Answering Objections to the Intercession of the Saints

Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.

Happy All Saints Day, everyone. In today’s episode, I want to respond to a few objections to seeking the intercession of the saints, or what many people call, praying to the saints. But before I do that, I ask for intercession on your behalf, and as a viewer of this channel, if you could like this episode and subscribe so you don’t miss our content, I would greatly appreciate it. I would definitely appreciate if you financially supported us at trenthornpodcast.com so we can keep reaching lots of people.

All right, so in today’s episode, I’m not going to cover every objection to seeking the intercession of the saints, but there was a recent video put out by a group called Abolitionist Rising that I wanted to take a look at. Basically, the objection is that expecting Mary to be able to pray for millions of people who seek her intercession all around the world at the same time in lots of different languages would basically make Mary omniscient. And so, Catholics would be guilty of idolatry in treating her as being divine.

No shade on Mary whatsoever, but she’s not divine. She’s a human being, and she’s dead, and she can’t hear anyone talking to her. On top of that, the reason that we think that it kind of is worshipful to think that Mary hears our prayers is there are back to a billion Catholics. Say there are millions of Catholics right now praying Hail Marys. Are you saying that there’s a dead woman in heaven who can hear all of those prayers all at once all over the globe? I mean, is she omniscient, and she can process it like she’s omnipresent, I mean, omniscient, omnipresent, and then she’s able to sort of hear these and then pass them on to God? Is she all powerful? What is it? It basically seems like you’re describing God.

So, the objection is that Mary’s ability, really all the saints, but especially Mary’s ability to hear so many prayers all at once would make her omniscient or all knowing, but only God is all knowing. So, Catholics would be guilty of idolatry, treating Mary as being a deity. A fair number of Protestants have made this objection. The televangelist Jimmy Swaggart asks, “How can finite beings hear the prayers of men who are on this earth? The only way they could hear so many thousands of prayers and discern the heart attitudes of all these people is if they were both omniscient and omnipresent. In other words, each saint would have to be God in order to accomplish this.” Eric Svendsen, in his book Evangelical Answers, makes a similar objection. “In order to hear all those prayers at once, she would have to be omniscient, all knowing, an attribute that is the property of God alone.”

First, even if you use a restricted definition of omniscience, like having all knowledge, Mary would not need to have all knowledge to answer so many prayers. Mary doesn’t need to know the location of every atom in the observable universe. She doesn’t need to know the 100 trillion digits of pi that have been calculated so far. Her knowledge would be a tiny fraction of what God knows about the physical universe. Her knowledge would be finite and thus within the realm of what a creature can know.

In response, Svendsen says this, “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.” So, Svendsen’s argument is that if the large amount of knowledge of Mary and the saints in heaven is still finite and so they are not omniscient, then that means God isn’t omniscient either because his knowledge is finite. But Svendsen’s wrong.

The traditional definition of omniscience means having unlimited or infinite knowledge. God knows all truths, and there are an infinite number of those when you factor in mathematical truths, propositional truths, and if you hold to this view, counterfactual truths, truths about the worlds God could have made but did not make. In light of that possible knowledge, what people pray for on earth is almost nothing in comparison to God’s infinite knowledge. So, the saints, the knowledge they have, comes nowhere close to omniscience.

But you might ask, how can Mary and the saints still have so much knowledge? Well, Luke 1:37 says that with God nothing is impossible. As long as something is not a logical or metaphysical contradiction, God can do it. What would stop an omnipotent God from allowing Mary and the saints to have superhuman knowledge of what happens on the earth? To say God could not give them this knowledge would seem to deny God’s all-powerful nature.

It’s also possible that the saints only need to know we have an intention to pray for, just as you and I might pray for a special intention, or that time might flow differently for the saints in heaven and be stretched out so they can intercede for all these requests they get in a single moment. But even if we can’t explain how this is done, there’s no reason to say that God can’t do it, and especially to say that God cannot give an ability to his friends, the saints, that is also held by his enemy, the devil.

