Why Origen Believed in Intercessory Prayer to the Saints

You are listening to Shameless Popery with Joe Heschmeyer, a production of Catholic Answers.

Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer. So if you’ve been following the last couple of weeks and you don’t need to have for this video to make sense, I think, I’ve been looking at certain arguments, Dr. Gavin Ortlund made on the nature of prayer. Looking first at some things he says about medieval prayer, that was two weeks ago. And then looking at the origins of intercessory prayer where he thinks prayer to Mary and the saints comes from, whether it’s of Christian or pagan origin. And the original plan was to now turn to other objections, ones that he doesn’t make, but that a lot of people do. The idea the saints in heaven can’t hear you, maybe they’re not even awake yet, they’re just in a dreamless sleep. Those arguments I’ve actually already answered. So I’ve prerecorded next week’s episode for once in my life. I’m ahead of schedule.

That episode is going to come out next week. But on Sunday, Gavin responded to my first two videos with a rebuttal or clarification suggesting I was mischaracterizing both him and origin. Now, I wanted to respond to this for a few reasons. I’m always hesitant about doing extended back and forth. I know Trent Horn is really big on the idea, you don’t do rebuttals to rebuttals to rebuttals. It’s too easy to go down these really obscure rabbit holes and it can easily become about the ego of the people involved. And so I’m cautious about doing a rebuttal. I actually asked a couple of people before I did it, but in this case there were a few reasons I thought it was helpful. First, because I’d left some doors open where I under developed a couple important aspects particularly of Origins theology. I made some claims and didn’t do as much work as I could have to support that.

And that led to Gavin bringing up evidence that made it look like I was lying. He doesn’t accuse me of that, but people in the comments did. They said I was slandering him and slandering origin. And so there was a bit of credibility issue on the line, but also just because this is a really interesting aspect of prayer and it’s a way that neither Catholics nor Protestants tend to talk about prayer today that I think is actually really helpful and might bring some clarity. And if nothing else, we’ll hopefully clear up why do Catholics and Protestants tend to read the same guy very differently. And here’s what I mean by that. I mentioned in the original episode a week ago that J. N. D. Kelly, who is one of the premier patristic scholars and a Protestant, I believe he’s an Anglican, looks to Origen and views him as a really critical figure in the spread and promotion of prayer to the saints.

And I looked at this quote last week, but the idea that one of the major phenomena we see in the Patristic period, the early church that is, was the rise in gradual development of veneration for the saints, more particularly for the blessed Virgin Mary. And he says, we see this first with a lot of prayers to the martyrs, but this is built on the idea that these saints in heaven are aware and are praying for us and the rest. And that Origen is a big believer in the intercessory power of the saints, and that he appeals to the communion of saints, advancing the view of the church in heaven assists the church on earth with its prayers. So Kelly, who is a Protestant, believes Origen is really big in terms of the road towards what you’re going to see in terms of a lot of prayers to Marion and to the saints.

Gavin interprets the Origen as an early opponent of prayer to Mary and the saints. And so it seems like there’s a tension if not a contradiction, right? One of these guys seemingly has to be wrong. Now, in Gavin’s defense, he points out it’s possible to believe the saints are in heaven praying for you and are aware of you, but you’re not allowed to talk to them. And that’s actually the position he claims Origen helped. That doesn’t seem to be Kelly’s read of origin. And as we’re going to see, I think Kelly’s right on this. That’s the misunderstanding and a misreading of origin, reading him to be using the word prayer the way that a modern Protestant uses the word prayer, and it’s a stranger and more nuanced situation. We’ll say that. But before I unpack origin, I want to give you Gavin’s shorter version of his argument. Now, his argument is I think 13, 14, 15 minutes. Somewhere of the video is just on unpacking origin. And so if you want to watch this video, you can get a fuller presentation, but I’ll give a representative sample, okay?

Okay. Now, one of the reasons we have to make this distinction between us praying to them and them praying for us is origin. This is exactly origin’s position that they are praying for us, but we should not pray to them, prayer is to God alone. And this is clear in the two passages Joe cites.

So Gavin’s argument is that if you read on in the very places that I cite, Origen actually is saying, no, no, no, don’t pray to the saints, don’t pray to angels, pray only to God the Father. And as a result people are saying, oh, you’re selectively quoting Origen and you’re doing all this. I think that’s a misreading, but I open myself up for it by not seeing people who are going to look at those passages and say, but what about these passages? I’ll give you an example. If you’re trying to lay out the biblical doctrine of the Trinity and say, yes, Jesus is equal to the Father and dignity in divinity and majesty, and you don’t touch on Jesus saying the Father is greater than I, someone who’s new to the Bible is going to look at that and say, hang on, it looks like you’re misleading me.

What about this other passage over here? And that’s on you for not predicting where people are going to misread predictable misreads, right? This is a passage that is really commonly misread. You should see it coming. Well, likewise, I should have seen this coming. But nevertheless, a little bit of background, I’ve said this in last week’s episode, but I want to say it again, that when Origen is talking about prayer here, he’s responding to Celsus who claims that Jews and Christians worship angels, and now he’s a pagan. He doesn’t really understand Judaism or Christianity, but prayer to Celsus is pretty explicitly the notion of worship. I mean, even when in the passage, the Origen quotes of Celsus, he accuses us of worshiping the heaven and the angels who dwell therein. So the context of everything Origen is about to say in against Celsus is not about intercessory prayer at all.

That’s just not at all what the conversation is about. The conversation is about worshiping angels. It’s not even about worshiping saints because Celsus doesn’t even seem to be aware of communion of the saints, just about the idea that we worship the heavens and we worship angels and origin’s going to say, no, we don’t, we worship God. So taking him to be attacking intercession of the saints is taking him out of context. Now, in fairness, that could still be accurate. One argument Gavin makes I think is in a vacuum a pretty decent argument is would Origen talk this way if people were praying to Mary and the saints? And I’m going to answer yes, but I can see why people would say no without further context. Once he gets the context, you’ll realize, oh no, he actually is arguing pretty explicitly for the Catholic position. But before I get there, I’m going to give you a little more from Gavin’s.

Okay. So Joe is saying, Origen is just denying that we worship angels, not that we can’t pray to them. And he says, Origen couldn’t be clearer in supporting his view on this. So let’s look at these two passages in context. I’ll put up the first passage as Joe quoted it first, and then this is where then he skips ahead to book eight. But now let me just put up what comes immediately after the words and bear to us his blessings. Origen continues for every prayer and supplication and intercession and thanksgiving is to be sent up to the supreme God through the high priest who is above all the angels, the living word and God. Then he talks about praying to the word of God. Then he continues into the next chapter, skipping down a few sentences after saying, “Once we know the nature of angels, this will not permit us to pray with confidence to any other than the supreme God who is sufficient for all things.

And that through our savior, the son of God, who is the word and wisdom and truth and everything else, which the writings of God’s prophets and the apostles of Jesus entitle him.” You’re going to see this is a theme in Origin’s theology of prayer. Pray to God alone. It’s a little odd, his Trinitarian theology, sometimes he’ll say Pray only to God through the Son of God, through Jesus. Sometimes he’ll say pray to the Father and the Son, but he never has any notion of praying to anyone other than God. Created beings are not the object of prayer.

So it certainly looks clear enough, right? He gives these four different categories and says, these are ultimately directed to God. And then he says, we should pray only to God. Now, there should be one red flag that you’re seeing so far, and that’s this, I mentioned, I believe it was last week, that Gavin’s interpretation of St. Augustine reads Augustine as internally incoherent, that at one point he seems to be saying we should pray to the saints, and at another point he says, we shouldn’t be. When in fact Augustine just says, yeah, we pray to them, we don’t worship them, we don’t offer sacrifice to them. That it’s usually, not always, but usually a hallmark of a misread if you’re viewing a person as being internally incoherent. Now people can change their views over time, but the way Gavin is reading Origen, Origen is not just changing his views over time, he’s changing his views in the course of the same book.

