Catholics ask the saints to intercede for us. Just like I can ask you to intercede for me.
We know from the book of Hebrews that we are surrounded 'by a cloud of witnesses'. I believe them to be those already united to the Lord in heaven. This is just my personal opinion and not from the catechism but I believe it is not so much a matter of themhearingbut knowing. The fullness of revelation after our passing from this world.
1 Cor 13:12
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
Lori makes some good points here - but there are a few gaps even in the argument given above.
1. The RCC like all other churches - will approve of people asking other people to pray for them. In fact you can even ask your friend to not only pray for you - but also to drive you to church - or read the Bible to you. (try that same thing with a dead person and you are deep into spiritism)
But the RCC does not allow church members to PRAY to other living church members - they only allow prayers to "the dead".
So while they claim this is the same thing - in practice they do not allow the same form of communication/worship/devotion to a living person.
2. The argument above - that allows for communion with the dead - is the same argument that other non-Chrsitian religions use for their prayers to "the dead" ancestors of their own culture.
Thus the Catholic argument's distinctive between their own practice and that of the Buddhist or Hindu -- is that they are praying to "the right dead" instead of "the wrong dead".
However as I pointed out with King Saul and his attempt to contact the dead prophet Samuel -- he was attempting to contact "the right dead" but it did not stop the Bible from saying that God "became his enemy" for his efforts to contact the dead.
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Now for the point where Lori actually has a good case. Lori is actually agreeing with everyone here (except me) on exactly WHY it would be ok to communicate with the dead.
So first let us look at WHY the Bible says it is NOT ok to communicate with the Dead -
In the Bible it is the servants of Satan that provide all the "storytelling" about being able to "contact the dead". Thus God gave Israel the task of putting them to death. It is the role of Satan to make the case "you shall not surely die" and then to claim to be able to bring up the dead, or communicate with the dead who are supposedly able to function and to help while dead.
The "reason" the Bible does not allow the living to "contact the dead" is because "
the living know that they will die - but the dead know not anything". Thus praying to the dead - merely opens a door to darkness - not some loving dead person just waiting to assist you.
As Christ said in Matt 22 - the ONLY solution for God being "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" when speaking to Moses hundreds of years after Jacob died --
was "the resurrection".
This was such an airtight argument that the Sadducees (who did not believe in such a thing as resurrection much less living-dead people) were "put to silence" with that airtight argument for "
the resurrection".
In fact Paul argues in 1Cor 15 that Christians "have no hope at all" if there is no resurrection.
So the gigantically significant reason for God being so determined that nobody should attempt to contact the dead - is because there is no such mechanism. But more than the issue being "futile" the bigger problem is that Satan is allowed to step in - if/when we who know the Bible ignore its prohibition - and attempt to "consult the dead anyway".
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Here is a telling moment when Catholic Digest admits that this contacting the dead thing -- is exactly what pagan religions are doing.
The Pagan Romans prayed, each family to its Own household gods, JUST as we do to our patron saints. In Old Testament times the gentile had local gods for their town or country, and our Christian Saints eventually supplanted Them!
The Hebrews, of Course, had the mission of Wiping Out such heathen worship with the worship of the one true God, and while they have always had great respect for spiritual heroes, they Never set up any of their own race as substitutes for the local pagan gods!!
They had no need to make distinctions between praying TO the saints for their intercession with god and total adoration of God as the source of everything, as we must!
Cath Digest 9/1993 pg 129
And when CD admits that this practice is in fact what the heathen worship system is participating in -- they lead the Bible student to read what the Bible says about heathen systems of worship.
1 Cor 10
18 Look at the nation Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar?
19 What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
20 No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons.
21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.[/quote]
Notice that Paul makes the same argument applicable to talking to the dead “who know not anything”
-- the rock that the heathen worship systems use in prayer and worship - is nothing, cannot hear anything -- but by praying to it - they open a door to demons.
in Christ,
Bob
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