Engwer assumes that Catholics en masse are ignoramuses when it comes to basic distinctions re petitionary prayer and intercession.
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