Again, some people are just that poor of thinkers, Origen’s not famously like that. So that should be a sign that maybe something more is going on here. Nevertheless, if you just read the words face value, totally looks like he’s saying do not pray to anyone other than God because that’s what he literally says. Just like when Jesus says the Father is greater than I, it’s like, oh, game set match. What more could there be to the story? There’s a lot more. But before I get there, I want to give a little more from Gavin’s treatment of Origen.

Now, let’s just make this crystal clear, let’s seal off any possible room for doubt with several further quotes from Origen to show that he thinks pray to God alone. Stepping back a little further earlier in book eight, Origen writes away than with this council, which Celsus gives us to offer prayers to demons. It is not to be listened to for a moment, for our duty is to pray to the most high God alone and to the only-begotten, the firstborn of the whole creation. He talks about Christ as our high priest in his treatise on prayer. Origen is talking about how we can offer requests and intercessions and Thanksgivings to other fellow Christians, not deceased Christians, but to other Christians. But then he makes a distinction. “But if we accept prayer in its full meaning we may not ever pray to any begotten being, not even to Christ himself, he says.”

This is one of those passages where he directs it to God, the Father alone. He continues, “It remains accordingly to pray to God alone, the Father of all.” Skipping down, “Just as the man who is scrupulous about prayer ought not to pray to the one who himself prays, but to the Father upon whom our Lord Jesus has taught us to call in our prayers. So we are not to offer any prayers to the Father apart from him.” So look, let Origen be Origen. If Origen wanted to say, oh, don’t pray to God alone, pray to the angels, pray to the saints, he could have said that, but that isn’t what he said. He says, pray to God alone. And if praying to angels or praying to deceased Christians was a generally known Christian practice, it’s hard to imagine Origen arguing like this.

Okay. Like I said, I think that’s a pretty strong case at face value. But there are again a few things that should be some red flags. First, you’ve got a couple of things. When he quotes from on prayer chapter 10, or excuse me, book 10, he says, “But if we accept prayer in its full meaning,” now there should be two things that you’re saying. Hang on a second, there might be some more context here. When he says, but what is he caveating? Gavin’s going to make a claim that what he says before that is that we can pray to living but not to see saints. Actually, it’s going to turn out almost the opposite of what Origen says, but then he’s going to say prayer in its full meaning. So, then you should say, okay, is Origen making some nuanced distinction about the different types of prayer?

Yes, he is. But that’s a subtle thing and understandably a lot of people missed it. But there’s another red flag that again just gets back to this idea of the internal consistency of Origen because Gavin’s read is that Origen denies praying to the angels, praying to the saints, but also praying to Jesus. But if you read and more about Origen, you’ll know that he does pray to Jesus. We in fact have a somewhat famous prayer of his called the Prayer to Jesus, the foot washer. Angela Russell Christman has a translation of it in the book Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A Critical Anthology. It’s a beautiful prayer from homily five on Isaiah, and it begins. And so you can imagine the context, even though he segment Isaiah, he brings up the washing of the feet and then he prays in the middle of his homily, Jesus, come, I have dirty feet.

Become a servant for my sake. Pour your water into your basin. Come wash my feet. Then he goes on from there, but it’s very clear he’s praying directly to Jesus, which if Gavin is reading him correctly, Origen doesn’t think you’re able to do. So, what is going on here? Is everyone else just misreading Origen on this point? Or what is Origen’s actual teaching on intercessory prayer to the saints? Now, Gavin alludes to the book that actually has the clearest explanation of the answer to this, which is his work just entitled on prayer in books nine and 10. And I don’t know if the titles of the books are from Origen or if someone like a later translator gave them, but the titles of the book, book nine is the content of prayer. It’s for moods, and book 10 is the recipient of prayer and it’s for moods.

So what are the four different types of prayer in other words, and to whom should we address each of those four types of prayer? Now, whether Origen said that or not, that is an accurate summary of what you’re going to find in book nine and in book 10. And so what are these four moods or four types of prayer that Origen talks about? Well, he’s getting all of this from First Timothy chapter two. You may have actually noticed this reference. He weaves it in his treatise against Celsus. And St. Paul says, I urge that four things, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all men, for kings who are in high positions may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. So we know that there are four different things, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and Thanksgiving, and we know for whom they should be offered, everybody, and in a special way for leaders.

But Paul doesn’t define what those four different types or moods of prayer are, he just lists them. And Origen is going to say the first one, supplications, he’s going to call it requests. The second one is the one that is causing the confusion here, because the word prayer is used in two different senses. Sometimes it’s used as a catchall for all four moods of prayer. Other times it’s to refer to one of these particular four moods. Paul says, supplications, prayers, intercessions and Thanksgiving. Well, in one sense, supplications, intercessions and thanksgivings are prayers. In another sense, there’s a particular prayer Paul just calls prayer. Now that is extremely confusion. It’s like in the angelic choirs, you have angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities, powers, cherub and seraphim. So you’ve got all these different ranks of angels, and one of the ranks is just called angels.

It’s like, okay, if you name the genus and the species the same thing, it’s going to lead to some confusion. So in the genus of prayer, there’s four species. One of those four species is also called prayer. Later authors will use the term direct prayer to describe this species of prayer. Origen calls it prayer in its fullest sense. But either way, this is that second category that St. Paul calls prayer but is not a catchall for all four. So, you might be saying, okay, how does Origen interpret these four categories, these four moods, these four species of prayer? He tells us in book nine, he says, request I take to be that form of prayer which a man in some need offers with supplication for its attainment. You’re asking for something, prayer, the which a man offers in the loftier sense for higher things with a ascription of glory.

See, why I said is closer to worship? You’re not just asking for something that’s request. You are asking with a ascription of glory that you’re viewing the one to whom you are asking as the glorious one as God. Intercession the addressing of claim to God by a man who possesses a certain fuller confidence. So someone in a better position offering up prayers for someone in a worse position. And then Thanksgiving, the prayerful acknowledgement of the attainment of blessings from God. Okay. I mean, that’s fairly straightforward. Think Thanksgiving is an easy one. Now, he’s going to say, even Thanksgiving, even though he is saying blessings from God, he’s going to say, you can offer Thanksgiving even to other people. So let’s turn then to book 10, who are the recipient of each of these four types of prayer? Now, if you’ve just heard Gavin’s whole treatise, you’d say, well, doesn’t he say explicitly all four of these go to God alone and to the Father alone or maybe to the Father and the Son?

No, he says quite the opposite. He says that supplications can be made to the Father, to the son, to the saints. He says direct prayer. The second category of prayer, which he sometimes calls prayer confusingly, is only to the Father, not even to Jesus, that intercessions and thanksgiving can be made to the Father, to the Son, to saints and to other people who aren’t saintly. So this should immediately be saying, okay, Origen’s theology of prayer is definitely different than Gavin’s and the position that Gavin ascribes to him, but also what is going on with Origen’s theology of prayer. And I think there’s something we can really learn from Origen here. Now, whether he’s right or wrong, I think it’s too dismissive to treat him as internally and coherent. Having bad Trinitarian theology, I mean Origin’s a major figure in helping to pave the way towards Trinitarian Orthodoxy. Origen’s not, as far as I’m aware, remember, for being a Trinitarian heretic, quite the opposite.

And so when he has this sense that there’s something we offer to God, the father alone, he’s probably not wrong about that. And I’ll offer two areas here. First, the notion of the sacrifice of the mass within Catholicism, you only offer the mass to the Father. It’s the offering of the sun, it’s the offering through the spirit, but there’s a Trinitarian movement, the third person makes present the second person who is offered to the first person as the perfect oblation for sense. There’s a whole movement of prayer, there’s a whole movement of worship, a whole movement of sacrifice. That’s not bad Trinitarian theology, that’s actually good Trinitarian theology. That doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to make requests to Jesus. That’s why Origen is totally fine making supplication to Jesus, asking him to come and help to wash his feet. But there’s something, there’s a type of prayer that is only made to God and more specifically seemingly to God the Father.

