Audio only:
Today Joe tackles the Protestant accusation that Catholics practice necromancy when they pray to the Saints. We take a look at 1 Samuel 28 and Saul’s consultation with the Witch of Endor.
Transcript:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer. Today I want to consider two contradictory arguments often made by the very same people against the Catholic practice of praying to the saints and Mary in heaven. So some Protestants will regard this practice simply as pointless. Why not just go directly to God? But other people will go beyond that and say it’s not just pointless, it’s actually sinful, and they’ll accuse Catholics of engaging in idolatry for asking those who have died to pray for us. In fact, some go so far as to say that if you do this, you’re guilty of the sin of necromancy. Now that is a pretty strong claim and it should be backed by pretty strong evidence. So is it true? Do Catholics practice necromancy? Are they trying to consult the dead to gain secret, forbidden knowledge? Well, the answer to that question, it’s probably first good to go back and just say, what do we even mean by necromancy?
In the modern age of popular fantasy video games, when we hear words like necromancy or necromancer, it might invoke images of walking skeletons and zombies. But in the Bible, necromancy means something a little different. Necromancy refers to the practice of contacting the dead to try to gain hidden knowledge or control events, and in the Bible it is strictly forbidden. So when these Protestants accuse Catholics of engaging in necromancy, when they pray to the saints, they’re putting the practice of saint a prayer to the saints in the same category as something like trying to conjure up the dead or Ouija boards or sorcery or any kind of OC cult practice that engages in this kind of forbidden spiritual necromancy and looking at people who argue that this practice is necromancy. A lot of the arguments don’t actually make sense together. So recently I heard the Protestant ministry got questions making the case that this Catholic practice is necromancy, and I got to say, I’m kind of surprised they didn’t notice that two of their arguments back to back contradict each other. Take a listen.
CLIP:
Praying to the dead is strictly forbidden. In the Bible, Deuteronomy tells us anyone who consults with the dead is detestable to the Lord. The story of Saul consulting a medium to bring up the spirit of the dead Samuel resulted in his death because he was unfaithful to the Lord. He did not keep the word of the Lord and even consulted a medium for guidance. Clearly, God has declared that such things are not to be done.
Joe:
So that’s the first argument. When Catholics pray to the saints, this is just like going to a witch specifically, and this is going to be important. It’s like what happened when Saul goes to the witch of indoor to try to conjure up the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel. Then literally though, the very next argument they make is this one,
CLIP:
Consider the characteristics of God. God is omnipresent everywhere at once and is capable of hearing every prayer in the world. A human being on the other hand, does not possess this attribute.
Joe:
So did you catch that contradiction? Remember the two claims of this? Number one, praying to the dead is evil. It’s akin to King Saul trying to conjure up Samuel. And number two, praying to the dead is futile. The saints aren’t omnipresent, and apparently you have to be omnipresent to be able to hear prayers. Those are the two arguments, and I could see either one of them being coherent by itself, but what we should notice is they can’t both be true. If you have even a rudimentary knowledge of the biblical texts we’re talking about here, God questions is relying on this event again, king Saul going to the witch of indoor in one Samuel chapter 28, and the first thing you should notice is that the dead Samuel absolutely can hear Saul, even though he’s not omni Thep present, they have a full on conversation, and Samuel not only knows what’s happening in Saul’s life, he accurately foretells that Saul and his sons will die the next day, which they do. So if you’re going to say that praying to the saints is forbidden in the Bible, you can’t argue both that it’s evil because it works, but in a cult way and that it doesn’t work at all.
Now, I know that some people, certain Protestants and Seventh Adventists who don’t believe that the soul continues to exist when we die, who think that what happens here in one Kings 28 isn’t kings. Saul has a conversation with Samuel because under that theology, it couldn’t possibly be Samuel because he’s dead, and so how could he be aware of what’s going on? I actually recently did a debate very much related to this point, which I’ll link to in the description below if you want more on that in a particular Catholic Adventist conversation. But when confronted by verses like these, SDA apologists will claim that what Saul is talking to isn’t Samuel the Old Testament prophet, but is instead a demon or a familiar spirit.
