Ok, so now I understand your beliefs, cool. But how can anyone be sure that we are able to talk to saints? There is still no evidance of this, especially when they are unable to speak back. I'll give you an example.

"Hey John can you pray for me" "Sure Rick."

And then theres

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners, now and at the our of our death
-----

See the difference?

Is verbal affirmation necessary? When I read the prayer requests on CTF, I don't usually post a reply even if I say a quick prayer.

One does not always hear/feel a reply from God; does that mean He can't hear us?

The saints are not omniscient, but God is; and we trust that He allows our brothers in heaven to hear and pray for us. Why? Because "there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity." Charity is the greatest because, while faith and hope pass away when one is in the presence of God, charity never dies. In fact, shouldn't heaven rather perfect charity, instead of limiting it so that we cannot care or pray for our living brethren?

So by God's Omnipotence the saints are made sort of omnipotent you believe?

I wouldn't call them omnipotent; but I wouldn't limit the scope of their ability to perceive whatever God wills or allows them to perceive.

edit: clarity

This post has been edited by Maria_AMDG: Nov 2 2009, 06:50 PM

But if 1 Billion Catholics are able to have Mary interceed for them, she must be made somewhat omnipotent. That goes for all saints. God's Omnipotence is the reason all can pray to Him through Jesus Christ and His Omnipotence, having their prayer elevated by the Holy Spirit and His Omnipotence.

This post has been edited by Ronald: Nov 2 2009, 06:54 PM

The problem with your thinking here is that you're assuming that Heaven is a temporal place. Heaven is without time. And who knows, perhaps we will be perfected in such a manner that we can do a billion things at once (not necessarily, though).

We don't have to know necessarily how to know there isn't anything limiting a Saint from praying for a billion causes. You'd just be limiting Heaven and God by extension.

It was right to add that bracket. Because again, assumptions based on no evidance.



No, I'm limiting saints, I'm limiting human beings who have passed away, I'm not limiting God.

If I'm limiting God here, I would be limiting Him the same way I would be limiting a living human being from being able to hear a billion prayers at once and interceed for each one of them.

Also, is the devil in his spiritual world limited by time and space?

That would just be a speculation, and not one I'm necessarily endorsing. I'm pointing out you have no way to show that Saints can't answer a billion pleadings for prayer, but that for me to do so doesn't mean I must be able to show how Saints actually can.

My point (unless you forget) is that there is no absolute distinction between the Church here and the Church there. Saints are people too, they know we exist, and they can pray for us. How? I don't know, I'd only be able to explain if I was privy to the "physics" of Heaven, but seeing as I'm not, I can only speculate.



So God couldn't secure our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, even if they've passed on?

Again, see how I'm pointing out that your argument against Saints being able to pray for us is weak. I'm not positing anything in return, except that you're making assumptions.



I don't know. Are you privy to the "physics" of Hell?

I think you non-intentionally twisted my words there. I'm sure people in Heaven can pray for us the same way that we pray for others. I'm sure they worship God the same way that we worship God (if not on a greater scale.) But what I'm not sure of, is that 1 Billion saints can hear our prayers and elevate them to God.



Isn't satan the prince of this world, decieving others and not actually in the lake of fire atm? If your beliefs are different then I wont debate it because thats not what this debate is about.

Why? Is Heaven temporal? If it isn't, then there isn't anything that limits a person responding to a billion prayers.



Wherever or however Satan is, I don't know. There isn't much revelation as to how Satan exists. There is a lot of pious private revelation as to how he works, which I would agree with in some aspects, but there isn't really any at all that would tell us "Satan can do this, but he can't do that, etc etc."

Heaven is definately a place, and in that place events take place and there is a difference between when the events occur therefore logically there must be some sort of "time" aquainted with Heaven. When you die and are welcomed into Heaven, and say 50 years later your son dies and he is welcomed into heaven wasn't there still that 50 year difference before you could actually welcome your son in Heaven whether your on earth or in Heaven?

So when I pray and 999,999 others pray at the same time can a saint who is not omnipotent answer those prayers? There is no evidance of this. One must be omnipotent in able to do such a thing.

It's really sort of a meaningless question. "What is temporality to one who isn't temporal?" I don't know, and I don't think we have enough experience to be able to speculate.

I found this notable. Although in my way of understanding, purgatory "perfects our charity" or thirst for joining Christ in Heaven. And what kind of stingy saint in heaven, which is all those who attain the beatific vision, wouldn't deeply desire to live that love out by asking (interceding) on the behalf of those suffering in purgation on earth or purgatory? Love is a verb afterall.

When we honor or pray to the saints, we are really honoring God Himself, for we are recognizing and praising the beauty of His creations.

"The Catholic model of the communion of saints is the biblical model. Because we love God, we love His friends. And we know that because God loves us, his friends love us too." Where is that in the Bible Patrick Madrid

I think Catholics need to start rewording things to avoid confusion amongst others. First, start with the word "pray." When Christians think pray, we think about actual prayer and not just asking. Also, words like "praising" None are ment to be praised but God. Dont praise or glorify His creations. Only God gets the praise and glory.

How in the world do we need mediators between us and Jesus? He is our High Priest. The high priest needed no mediator between him and the other priests. Why should the real High Priest?

You should go back and learn your history. Essentially everything you Protestants have you stole from Catholicism! Your Scripture, your terminology, your theology, your church, your devotions, your hymns, your liturgy! Catholics were around first; to claim that we need to correct ourselves to some revisionist historical norm is absurd. Catholics are only being historically continuous by using the same language we've used for centuries before Protestants were around. Your whole objection here to the language Catholic theology uses is totally unfounded and, more than anything else, silly.

First, on the word "pray." The word pray in English is derived from Middle English prayen, preyen, or preien which means "to petition," which in turn came from Old French preier, which means "to request."