This also explains another apparent contradiction. So, look, you can find these passages in Origin that sound like they deny praying to anyone other than God, but what’s even crazier is you can find the same passages in the catechism of the Catholic Church. I’ll give you just two quotations. If you read section four of the catechism on Christian prayer, the whole thing is about praying to God. And in paragraph 25:59, St. John Dan saying this quote, “The prayer is a raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.” So you say, aha, look, clearly the catechism thinks you can’t pray to Mary and the saints. Well, if you know anything about the Catholic Church, then you know the Catholic Church doesn’t teach what a surface level read would suggest, that prayer is being used here in a particular sense to mean something different than making intercessions to the saints.

And then in paragraph 25:64, likewise as a Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. So there is a type of prayer that is particularly about our relationship with God and more particularly about our relationship with the Father, which is why the model prayer is the Lord’s Prayer. Now, if you’re watching the video, I’m going to give you what I find to be a somewhat helpful graphic that we make intercessory prayer to Mary, to the angels and saints, but direct prayer is made by us to God and by Mary and the saints to God, that there is a prayer, prayer in the fullest sense, direct prayer, whatever you want to call it, that is only made to God. Now, for Protestants who don’t know this, what Catholics believe, I think it’s probably good to say that and distress.

It explains why Catholics might sound contradictory or incoherent to Protestants because we’re using the word prayer in a more nuanced way than the way Protestants use the term. And so we are probably talking past each other a little bit, and I think Origen and Gavin are talking past each other a little bit. He’s reading him as an early Protestant on prayer and Origen’s not an early Protestant on prayer, an early Protestant on prayer wouldn’t say the things Origen is saying about how we can offer supplications and intercessions and thanksgiving to the saints, to saintly men and to others. Now, I haven’t quoted Origen yet. I’ve just described his theology, but I want to follow Gavin’s advice about letting Origen be Origen. So I’m going to give you what Gavin claims Origen says in book 10, and then let Origen be Origin. You can see what Origen actually claims in book 10.

In his treatise on prayer Origen is talking about how we can offer requests and intercessions and Thanksgivings to other fellow Christians, not deceased Christians, but to other Christians, but then he makes a distinction.

So Gavin’s claim is that Origen says we can offer requests and intercession and thanksgiving to fellow Christians but not to deceased Christians. What Origen actually says in on prayer is, remember, this is about the not who can we pray for, but who do we pray to, he says, of three of the types of prayer now request an intercession and Thanksgiving, it is not out of place to offer even to men. The two latter intercession and thanksgiving, not only to saintly men, but also to others. But request to saints alone should some Paul or Peter appear to benefit us by making us worthy to obtain the authority which has been given to them to forgive sins with this addition indeed, that even should a man not be a saint and we’ve wronged him, we’re permitted, are becoming conscious of our sin against him to make requests even of such that he extend pardon to us to have wronged him.

And then he says, yet, if we are to offer Thanksgiving to men who are saints, how much more should we give thanks to Christ who has under the father’s will conferred so many benefactions upon us? And then he gives the example of Saint Stephen doing just this where Stephen prays to Jesus and says, Lord, set not this sin against them. And so it’s very clear that there’s these three of the four types of prayer that Origen thinks we can offer to the saints. And there’s two of the types of prayer we can offer even to people who are sinners. If you’ve wronged someone or if someone does you a good service, you can ask their forgiveness, you can thank them, and you’re not worshiping them, right? You’re not giving them some homage that is due only to God. You’ll notice there is absolutely nothing in there about how you can do that to living saints and not dead saints, all of that, Gavin is simply adding to what Origen actually says.

So here I would just say, yeah, let Origen be origin. Now you might say, well, how do we know what he means by saints? Well, for one, he’s talking about praying. So it does seem to be clear from context that he has in view praying to saints who you pray to, those in heaven. But you might say, well, this also seems to include those on earth. Fair enough. I don’t think he just means saints in heaven. In fact, I think it’s clear that he means both. And why do I think it’s clear? Because of plenty of areas of context. I mean, he mentions Peter and Paul appearing, but at the end of his treatise on prayer, so we’re jumping forward quite a book bit here to chapter 20 or book 20, he describes what happens when we come together to pray.

And he’s admittedly getting more speculative here. But remember the question here isn’t even his Origen, right? The question is what does Origen believe? And Origen says it may well be that the Assemblies of believers also are attended by angelic powers, by the powers of our Lord and Savior himself, and indeed by the spirits of saints, including those already fallen asleep. Certainly of those still in life though just how is not easy to say that it seems that in some sense every time we come together, when you go to mass, you are joined by the angels and the saints. But if you try to explain, well, how does all that work? I don’t think we’ve been given enough to give a clear answer to how that works. Origen is going to go on to describe this as the twofold church, the one of men, the other of angels.

But notice in this twofold church, the saints explicitly include both the living and the deceased. So the idea that he means only the living and not the deceased is something that’s in Gavin’s theology, it’s not an Origen’s theology. Origin’s really big on the fact that the church on earth prays with the church in heaven. I gave several quotations to that effect last week. He has a beautiful passage interpreting numbers in that direction. So, going back earlier and on prayer, so the relevant section is section nine and 10. So we see in section 20 that this twofold church is what he seems to have in view, likewise in on prayer six he says, “But these pray along with those who genuinely pray, not only the high priest, but also the angels who rejoice in heaven over one repenting sinner more than over 99 righteous that need not repentance, and also the souls of the saints already at rest.”

So the idea that he thinks you can go to other people, you can even go to sinners and ask for their prayers, and that’s fine, that’s not worship. But if you go to a saint who is with God and ask him for prayer, that becomes worship or idolatry, that is totally absent from the theology of Origen. Gavin is just imputing to Origen a position Origen doesn’t hold, and that seems pretty squarely at odds with what Origen actually says about the communion of the church on earth and the church in heaven. That’s the twofold nature of the church after all. And then Origen backs up this twofold nature of the church with two instances, and they are actually the two that I cited last week, the first from the Book of Tobit. Now there’s a whole aside. Gavin has another part where he claims I’m misrepresenting the early canon, which books were accepted in scripture.

But notice the two books that Origen appeals to are both books Protestants no longer accept. Origen appeals to Tobit 12, where the angel Rayfield reveals himself to Tobit and reveals that he’s been interceding and praying for. And the second is second Maccabees 15 where you have the prayer of Judas Maccabeus where Jeremiah and the high priest Annas intercede for him, and they have a conversation. In both cases, there’s a conversation between the person on Earth and in one case with an angel in another case with two deceased saints. And where to believe that Origen thought all of this was wrong, that he thought this was idolatry of the kind that Celsus was accusing us of. And I would just say, let Origen be Origen. He’s using these as proof of what’s possible in the connection between earth and heaven.

And then he says, it’s absurd to imagine that this wouldn’t be the case. Why? He says, it is absurd when knowledge though manifest to the worthy through a mirror and in a riddle for the present is then revealed face-to-face. So think about St. Paul, he says, now we see it as in Amir dimly, then we shall see him face-to-face. He’s like, well, if that’s true, that’s also true of all the virtues. That’s also true of all the excellences. Okay, what does that mean for our purposes? Well, that includes love for one’s neighbor. In other words, the saints in heaven love you more than they did on earth. They love you more than the holy people on earth love you, and they’re interceding for you more than those on earth are. And in his words, they’re possessed in a far higher degree by saints already at rest than by those who are in human weakness and wrestle along with the weaker.