CLIP:
Y’all remember the witch of Endor when Saul, God wasn’t talking to Saul at all, and so Saul goes to a witch and the witch allegedly pulls up Samuel and the Bible just talks about it like, yeah, she pulled up Samuel. Y’all need to understand that wasn’t Samuel. That wasn’t Samuel, you guys,
Joe:
But if you read for Samuel 28, it repeatedly stresses that this was in fact, Samuel. In verse 11, Saul asks the witch of indoor to bring up Samuel. For me, this is necromancy. This is forbidden, but it’s clear what he’s asking for and the witch seems surprised when it seemingly works, and we are confronted with Samuel. Now, for her part, she claims it’s an Elohim, a God or a spirit, but the biblical author says that it’s not. It’s Samuel. For instance, in verse 12, he identifies this as Samuel in verse 14, he says, Saul knew that it was Samuel and then reaffirms that it’s Samuel in verse 15 and in verse 16, if that’s not enough, Samuel actually rebukes for engaging in necromancy right there in verse 16. And then as I said before, he accurately foretells the future In verse 18, a prediction that comes true even if you don’t just take the biblical author’s word for it when he says over and over again that it’s Samuel and refers to his prophecy as the words of Samuel, you should also be asking, well, why would a demon rebuke someone for sinning and how would a demon accurately foretell a future event he has no knowledge of?
So all of that, I think pretty decisively shows that yes, in fact the deceased Samuel is well aware of what’s going on. It’s just not true. You have to be omnipresent to be able to respond to prayers or to talk to someone on earth or to know what’s going on on earth, right? We have plenty of biblical evidence for that. After all, Moses and Elijah seem to be well aware of what’s going on in the ministry of Jesus when they talked to him at the transfiguration. Abraham seems to be well aware of what’s going on in the rich man’s family when he talks to him in Luke chapter 16. So it’s just not true When people tell you the dead cannot hear you, and the reason for this is Jesus explains is because they’re not dead in the full sense. Sure bodily, they are dead, but spiritually they’re alive with Christ, which is why Jesus can respond to the Sadducees by reminding them that God is the God of the living and not the dead, and therefore when he’s the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that means we have to acknowledge Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as alive, not simply dead.
This is why they can hear you and why people who deny this Jesus’s words to them are you are quite wrong. Even if you ignore all of the biblical evidence, even if you reject everything I say here and insist, no, I still think it was demon even then it would disprove the idea. You have to be omnipresent to be able to communicate with someone on earth because the demons aren’t omnipresent so much for the argument that the saints can’t hear you. What about the argument that this is necromancy? So why is it okay to pray to saints? But it wasn’t okay what Saul was trying to do with Samuel, and it’s not okay to use Ouija boards or have a seance or the like.
CLIP:
I’m going to tell you straight up, if you’re praying to saints, you are not praying to Peter or Paul or Timothy. You are praying to demonic spirits. You’re praying to familiar spirits if you’re praying to saints.
Joe:
Well, to answer that question, another way we could ask it would be what is the difference between the miraculous and the magical? Because on the surface, understandably, people might be confused. Consider Exodus chapter seven. You have Aaron who takes his staff and it turns into a serpent. And then you have the Egyptian magicians using OC cult arts who turn their staffs into serpents. Those look the same, but one is good and one is evil. Why at the heart of it, the answer is quite simple. The miraculous works through God. It relies upon God’s goodness and divine power, the magical distrust either God’s power or goodness and tries to work around God or else force his hand. When Saul cannot get what he wants by going to God, he doesn’t feel like his prayers are being answered. He tries to go around God. He tries to find out the information he needs by either forcing God’s hand or using occult forces to find it out for himself.
That is sinful. That is a distrust in the power and goodness of God. On the other hand, when somebody prays their rosary or asks a saint to pray for them, when we say things like, pray for us now and at the hour of our death, at the end of the Hail Mary, we are relying quite explicitly on the fact that God is powerful and good and loves to answer our prayers. This is why intercessory prayer exists in the first place. We go to everyone, whether it’s our brothers and sisters here on earth or our brothers and sisters who are already enjoying the fullness of God in heaven, and we ask them to pray for us because we believe in the goodness of God, whereas the magical relies on not believing in the goodness and power of God. And just to be perfectly clear, it is entirely possible to believe that Jesus Christ is our one mediator between God and man, the one who alone could die for our sins as St.
Paul says in one Timothy chapter two, and believe that we still need intercessory prayer, as St. Paul also says in First Timothy chapter two, those two things aren’t just compatible. They’re both explicitly taught in sacred scripture. So there you go. The Bible teaches us very clearly that the righteous dead can and do hear us, and that intercessory prayer, including what’s going on when we’re asking the saints to pray for us, is good, not evil. The miraculous may look like the magical, but it’s actually the opposite of the magical. Praying to the saints is just the opposite of necromancy. Final point, I want to say a special thank you to everyone who is liked, shared, commented, and done everything else to boost kind of the spread of this channel. And also for all of you financially giving over on Patreon, shameless joe.com, you guys have really helped revolutionize this so that it sounds and looks, I think a lot better than the old days when it was pretty obviously just me in a basement with PowerPoint. So thank you for all you’ve done. If you want to be part of that good work, I encourage you to engage in whatever way you see fit. For Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.