If anything, you have charged that Catholics have used pray in a historically archaic way. If you really think that Protestants have a monopoly on the etymology and meaning of the word "pray," think again (and swallow that arrogance).

Second, on the word "praise." This is something I'm actually even more familiar with. The word "worship" that we now use in the strict sense of "praise and exaltation due to God alone" is in fact a relatively recent development in the English language. As recently as the mid 19th century, the word "worship" meant merely veneration, and did not necessarily entail any special sort of heightened praise as it does now. This is illustrated by John Henry Cardinal Newman, who wrote about the "worship of Mary" in his book (written in the 19th c.) which we know to mean "veneration of Mary" based on this paradigm shift on the meaning of "worship."

The English word "worship" comes from Middle English "worthscipe," which means "giving worth to something." In this strict meaning, it doesn't make sense to use this word talking about God, since we cannot give God worth, since His worthiness is already infinite. It is obvious that the meaning of the word "worship" has changed in the prevailing centuries since.

Hence, you should see that where Catholics are much more committed to a solid set of doctrines and beliefs than are Protestants, they would resultantly be much more committed to language than Protestants. Hence in Catholic theology we specifically use the word "adoration" to precisely mean "worship and praise due to God alone," while we do use the word worship more or less as it has been colloquiallized. To be very precise, we use the Latin word latria, which has been the predominant term since the Scholastic theologians distinguished between the separate forms of praise, worship, and adoration. There is dulia, the veneration and praise due to Saints, hyperdulia, the veneration and praise due to the Virgin Mary, and then there is latria, which is the worship and praise due to God alone.

If you're really going to level "That's so artificial" at this point, then I'm going to ask you to stop pretending to argue with me, because then you're just rejecting facts of reality and refusing to accept that when I say "I believe A" that I really do believe A. It would be very childish to reject what I say and tell me that I worship Mary or some other perversion of my words or meanings just so that my challenges against your beliefs do not require your honest dealing.

I can and will continue to use praise as a word meaning veneration not restricted to God. Praise is not necessarily latria, and so praise is not reserved for God alone.

So, if anything, you need to accept that Catholics have 2000 years of history, and you can't ask us to pretend we sprung out of nowhere in only the last 500 years like you Protestants have. That is nothing more than hubris.



I didn't say Jesus needs mediators, but that mediators between man and Jesus can be used. There is quite obviously a very important distinction.

Firstly calm down. Secondly if you would use words other then praise, worship and pray to people who are less knowledgeable of theology it would avoid confusion. It's obvious that thats what I was trying to say. How many times do you have to explain to a Protestant what "pray" means instead of using what has become modern english? Words have changed through different languages millions of times, and then to early English. After English is around for a while the English language begins to change, after it changes even the most religious (yes even you) may have to change your language to adapt with modern English. Big deal.

As POG already pointed out, it's way more of a hassle to change "Pray to Saint X" to "Ask Saint X to pray" than to just explain once and be done with it. We'd have to change our (ancient) liturgies, our books, our catechisms, our way of speaking, etc.

Its not as if modern English is closed to the meaning of the word "prayer." Considering Catholics have always used the word "prayer" in multiple senses, there's no reason to stop now, and I doubt the word will change. If you want to understand Catholicism, then you're just going to have to learn it on our terms. It's not as if Protestant terminology is so peachy to a Catholic who isn't in with the lingo; just take "salvation" for instance. When a Protestant says "I've been saved," its natural for Catholics to just be confused, because we view salvation as a process, and you couldn't rightly say "I've been saved" until you're stepping into Heaven.

Just to point out.

Even if we wanted to change the word "pray" to make it mean something else regarding the Saints... would we change it to? Intercede? But even that has connections to "mediator" and people would get fired up about that.

You just can't please everybody.

Of course not. Because then you get guys like me who read the Bible front to back and dont find any of the many Catholic beliefs in there. We ask Catholics why they "pray to saints" and need a Pope and how apostolistic succession makes sence and then they have to go through so many different obsticals to explain these things.

First, praying to saints doesn't actually mean praying, it means asking. Secondly we need a Pope because Peter was a Pope and that gave him authority to make another pope, bishops, cardinals, priests etc. This is confusing to someone who accepted Jesus Christ and does their best to follow His commandments. It feels like being bombarded with religion.

For my own benefit, do you guys ask saints to pray for you with hopes that their prayers are more effective or greater than your Earthly prayers?

Well, yes. If indeed the Saints can pray for us (and I'm very convinced that they CAN from many of the stories I've heard about places like Mount Athos in Greece) their prayers are pure, sinless, and un-distracted by the pleasures of the world.

16Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
-James 5:16 (NASB)

The Saints certainly fit that description.

No offence. But I see that verse about as convincing as Bryce's "pray without ceasing" arguement.

13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

You must look at the context that the verses are taken in. You cant just pick out a verse and think it's speaking of you being able to ask saints to pray for you. If praying to saints were that important it would be Biblical. End of story.

This isn't that confusing. It would be confusing if you offered the same questions to these new "acceptees" as we Catholics have offered you that you haven't been able to ask. In fact, I could build a whole case of atheism based on the arbitrariness found in Protestantism.

I know quite well what the rest of the passage says and I know it's not speaking of the prayers of the Saints in heaven. I'm pointing out that one section specifically though: The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective as an illustration of why we ask the Saints for their intercessions.

Are the Saints not righteous? If the prayer of a righteous man on earth is "powerful and effective" imagine how much more "powerful and effective" the prayer of someone who is in heaven and cleansed of all sin is.



I don't buy the Sola Scriptura nonsense. There are plenty of things that are true but are not spelled out in Scripture. Scripture is not the only authority.