So there’s many of these passages that make it clear that when Origen says saints, he does not just mean those living on earth and not the deceased, he has explicitly in view the saints already at rest. The saints already deceased. He says variations of this over and over and over again in on prayer. And the only evidence that Kevin cites to the contrast is his claim that, oh yeah, Origen says you can do this to living people but not to deceased saints. And then you read Origen, you’re like, he says the opposite of that. He goes on to apply the communion of the body of Christ language to the relationship of the church in heaven and church on earth. He says, it is not only here that if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

And if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it in the experience of those who love their brethren for it seems the love also of those who are beyond the present life to say, I have anxiety for all the churches. So very clearly he’s saying there is this relationship a communion of saints between heaven and earth. This is why J. N. D. Kelly is saying, well, yeah, this is a really pivotal point for developing the theology of intercessory prayer, right? It’s not just that he’s saying the saints are far off in they’re praying for us, is that he has a view that this is all one church, all one body of Christ, and there are four things we’re to do in the body of Christ, those four modes or species of prayer that St. Paul talks about.

Then, okay, I’m going to jump forward now once again to on prayer 10 and just bring it back. So now that you’ve got the context of what he says throughout the rest of on prayer, when he says request an intercession Thanksgiving, it is not out of place to offer even to men. The two latter intercession and Thanksgiving, not only to saintly men, but also to others. There is no reason to read that is meaning exclusively and only saints on earth. So, all that’s to say, I think Origen has a rich and really fascinating theology of prayer. And I think I could have done a lot more to explicate that. I mean, it’s taken me 35 minutes to do it. So you can imagine why I didn’t attempt it last week since it was an aside. But I’m grateful that Gavin has called our attention to it because I think that he has misread it in a very predictable way, and I should have been ready for that.

And so I take ownership for that. It is easy if you’re coming at it from a Protestant perspective where prayer means a certain thing. Saints means people here on earth, and again, obviously Protestants don’t all or automatically think that, but the way the word saint is often used, Catholics often mean the saints in heaven. Protestants often mean the saints on earth. Origen means both, and says he means both. And so yes, what we talk about with prayer, last point on this, the whole point we’ve been trying to make as Catholics is that it’s not idolatry to ask a brother or sister in Christ to pray for you. That’s not idolatry, that’s not pagan, that’s not any of those things, that is what it is to be in the body of Christ. And the body of Christ as Origen proved pretty definitively includes the church in heaven and the church on earth.

It’s one church. And the church in heaven is better at praying for us better at interceding because they’re more perfected in Christian charity. They’re more perfect in love, and so they’re more likely to pray for you, and it’s more likely their prayers will be heard. So that’s why Origen believes in the intercession of saints, and that’s why I think he has a rich theology to contribute to this discussion. And it’s a mistake to read him denying that we offer direct prayer, the kind reserve only to the Father, to the saints and say, aha, therefore, he must have agreed with Protestants, that it’s wrong to offer intercessory prayer or supplication or thanksgiving to Mary and the saints because he believes pretty explicitly the opposite of that. Okay, said on the label what Origen believes that intercessory prayer, why Origen believes in intercessory prayer, and I feel like I’ve answered that question.

You can read more on Origen on this, and there’s plenty of scholarship that looks at Origen. But since I’ve already started to respond to Gavin’s rebuttal, I thought I’d look at a few other areas where he says I misinterpret him. So, if you want to jump off here, I won’t be offended. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, but if you want to hear some of the other areas where Gavin says, I misinterpret or misrepresent him, I hope I can provide a little more clarity to move the conversation forward and we will see how this goes. Okay, so let’s turn to the first question. Were medieval Catholics estranged from God in Gavin’s view, is that what he thought was the case? And I want to be really clear, the two videos that I had, one was entitled, does Devotion to Mary Draw Us Away from Jesus?

And the second was entitled Debunking the Pagan Roots of Marian Devotion. And these were both in response to Gavin and it was looking at particular aspects of things that he said, Gavin claims I’m misrepresenting him on both counts so I want to look at these in turn. So first, the notion about Mary in prayer or prayer to the saints, but especially he’s looking at Mary drawing us away from Jesus estranging us from God in some sense, he really doesn’t like that I use the word estranged. And so here’s Gavin now, this is to distinguish, the original video is actually I think like a year old. So one of the reasons maybe his recollection now might differ from what he originally said is if I took a long time to reply to the video, it wasn’t like I’m replying to his video now that he made on Sunday.

I’m sure he remembers it well, but trying to remember something you said a year ago, understandably, he may be misremembering some details. But Gavin blue shirt is 2023 Gavin. Gavin green shirt is 2022 Gavin. 2023 Gavin insists he does not believe in this kind of estrangement from God being reflected in medieval theology or medieval prayers. So here he is today, very annoyed that I would even make this suggestion.

The main point is simply this, that the entire framing of the video is a fundamental misrepresentation. Dr. Gavin Ortlund argues that medieval prayers asking for Mary’s intercession are proof of people being estranged from Christ. What? I’ve never said that I don’t recognize that at all. You can watch my whole video, you’ll never hear me say that. As with so many things, there’s this consistent just not listening carefully, and then as a result of that tearing down a straw man.

So yeah, I would say go back and listen to Gavin Green shirt in 2022. Gavin blue shirt is right, he doesn’t use the word estrangement, but what Gavin green shirt does say is this:

I think one way I could articulate the concern is that many of these texts give the overall impression that God is a bit more distant, a bit more uncertain, and Mary is more tender and near and approachable.

So that’s how Gavin green shirt presents his problem with Mary in prayer is that it presents God as far off, and the term for someone who is no longer closer affectionate is estranged. So when I use that word, it’s true he doesn’t use that word, I am summarizing his thought. If he thinks I’m getting it wrong, I’d love to know how to square what Gavin green shirt is actually saying about God being far off, and Mary being the one who’s near and affectionate with that not being the medieval being estranged from God. So, by all means, look, I want to be totally clear. When people tell you, hey, you’re misrepresenting my argument, I air on the side of believing them because most of the time that is the case. They’re saying something different or more nuanced than what you interpret them to be saying. And I take that to be true even in this case here.

At the same time, there are people who treat every rejection of their views as like, well, you must not understand me well enough. And so I want to square, okay, you’re saying now you never said anything about estrangement, but what you’re saying then sounds like that. So square those up for me because I don’t know how to square that because it looks like you’ve just shifted what your objection is. And so with that, I want to turn to the next argument he makes, which is this idea that we need to placate. So, with that, I want to turn to what he now says was his actual issue, the notion that some of the prayers talk about Mary placating or propitiating Jesus.

The more basic point here is that Joe’s not really dealing with my actual concern of these kinds of prayers, Mary placate Jesus by characterizing my position as though I had argued that medieval Christians were estranged from Jesus, something I’ve never said or even thought, he’s able to go off on these long digressions attacking that idea, and not deal with these most problematic prayers.

So at issue for him is the fact that I don’t answer all of the prayers. I looked at the first few that he had cited, which I assumed were ones that he thought were particularly problematic and showed that he was misreading those. He doesn’t really respond to that at all, but he now says, the ones that I didn’t get to were the really important ones. So let’s talk a little bit about those. I actually explained in the video why I’m not going down the rabbit hole of propitiation theory, but we will explain that in a second.

General concerns about whether God needs to be propitiated and uneasiness with this language and so forth, that is not the issue, the issue here is very simple, Mary doesn’t propitiate Jesus. Jesus is the propitiator, not the one propitiated. He does that work at the cross. So prayer is saying, Mary placate Jesus reflect a bad atonement theology.

I actually think it should be pretty clear here why I held off. Because if to understand Gavin’s critique of intercessory prayer, we also have to understand how we’re each using propitiation, which is a technical term and is a highly contentious one, and whether expiation or propitiation is a better translation of the underlying biblical Greek. And then we have to understand penal substitutionary atonement and atonement theology from a Protestant perspective versus a Catholic one. Look, I did an hour and a half long video on why I don’t believe in penal substitutionary atonement and why I think there are better and older models of understanding how the cross works. But if you have to be right about all of that for the arguments against praying to Mary and the saints to be problematic, then let’s just have a conversation about atonement theory. Let’s not even, it’s no longer a question about intercessory prayer at all then, right?