Here’s what I mean. Christians generally believe the devil personally tempts each one of them. I Peter 5:8-9 says, “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world.”

That would mean the devil has the superhuman ability to track billions of human beings and their unique temptations all at the same time. Why would God be unable to give his friends an ability to pray for each person that the devil individually tempts? The fact that the devil is able to afflict so many human beings at once does not prove the devil is divine. In fact, I remember a debate between Patrick Madrid and James White over prayer to the saints, and an audience member asked White how the devil can tempt so many people, if such knowledge would make someone divine.

This is for Dr. White. If Mary and the other saints supposedly can’t handle those prayers from us on earth because they’re not God, how is it then possible for Satan to be tempting all of us as constantly and consistently as he does? Do you believe Satan to be omniscient?

No, it’s through his demons.

Mr. Madrid, do you have a response?

He asked me to be succinct.

Well, I think that what we just saw here is a clear example of dodging a bullet because that question was right on target. In other words, the devil is a creature. St. Peter tells us in his second epistle that Satan is like a roaring lion prowling around. He doesn’t say Satan and his crew. Satan, himself, the devil. So, there is a unique and personal quality to the temptation that Satan, the individual being himself, carries out. The questioner was absolutely right. This is something that’s going on on a global scale, affecting billions of people, and Jim simply just dodged the bullet by saying, “Oh, well, it’s his demons doing it.” Everyone in the room, I think, understands the force of the question, that it’s a creature performing an unbelievable action that we can’t understand how it could be done, but the fact is this creature is capable of doing it. The extension of that thought is that the saints in heaven, even more so because they are in Christ and through His grace, are capable of doing astounding things.

Next question.

So, according to White, the devil doesn’t really tempt each of us. He’s just like a CEO that has his employees do it for him. Now, I admit, some CEOs might be a helpful analogy for the devil, but even in this case, the devil would have to have knowledge far beyond what humans know in order to manage such an operation. But the traditional view makes more sense, that the devil has an intimate knowledge of what tempts us, and so he personally seeks each of our downfalls, which is why God has given knowledge and power to various creatures, like our guardian angels or the saints in heaven, to protect and pray for us. I also found this clip of White making the claim that Mary has no idea people are seeking her intercession on earth because that would cause her unbearable sadness that has no place in heaven.

I can tell you, I’ve said this to a number of Roman Catholics, and I’ll say it to you, you need to understand something. Mary does not have a clue that anyone on this planet has ever tried to pray to her because it would break her heart. Once you are at rest in Christ, the tears are wiped away. You’re not up there in heaven suffering because billions of people are trying to pray to you. She has no idea that it’s ever happened. God would not make her suffer in that way.

Of course, this assumes that asking the saints for any help constitutes blasphemy, which just isn’t true. But let’s assume that some people do idolize Mary. Saint Epiphanius describes an early heretical sect called the Collyridians. They offered cakes to Mary as sacrificial worship, which is wrong. You can only give that to the trinity. Mary and the saints may be aware of blasphemies people commit, and they pray for them to repent. The Bible even describes saints in heaven being aware of evil on earth, making a request to God about it, and interceding with human prayers.

Revelation 6:9-11 describes it this way, “John, the evangelist, sees the following in heaven. I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, ‘Oh, sovereign Lord, holy and true. How long before thou will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?’ Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.”

Notice that the martyrs in heaven are aware of persecution happening on the earth and that they will know this persecution will still happen until a certain number of fellow martyrs have joined them. They also make a request, or a prayer to God, on behalf of those who are being persecuted. Revelation 5:8 describes saints in heaven when it talks about how, “24 elders fell down before the lamb, each holding a harp and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”

Here’s a clip from the Protestant author, Randy Alcorn, who makes a unique argument for the ability of the saints in heaven to at least know what is happening on the earth. Alcorn believes we should not seek the saint’s intercession, but he’s quite optimistic about the saints knowing what is happening on earth and consequently them being able to pray for us as a result.