In other words, I’m trying to just focus on one topic at a time. I’m happy to talk about both issues, but nevertheless, I’m going to do a shallow dive into whether we can talk in any sense about the saints propitiating or placating Jesus. If I understand Gavin correctly, and I don’t want to misrepresent him, it sounds like he was saying he’s not objecting to the idea of Mary and the saints placating or propitiating God in some sense, but specifically about Jesus. That’s what the last clip sounded like he was saying, maybe he means something else, but let’s give a little bit of a primary, like I said, shallow dive. There’s much, much, much more that could be said on this issue. In John 3:36 we’re told, “He who believes in the son has eternal life. He who does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.”

So you’ve got two categories, those upon whom the wrath of God is falling, and those for whom the wrath of God is averted because they believe in the son and obey the son, that’s right there in one verse. We don’t have to talk about it as faith and works, but believe and obey the son. That movement of moving people from the first category in which they’re under the wrath of God to the second category in which they’re not under the wrath of God. And a lot of Catholics will squirm even at that way of wording things, but however you want to describe whatever’s happening there that is expiation or propitiation. And so again, the same Greek word can be translated in both ways. In Romans chapter 3, Jesus is described as our expiation by his blood to be received by faith. And in 1 John 2, and Jesus is described as the expiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

So again, whether you say expiation and propitiation, there is a much deeper conversation I’m not ready to have and shouldn’t be relevant to can we pray to Mary and the saints. It’s this question of Jesus is our expiation or our propitiation because he moves us or enables us to be moved in the case of 1 John 2 from the category of under the wrath of God to not under the wrath of God. And that’s how most Protestants when they think, okay, expiation propitiation, obviously we’re talking about Jesus and only Jesus. Jesus absolutely has the unique role here. Just as when we talk about being saved, there’s one sense in which that only applies to Jesus, He saves us by dying for us on the cross. There’s another sense as we looked at in the last two weeks where we can talk about saving others in which the Bible talks about us saving others.

Well, likewise here, Wisdom chapter 18 talks about what Moses does in averting the wrath of God as interceding by prayer and propitiation by incense. So, we can talk about propitiation in two ways. One, this unique way that applies only to Jesus, and two, this way of anyone who moves you from the category of unsaved to saved or under the wrath of God to not under the wrath of God. God’s wrath has been averted, propitiated, however you want to word that. Gavin is going to seemingly acknowledge that intercessory prayer can have that effect. It can bring about the salvation of others. And so even though he doesn’t use the term as far as I can tell, propitiation or expiation in the sense for that, what he’s describing is the same thing, Wisdom 18 or other medieval or modern Catholic usage might use that term to mean. So here’s one more I think important piece of the puzzle in Gavin’s view.

Of course, intercessory prayer is powerful. I’ve never denied that, I totally believe that. And yes, God uses intercessory prayer unto the salvation of people. Absolutely. That does not touch my actual concern, which was about the specific kinds of intercessory prayer that are in view here, many of which were skipped over.

So I mean, if Gavin is right, I think he is that intercessory prayer is one of the ways God brings about salvation. That person A praise for person B and person B is then saved. We can say accurately both that Christ saved him by dying on the cross, and that person A saved him by praying for and interceding for him. And so we can talk about propitiation in either sense. Now, there’s one thing I still haven’t touched on because part of Gavin’s atonement theology is that you can talk about that in terms of the wrath of God, but seemingly not in terms of propitiating Jesus. And this is, I think based in part on some of the particularities of his view of the way the atonement works. But I would just point out here that in Revelation 6, the wrath of God is described as the wrath of the lamb.

That we don’t want to separate the wrath of God for sin and described that as only the movement of the Father because there’s a Trinitarian problem with separating the father and the son too much. Now, they certainly have unique roles to play in the atonement, but the wrath of sin isn’t a good cop, bad cop, or Jesus is good cop and the father is bad cop. But now, look, we’re pretty deep in the weeds on atonement theology, and I’m having to guess what Gavin’s actual problem is with these prayers because say, you can’t have that kind of prayer. You can’t use prayer that uses that language. And I’m saying, I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s so objectionable about it. If you believe that prayer to Mary and the saints, I can move some money. Well, I mean, he wouldn’t maybe grant that, but at least the prayers of Mary and the saints, four other people can move somebody from the unsaved to the saved category because of intercessory prayer, having that power.

And as I mentioned before in Jude 1, Jude describes this as save some by snatching them out of the fire. So we can talk about it as saving a person, and there is a sense in which we can make this action towards Christ. And so maybe the clearest example is the paralytic. He is brought by his friends to Jesus. Jesus sees the faith of the friends, says to him, “Take heart my son, your sins are forgiven.” So they make a movement towards Jesus that causes Jesus to forgive the man. If your theologies makes you uncomfortable calling that propitiating, Jesus, that’s fine. Find another way to say it. But this is just you using the word propitiation differently than the medievals do seemingly. Now, maybe there’s some other theological issue that he’s just not spelling out or is just totally lost on me for some other reason, but I’m trying to respond to the answers, the problems that he’s raising.

The other thing I would say here is some of this just isn’t that interesting to me. And what I mean by that is this, when I as a Catholic apologist respond to certain ideas, I’m not trying to attack the person and saying, oh, look, you’re a bad guy, you’re so dumb, so this, that, or the other. I’m trying to say, okay, here’s someone, particularly if I can find somebody popular or reputable, saying this thing that I think is mistaken for some important reasons. And so I’m highlighting particular errors that I think Gavin is making that are popular ones, not to pick on Gavin, I think Gavin’s a good man, but because he’s making mistakes that I see a lot of Protestants making and I don’t want to argue against the strong man, I don’t want to argue against a position nobody’s holding.

So I want to find somebody who actually holds the view and then say, here’s why I don’t agree with that view. Now, maybe I’ve done that badly here because 2023 Gavin does not hold the views that I quoted 2022 Gavin is seeming to hold, but nevertheless, that’s what’s going on here. And so with that said, Gavin may have other problems that I’m just not trying to answer because my goal here is not to satisfy every doubt he might have, but to look at particular aspects of the theology there. So if he’s got problems based on his atonement theology, that’s an important conversation for another time and maybe with another person. But I’m happy to have the atonement discussion if that’s really important and relevant here. Okay, now turning from the question of propitiation to the second video, the last week’s video, I looked a lot on the fact that Gavin claims there are pagan origins of intercessory prayer.

And Gavin objects to this, not because he doesn’t say it, but because he doesn’t develop the argument in any way, and that was actually one of the critiques is that he makes this outrageous claim and then doesn’t develop it. So here’s 2023 Gavin acting surprised that I would object to him saying that these prayers are of Pagan origin.

Also, there’s this over focus on the issue of pagan origins. That was not my argument, I just made one passing comment about that. I didn’t develop that yet. His entire video in the thumbnail, it’s referenced and it’s cast as a response to this, and then he’s critiquing me for not developing that more. I’m like, yeah, that wasn’t really my argument. I didn’t really put the focus upon that. So it’s weird to focus on that so much.

Now, I want to agree with Gavin blue shirt in one sense, he does not develop the argument at all, but I think what you’re going to see is that, in the original video, Gavin green shirt makes two arguments. The first one he calls the practical concern, the second one is a historical concern. And the entire way he begins, the second one, the whole historical concern he presents as the problem is this isn’t a good thing that’s gone bad. This is a bad thing, it’s a compromise with paganism. And then he says he’s going to give evidence, and Gavin blue shirt is right. Gavin green shirt never delivers on that promise. He never gives us the evidence that he says he’s going to give us, but that doesn’t make it okay. And okay, let me make it really clear for those watching, why is this a problem?