You look at Luke chapter 15 where Jesus says there’s rejoicing in the presence of the angels when a sinner repents. It doesn’t say the angels rejoice. It could easily say the angels rejoice. It doesn’t say that. I’m sure they do rejoice, but it’s saying there’s rejoicing in the presence of the angels when a sinner on earth rejoices, I mean, repents. So, how do they know that the sinner on earth has repented? They have to know about it in order to rejoice. Who are those people in the presence of the angels? I think it’s the people of God. It’s the part of the body of Christ that’s already gone home. They maybe prayed for years for that person. They see that that person repented. There’s rejoicing in the very presence of the angels, where the people of God are, when someone down on earth repents.

This makes perfect sense of what Jesus says in Luke 15. “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.” And, “There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” This could mean the joy is solely among or before the angels, but I see no reason to restrict it to them and not to saints in heaven. In this passage, Jesus is responding to the grumbling of the Pharisees over his outreach to notorious sinners like prostitutes. They would not rejoice over those sinners repenting, but Jesus says that is not what will happen in the kingdom of heaven. If this rejoicing only took place among the angels and not the saints who could still be as heartless as the Pharisees, it would really diminish the force of Jesus’s argument.

In fact, another passage that provides evidence the saints are aware of what is happening on earth can be found in chapter 11 of the letter to the Hebrews. In this passage, the author describes heroes of Israel’s past like Abraham and Moses, whose faith allowed them to perform amazing feats for God and his people. Then in Hebrews 12:1, immediately after, the author concludes his description with this appeal. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”

Now, some interpretations reduce the cloud to being stories of faith that are witnesses to us, examples of how to live out a faith-filled life. Other interpretations might say that they are witnesses of God and Christ by their faith, but these interpretations neglect the race imagery the author of Hebrews is using. He depicts living Christians as those who are running a race, an imitation of Jesus who ran it and then sat down in heaven.

The Protestant scholar, William Barclay, says of this passage, “Christians are like runners in some crowded stadium. As they press on, the crowd looks down, and the crowd looking down are those who have already won the crown.” But even if the saints know about our struggles, why should we think it’s okay to ask for their intercession?

First, we should not assume a devotional practice is wrong unless there is an example of it in scripture. The Bible never describes people praying directly to the Holy Spirit, for example. But there’s nothing wrong with praying, “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.” To say it’s wrong, since the Bible does not describe the practice, would impose the un-biblical doctrine of sola scriptura on Christian freedom. But doesn’t the Bible say we should not talk to the dead? Our old friend, Greg at Bible Flock Box, is a fan of this objection.

Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 11 condemns spiritists, mediums, and calling up the dead. This means that Christians shouldn’t pray to Mary or the saints, like the Catholic Church does, because that’s a form of spiritism.

Now, the catechism says, “All forms of divination are to be rejected, recourse to Satan or demons conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to unveil the future.” This would be necromancy, but seeking the intercession of the saints is not necromancy. Asking the saints to pray for us just involves sharing personal requests through prayer. Necromancy involves using magic or occult practices to extract information from the dead. If it were always wrong to talk to the dead, Jesus would be guilty of this sin when he spoke to Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration, since Moses had died centuries earlier.

According to my colleague, Jimmy Aiken, the fact that necromancy was for purposes of gaining information is made clear by the Hebrew terms for medium, spirit inquirer, wizard, a spiritist; and necromancer, an inquirer of the dead. The focus on gaining information is also made clear by the context in Deuteronomy, which specifies that God will send His people prophets instead of allowing them to use mediums, wizards, and necromancers. So, since seeking the intercession of the saints is only one way communication, not two-way, it’s not the sin of necromancy.

All right, that’s going to do it for us today. As I said, there are other objections that can be raised. I look forward to engaging those in future episodes. For now, though, you can check out my book, the Case for Catholicism, which has a chapter on the intercession and veneration of the saints. So, thank you guys so much. Thank you for your subscriptions, by the way, which helped to put us over a hundred thousand subscribers. Let’s just keep reaching more and more people. But yeah, thank you guys so much, and I hope you have a very blessed day.

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