Because the whole reason the early Christians were praying to the martyrs and asking for their intercession is because the martyrs were unwilling to compromise with paganism. So to claim that this is a compromise with paganism would be like me casually saying, Anne Frank was a Nazi collaborator. I’ll explain that later on in the video and then just never getting back to it. You’d be like, hold the phone, that’s outrageously offensive to accuse the victim of this horrible system of being a cooperator with or a compromiser with that system. That’s a huge slander on the saints and on the early Christians. And so I think that’s worth answering because a lot of Protestants take this view that, well, if we can’t prove that Christians were praying to the saints in the year 100, that must mean this is from Paganism.

And as I show in last week’s video, that’s a really bad argument. Gavin wasn’t the pastor of First Baptist no high in the year 100, but that doesn’t automatically mean that he got his pastorship from the devil, right? And so if I said, well, therefore, it’s a really bad argument, it’s worth calling out that bad argument or that bad assumption to just impute that bad faith to the early Christians is a really dangerous and really poisonous way to do history. And so yeah, it’s true he doesn’t develop it, but here’s what Gavin green shirt does say.

I want to give you. So now let’s address this worry, this is the second part of the video, okay, but was this just medieval excess? Was this just medieval abuse? Is this a good practice that went awry or is it a bad practice that went worse? That’s when we have framing the question. Here I would basically want to articulate a historical interpretation of the first several centuries of the church as well as a view of holy scripture where I would say I don’t think that this was the case of a good and apostolic practice that Jesus would want us to practice that simply got taken too far. I think rather, the interpretation I would offer again with love in my heart, and I hope this won’t give undue offense, is that it’s a compromising with pagan practices that comes in the third, fourth and fifth century.

Also, there’s this over focus on the issue of pagan origins. That was not my argument, I just made one passing comment about that I didn’t is that it’s a compromising with pagan practices that comes in the third, fourth and fifth centuries, but at first is very modest and very mild, and then it grows and grows and grows. So the historical interpretation I would have is that the full-blown medieval errors are not the result of a good thing being perverted, but it’s like Solomon, small steps of compromise lead to bigger and bigger compromises. It’s something that’s inherently wrong, but is getting more and more and more egregious. Now, again, because I know that that’s going to be offensive for some. Let me give some evidence for that. Okay?

Now, Gavin blue shirt is right. Gavin green shirt never picks that back up. He makes this outrageous claim that he knows it’s offensive, knows he’s pretty insulting to the early Christians, and is likely to cause offense and says, don’t worry, I’ll explain it, I’ll give evidence. And then he just never does. Now, this is the entire way he presents one of two arguments he makes. He’s got the practical concern. I misspeak earlier in one of my earlier videos I called The Pastoral One. The practical concern is, okay, Mary prayer might be fine in theory, but look at it in practice. And then he says, the historical concern. Well, as he explains the historical concern is this isn’t a good practice that goes bad, this is a pagan practice from the start. This is a compromise with paganism. So it’s like Solomon having these wives that are drawing him away from the Lord.

That’s not a good thing that went bad. You can watch the eldest videos where I explore that theme, but that’s his whole claim and he promises to explain and give evidence for the pagan origins and he never does. So Gavin blue shirt can act surprise, like why would you find this offensive or respond to that? Well, Gavin green shirt knew was offensive and promised to give evidence he doesn’t give because the evidence doesn’t exist. Gavin’s whole theory on the historical concern as far as I can tell, is based on literally no evidence or argumentation. Instead, he makes a series of arguments from silence starting with biblical silence. Now, he’s going to object to me calling those arguments from silence. So I’m going to let you see that there are arguments from silence and then look at how he now treats them today. Oh, sorry, one last thing before I get there.

Notice an argument from silence doesn’t prove something’s pagan. The fact that you don’t see it in the Bible doesn’t mean it’s pagan. You don’t see praying to the Holy Spirit directly in scripture. That doesn’t mean it’s a compromise with paganism. And so to prove the really strong claim he’s making, this is a compromise with paganism, you need to do more than say I don’t see clear and convincing evidence for it. But let’s return to the very next words that Gavin green Shirt is going to say, where he’s supposedly defending this very strong claim that he’s made.

Rationale for praying to the saints. There’s nothing clear and compelling. People try to derive it from various passages. In Revelation, for example, revelation 5:8, but none of these passages are actually talking about praying to the saints. They don’t actually address the consequence that needs to be established. That statement occurred that’s a form of misrepresentation and that’s where you can get these I statements like, “Oh, the Bible’s silent, therefore it’s forbidden.” I don’t think that. Actually talking about praying to the saints, they don’t actually address the consequence that needs to be established. And then there’s other passages that really you can’t look to as a sound basis for a practice like a parable with the Lazarus or when the guards at the crucifixion of Jesus say he’s calling on Elijah. Have you even seen people try to argue for praying to the saints from passages like that as though it’s not problematic to derive our theology from these pagan Roman soldiers?

There’s nothing that I see in scripture that is clear or compelling that this is actually a practice God would want us to do. Statements like, “Oh, the Bible’s silent, therefore it’s forbidden.” I don’t think that, that’s not my view. That’s a caricature of sola scriptura and the sufficiency of scripture. That’s not what those documents hold. So the biblical testimony is one piece of the argumentation. The other piece would be church history, which I went through and you see it coming in. And then the other piece would be explicitly negative testimonies as we’ll see in a moment with origin, for example, and I’m going to do a video…

So, as you saw, Gavin claimed he was going to prove the pagan origins that this is a compromise with paganism, and he begins with four biblical arguments. And I want you to notice right now just that all four of them are arguments from silence. Because he’s going to deny now like Gavin blue shirt claims, he didn’t just make arguments from silence, he actually presented positive evidence from scripture. You just heard the scriptural arguments he makes. You can go back and look. He offers no scriptural evidence that contradicts praying to the saints. He says these four things instead. Number one, biblically, I’m not aware of any compelling rationale for praying to the saints, there’s nothing clear and compelling. You may agree or disagree with that. That’s not a positive argument against it. I can say there’s no clear and compelling rationale for praying to the Holy Spirit in scripture.

That doesn’t tell me it’s bad, it much less tells me that it’s a pagan practice. Number two, he says Revelation 5:8, which is commonly used by Catholics. He doesn’t buy it. Okay? Again, argument from silence, not buying the Catholic argument, he is not the same as presented in argument against it. Number three, I’m going to get back to this in a second. He says, there are other passages that you can’t look to as a sound basis for a practice like a parable with Lazarus. Now, he apparently didn’t mean that he has a more nuanced view and that Gavin blue shirt has a better view. Now this might’ve been what Gavin green shirt meant. I responded to what he said rather than what he might’ve been thinking. And maybe I should have guessed what he meant by that, but I thought that was a strange thing to say because a lot of Jesus’s teaching is in parables and there’s a lot we’re supposed to take from them.

Like I said, we’ll get back to that in just a second here. And then the fourth thing he mentions are the guards of the crucifixion. None of those or he doesn’t think the guards of the crucifixion who may or may not be guards, the bystanders of the crucifixion saying he’s calling on Elijah. He doesn’t think you can look to that as evidence that the Jews thought you could call on the saints. There it is, there’s just those pieces. Now you might think those are great arguments, you might think those are terrible arguments. Those are not positive arguments, those are arguments from silence. That’s the kind of argument. Now an arguments from silence can be fine. If someone said Jesus had a talking monkey that accompanied him in all his ministry, I think a perfectly acceptable argument from silence is to say, I don’t see that talking monkey anywhere.

In fact, when some people believe Jesus was married, the lack of a wife in the New Testament seems like a pretty good argument from silence. So I’m not saying arguments from silence are bad, I am saying that they’re not as strong as positive arguments, right? An argument that says no, this didn’t happen is stronger than just not seeing it happen. And I think we actually agree on that point. And so he now claims he didn’t just make arguments from silence, but as you can see, he did. So, I want to turn back to the thing I said I was going to get to, the bit about the parables because he says I’m misinterpreting and misrepresenting him here. I just took him at what he said and he actually has a more nuanced thought. Now this is an area I think we can actually find some common ground. And so take this as an olive branch.

I’ll just give one other example of where there’s this misrepresentation so people are alert to this as they’re watching his critiques to the way that things get twisted in the way he’s construing them. And that’s my approach to parables basically with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In Luke 16, I had made the point that you can’t use the details of parables as historical or literal descriptions of the world. And the reason is just that’s not what parables are. No one wonders who’s the prodigal son because the prodigal son is not a historical figure, it’s a parable. No one thinks we’re going to literally turn into sheeps and goats because of Matthew 25, these are parables. Similarly, Luke 16 is not designed to teach us the details of the metaphysics of the afterlife because it’s a parable.

If you did try to use it like that, it would not be approved for Christians on earth praying to saints in heaven because the rich man praying to Abraham is in hell. And there’s all kinds of other unique features, unique characteristics of that parable. So the point I was making is very simple, it’s just hermeneutics 101, not that you sweep parables away, but you interpret them as parables. But amazingly, Joe seems to characterize this as though I was saying we can’t learn from Jesus’s parables in general.

So, I just want to contrast Gavin then and now, Gavin then said there are other passages that you can’t look to as a sound basis for a practice like a parable with Lazarus. He now says that what he’d said was you can’t use the details of parables as historical details or something very similar to that. And that second thing I’m fine with. But that second thing doesn’t answer the actual point Catholics are making. We’re not saying there is a historical Lazarus and a historical rich man and therefore we know from this real thing that happened, the nature of intercessory prayer, that’s an actual caricature. That’s an actual straw man of the way Catholics use Luke 16 rather. We say in Luke 16, Jesus gives his story. So, look, Gavin gives the example of the prodigal son. So with the prodigal son, man has two sons.

This may or may not be a real man with two real sons, that does not matter, we agree on that point. But nevertheless, Jesus is actually teaching us something by the interaction between the men. So when the prodigal son starts to return and the father rushes out to him, that actually tells us something about heavenly realities, about God’s warmth and warmness to forgive and all of this. And then the great celebration that happens when the prodigal returns is clearly representing the celebration of the angels and the saints in heaven. And that’s really clear if you read Luke 15. Well, Luke 16, there’s the parable of the Lazarus and the rich man, and in the parable, it doesn’t matter if these guys actually existed. What does matter is that the rich man dies and goes to Hades, this may or may not be hell, but he’s in some place of torment.

Lazarus is in what’s called the bosom of Abraham. So you already have a metaphysical depiction that the souls of the righteous are not in Hades and torment, they’re in what Jesus calls the bosom of Abraham. This will later also be called the limbo of the fathers’ limbus meaning edge. They’re not enjoying the full reality of God in heaven because Jesus hasn’t opened the doors to heaven, but they’re enjoying some sort of paradisial state and the rich man calls out Father Abraham have mercy upon me. Now, if Gavin’s right, it’s seemingly wrong for him to call out. Now it’s true he’s in Hades, he’s not on earth, but be a very strange theology that says you can ask the saints for intercession if you’re in Hades, but you can’t do it if you’re on earth. It is not clear to me why that would be okay.

What is striking is that in response, Abraham says that he’s not going to answer the guy’s request, but also that he can’t because between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed. Now, Jesus is including a lot of metaphysical details here. If he doesn’t want us to take these details seriously, why include any of this back and forth where Abraham says, not only will I not print your request, but I can’t because of this chasm. Jesus appears the Catholic argument goes to be trying to tell us something about the afterlife because where else are you going to learn about the afterlife? You don’t have any New Testament examples of someone who just said, I died and went to heaven, I died and went to hell. There’s nothing like that. You get John’s Revelation by all means, but Gavin doesn’t accept the evidence we cite from Revelation.

But if you’re not going to accept that evidence and you’re not going to accept the visions of the afterlife given in Jesus’s parables, that doesn’t leave us a lot of ground to work with. And so there’s one more detail in this, in Luke 16, after this whole bit about the great chasm between the bosom of Abraham and Hades, the rich man now asks that Lazarus be sent to the rich man’s brothers. And this time Abraham just says, no, they have Moses in the prophets, let them hear them. And then these points out, even if someone should rise from the dead, they wouldn’t listen to that. Now, Jesus is obviously making a lot of points about how we treat the poor. And I don’t want to say this is just a description of the afterlife, but it’d be strange to imagine Jesus is making up a false version of the afterlife.

You wouldn’t get a parable where Jesus is like, and then reincarnation happened. So all we’re saying is not, there’s literally Lazarus and the rich man. We’re not saying any of that. We are saying when Jesus fills the parable with these depictions of the afterlife, with the bosom of Abraham, with Hades and torment, with the chasm between the bosom and Hades and the lack of a chasm between the bosom and earth and the possibility of Abraham hearing the prayers of those on earth, but even the request made by those in Hades, that this probably wouldn’t be things Jesus would include in the parable if those were either a false or be evil, right? That’s all. And the same way, you’re not going to find Jesus giving a parable about how reincarnation is real or anything like this because that’d be contrary to what he’s revealing.

So, with that, I actually agree with Gavin on his depiction now, and if that was what he meant, I’m sorry I didn’t intuit if that was what he meant by saying we can’t look to parables as a basis for a practice, and I think that’s a much stronger argument. But now return to what he said. Remember that the things that he’s saying here are all arguments from silence. He’s now going to say that this isn’t true. Now remember by the way, as I mentioned in the earlier video, these are biblical arguments from silence. He’s also going to make some patristic arguments from silence, and I addressed those later, but I’m specifically saying he doesn’t present a positive biblical case against the practice. Gavin green shirt now claims that he did.

Man, I never said the Bible is silent, therefore it’s forbidden. You could just go back and watch my video. What I observed is that the nature of prayer as it is presented in scripture is contrary to praying to the saints. That is then just one observation that is in a sequence of argumentation. So if you just pluck out one little thing that I say and then run with it and ignore the larger context and sequence in which that statement occurred, that’s a form of misrepresentation.

Now, that’s a fairly strong claim. He’s claiming he did make positive arguments. He said that the nature of prayer is presented in the Bible, precludes intercessory prayer. Now, it’s a strong claim for a lot of reasons because it’s clear a lot of the early Christians believe that intercessory prayer was possible and even good. And so if Gavin’s right, he’s understanding something about the nature of prayer from scripture that Saint Augustine in all the great fathers of the church don’t seem to understand. And so it’d be really interesting to see where in Gavin green shirt video, he makes that argument. And as far as I can tell, it’s nowhere. Now, I encourage you, I’ll put the transcripts and with the accompanying videos of both the old and new video, and you can see for yourself, there’s no biblical argument that he makes of that kind as far as I can see. And so it’s strange to be accused of not answering an argument that he never made, but it’s going to become even stranger when he starts talking about the early Christian evidence.

Because I point out that the first argument he makes on the Patristic period, meaning the first few hundred years, is that for the first 200 years we don’t have clear evidence of praying to the saints. That is again, an argument from silence, and I suggest other ways we can interpret that. But here’s what Gavin says about that.

And that’s where you can get these I statements like, well, the Bible’s silent, therefore it’s forbidden. I don’t think that, that’s not my view. That’s a caricature of sola scriptura and the sufficiency of scripture. That’s not what those documents hold.

Before we get into the rest of the alleged non arguments from silence that he makes, I want to address this point that I claim that Gavin was saying that if it’s not in scripture, you can’t believe it. I don’t say that, in fact, I say the opposite of that. In my earlier video, I looked at Christian Smith’s book, the Bible made Impossible, and Christian Smith, who is an evangelical who then became Catholic because of this problem in part asked, well, what do we do when the New Testament is silent on a liturgical matter? And Smith points out there’s three different schools Protestants give the regulative principle of worship, the normative principle of worship, the informed principle of worship. If you want more on that, you can look at my earlier video or read his book. There’s a number of Protestant resources, and I point out Gavin doesn’t accept any of those.

The regulative principle of worship is the idea that anything not in scripture is forbidden. If it’s not commanded, it’s forbidden. That thing that he claims I say is sola scriptura isn’t. I know it isn’t, it’s a regulative principle of worship and I identify it as such in the video. The first one is the so-called regulative principle. Something’s called the regulative principle of worship. More or less, this says anything not commanded is for forbidden. Those things that are instituted by command teaching or example in the Bible or derived by good and necessary consequence are permitted. Anything God silent on is functionally forbidden. And I say Gavin doesn’t hold it. He has a different book called Fighting the Right Hills to Die on the Case for Theological Triage. This is a different model, and I know it is. So to give you Professor Rosaria Butterfield in a fall 2022 issue of Econ Magazine says the regulative principle of worship understands worship of God is regulated by scripture, embraced and performed in Presbyterian churches.

It declares that whatever is not commanded in scripture is prohibited in worship. That’s exactly what I said it was. It’s not a straw man. Butterfield is defending that view and she says, while by no means a magic bullet. It provides a much more useful tool to discern the seriousness of a conflict than that offered by theological triage concepts. And she cites Gavin as someone whose model she thinks is inferior to that. But I’m not defending either of these models. My whole point is whether you take any of the three Christian Smith gives in the book or whether you take Gavin’s, these are manmade seemingly arbitrary models. When scripture is silent, what do you do as a sola scriptura protestant is not a question that scripture answers, and so whatever answer you give appears arbitrary, maybe it’s not. Maybe there’s some really good basis to choose one of those over the others.

My question was, okay, Gavin’s making a lot of arguments from silence here, what do we do with that? I never claimed that he says this means it’s forbidden. I instead claim, you can’t get from there to saying it’s automatically forbidden. You can’t, in other words, impose the regulative principle on the evidence. And Gavin doesn’t believe in the regulative principle. A point I make, and I give a concrete example that Gavin is fine with instrumentation and worship, but by that same reasoning, it would seem a prayer to Mary and the saints would also be fine because the New Testament, according to Gavin, is silent on both issues. I think there’s actually a stronger case for praying to Mary and the saints from the New Testament than there is of using instruments in worship from the New Testament. But if you’re going to be okay with one on the basis of silence, it seems like you should be okay with the other on the basis of silence, which is why I say choose a lane, like give some reason why one silence means it’s forbidden and another silent means it’s approved.

I don’t say all silence means it’s forbidden. That’s not the model Gavin holds, I expressly say that’s not the model Gavin holds in my earlier video. Fourth rank issues might be practically relevant or intellectually stimulating, but they’re not theologically important. So Gavin’s got an argument. If scripture is silent, that means it’s not important. So, if God neither commands nor forbids praying to Mary and the saints, do whatever you want, it’s not important, it’s not worth dividing the church over. But speaking of arguments from silence, Gavin then makes patristic arguments from silence. Now he’s going to deny this is true, but here’s Gavin green shirt, making those arguments from silence.

Moreover, I don’t see any examples of prayers to the saints for the first roughly 200 years of church history. So here’s a good entry point into this. I think he starts seeing it in the mid third century. So here’s a good entry point, Origen in his commentary on the epistle to the Romans.

Okay, so just notice what he does. He first makes an argument from silence. He says, we don’t see it for the first 200 years. He then says, we do see it in the mid 2000s. And then he starts talking about Origen. I point out the first of those is an argument from silence, and I agree with him roughly on the timeline. And so this was a point Gavin greens shirt and I had some common ground. Well, Gavin blue shirt is opposed to us on this. I don’t know another way to say it. He disagrees with us at least somewhat, but he’s disagreeing with me agreeing with him. So here’s Gavin blue shirt.

Well, the biblical testimony is one piece of the argumentation, the other piece would be church history, which I went through and you see it coming in. And then the other piece would be explicitly negative testimonies as we’ll see in a moment with Origen, for example, and I’m going to do a video, Lord willing in the future on a few other early Christians like Athenas and Athenasius, where you have people just explicitly saying prayer is to God alone. We’ll see that in a minute with Origen, that’s not silence.

Yeah, I mean, sure that’s not silence, but I can hardly respond to a non-existent video, right? He’s saying in the future he’s going to make a video and he’s criticizing me for not replying to a video he hasn’t made yet, and evidence he hasn’t presented. Now, maybe he’s going to pull out some slam dunk quote from Athenagoras saying he doesn’t believe in prayer to Mary and the saints, or maybe he’ll read some stuff about worshiping in which they use prayer in the way Origen does and assume it means what he means. Whatever the case. I can’t respond to that evidence, he literally hasn’t presented it. He says, I didn’t just make an argument from Silas. I’m going to make these other arguments. And then the only thing else that he mentions is origin, who we’ve already seen he misreads, okay, but then he says this:

But by characterizing my position like that, he’s able to go on long digressions attacking that idea. Similar with now when it comes to arguments from silence, I would say that the silence is pretty telling. Joe makes some fair points about how the first 200 years of church history he concedes. We don’t have any evidence for praying to the saints in the first 200 years of church history. But he’s trying to say that’s not as significant and he makes some fair points to that effect. I agree, you need to be mindful of basically the way arguments from silence work is just to what extent do you expect them not to be silent?

And that’s where we would have a slight difference, but not a total difference because I would have a slight difference. I would say it is surprising that in these lengthy treatises on prayer specifically by Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, et cetera, we just never have any mention to praying to deceased Christians. So that is more surprising to me, especially because then I think the silence goes a little longer than Joe does. But all that is beside the point. We could talk about that another time. The main point right now is just, it’s a caricature because I’m not making an argument from silence.

So, in the video, final thoughts, I agree with a lot of what he said there. I wanted to end on a high note. But when he claims I’m making a character of his position, he makes arguments from silence from scripture. He makes arguments from silence from the first 200 years, the only positive evidence he brings up is Origen who he misreads, and then he misreads Augustine, who’s much later than the first 200 years. And I address that, and he doesn’t really respond to it. So I don’t know what arguments he’s making here on the history that I’m either not responding to or mischaracterizing. He’s claiming, he’s making positive biblical arguments, he’s not citing them, and then he’s saying he’s going to make positive arguments from the Saints, but he hasn’t. So I can only respond to the evidence that’s been presented Now, this video’s too long, and in some ways it is too in the weeds.

I wanted to just say, I’m not trying to misrepresent anybody. I’m not trying to caricature his argument, I’m trying to give it the false strength it deserves and then respond to it because I don’t think it’s a good argument, even in its strongest form. But I don’t want to just do a series of back and forths about this. So I am mindful of the fact that rebuttals to rebuttals, to rebuttals are not very fruitful. So I’d say this, I’m happy to let Gavin have the last word on this score, and if he wants to continue this in another form, either a sit down dialogue or even a debate on positive Catholic answers, I would be more than happy to sponsor and host such a thing next year. I’ve put the ball in his court on all of that, and I’m only too happy. I think he’s a good man.

I think he is trying to be a faithful presenter of the gospel. I don’t think he’s intentionally misrepresenting me even when he distorts things I’m saying about sola scriptura and the like, or when he suggests I’m doctoring or not doctoring, taking partial quotes from Origen, I think he’s just misreading evidence. I think he’s doing it in good faith, but I think he is wrong. I think this matters for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, that we have pretty good evidence from Origen as well as from a bunch of other early Christian sources, really beginning 250s and accumulating as Protestants like J. N. D. Kelly tell us that the early Christians believed that we could go to Mary and the Saints and ask them to pray for us.

And this wasn’t a compromise with Paganism. This was an opposition to Paganism rooted in the Christian idea that we are all one in the body of Christ, both on Earth and in heaven. So if you take away nothing else from this, I hope you take away this. Not Joe said this, Gavin said that, but Origen and a lot of early Christians were strong believers based on Christian ideas, that we could go to the Saints and ask them to pray for us. And if that’s not part of your daily life, I think it ought to be. For Shameless Popery, I’m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.

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