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This week, Jimmy has an update on Protestant apologist James White and his claim that the Virgin Mary has no idea that people on Earth are asking for her intercession (originally dealt with in Episode 17).
Jimmy and James had a discussion on X about this topic, and although James stopped responding when Jimmy asked him to confirm his understanding of James’s position, James did provide at least some kind of case for his claim.
In this episode, Jimmy looks at the discussion and considers the arguments James used. He steel-mans them to give them the best possible chance of working, but do they? Are they consistent with the evidence we have from the Bible? Has James White finally provided a compelling proof that Mary does not know people are asking her to intercede? Or does James’s position actually conflict with Scripture? Watch this episode and find out!
Previously . . .
Previously, on The Jimmy Akin Podcast
JIMMY: Recently on X, someone suggested that Protestant apologist, James White asked the Virgin Mary for her intercession in heaven, and he responded, “Mary has no power on earth, has no idea you or anyone else is praying to her. And hence, that would be an utter waste of time and breath. Jesus’s king, there is no queen, and we are told to pray to God and let our desires and petitions be known to him.”
There’s a number of things here that I could respond to, but what I’m interested in at the moment is his claim that Mary has no idea you or anyone else is praying to her. That’s a very strong statement, and even if I were Protestant, I would wonder, wait a minute, how do you know that?
Let’s get back into it!
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Update!
Today I have an update for you!
In my previous video responding to James White’s claims about Mary—which was Episode 17 of The Jimmy Akin Podcast, I was—as I confessed—at something of a disadvantage since James didn’t give any reason for his claim that Mary was completely unaware that anyone is asking for her intercession.
So I had to imagine what his argument might be, and I freely acknowledged that I might be mistaken.
You can check out Episode 17 if you’d like to hear the arguments I went through.
Well subsequently, White elaborated a bit more about the reasons he holds this position, and so today I’m able to give you an update! Yay!
A Conversation on X
I’ll therefore go through a conversation that he and I had on X. It began on December 24, 2024, Christmas Eve.
Responding to a person who was advocating the idea that Mary intercedes for us in heaven, James responded:
There is nothing that illustrates the importance of sola scriptura more than Rome’s Marian dogmas. It is simply self-evident that the Apostles of Jesus Christ never dreamed of the things Rome binds upon the consciences of men about Mary. And, sadly, it is likewise self-evident that Mary takes the place of Christ as the central focus of devotion for millions and millions of Roman Catholics around the world. As I have said many times, I am so thankful she has no idea what is done in her name on earth. Her heart would indeed be broken.
To be playful, I then responded by saying:
Yeah. It’s a good thing that they keep Mary in solitary confinement in that sensory deprivation tank up in heaven. It really shields her from a lot!
James then said:
Thankfully, the saints in heaven are absorbed in the perfect worship of their redeemer.
What a horrific idea Rome has developed over the centuries. The redeemed saint, Mary, made the object of the prayers and pleadings of sinful human beings, as if she has been made the “neck through which all grace flows.” You know full well no Apostle of Jesus Christ ever dreamed of such a concept. And surely there is not the first reason to believe that she has been empowered to undertake such a position, as if it was needed in the first place. Those who have peace with God know they do not need a mediator with the Mediator Himself.
James raises a number of issues here, but I was interested in following up on his assertion that Mary has no idea anyone is asking for her intercession, so I kept things focused and said:
Are you claiming that the saints in heaven are so mentally absorbed in the worship of God that they have no mental bandwidth for anything else?
James said:
You know better, or, at least, you once did.
I will not waste my Christmas Eve explaining the fact that those who have entered into their rest are no longer plagued by the sinfulness of the human condition which, of course, Mary would have to be suffering, every minute, every second, of every day, as millions of benighted souls, led astray to think that she could in some fashion help them, pour out their requests to her in their sinful ignorance.
I totally understand James not wanting to get into an apologetic discussion on Christmas Eve, so I replied:
I’m genuinely curious what your claim is. If you don’t want to devote time on Christmas Eve, I totally understand! Have a blessed and Merry Christmas!
I’ll check back after Christmas about whether your claim is that the saints are so absorbed in the worship of God that they have no mental bandwidth for anything else. That’s something I’d like to understand about your position.
I then waited a couple of weeks to let the holidays go by, and on January 7th, I wrote:
Howdy, James! (@HwsEleutheroi) I hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Just following up on our discussion from Christmas Eve. I’m trying to understand the basis for your claim that the Virgin Mary has no knowledge of the fact people are asking for her intercession. Why do you think this is impossible?
Later that same day, James replied:
Well, Jimmy, my recollection is that you were once a Presbyterian, so l assume you would know that the Reformed believe that upon death we enter into the presence of Christ, perfected and free from corruption, glorified and focused upon the worship of the Triune God. Given that Mary is a redeemed sinner, as she herself testified, and has no continuing role in redemption, having accomplished her role in bearing the Messiah, she, too, is in perfect peace in the adoration and worship of God. Obviously, burdening her with the often sinful, selfish requests of hundreds of millions of people on earth, over the course of a thousand plus years, soaking her in the pitiful sinfulness of mankind, would be to rob her of her reward and her peace. Most especially the requests based upon the horrifically false teachings of men like Liguori, a “doctor of the church,” who taught that she was a mediator with the Mediator, would utterly break her heart, knowing how unbiblical such calumnies are.
So as is always the case, the issue is not the hypothetical “impossibility” of such a situation, but the impossibility for those who follow Jesus’ teaching to have Scripture as one’s touchstone. It is impossible because Scripture does not teach it, not because of some hypothetical concept.
But honestly, Jimmy, I do not know why you would engage with the topic.
As you put it a few months ago, any and all actual exchange on such theological issues can be thrown in the category of “quarreling over words” (2 Tim. 2:14) and as you said, you will not engage in such activity!
In that last bit, James is referring to a debate that he and I had last year on justification, where I pointed out that Paul warned against quarreling about words, and so I said we didn’t need to be divided by how our theological schools articulate points that they agree on in substance.
However, James’s reply wasn’t as helpful as it could have been since he included a bunch of stuff that wasn’t directly on-point regarding his argument about Mary not knowing of people asking for her intercession. So I took the text he wrote, highlighted the parts that were relevant to his argument, and lowlighted the rest of it. I then wrote back and said:
Thanks! Yes, I am a former Presbyterian.
Also, it appears you misunderstood what I said regarding “quarreling about words” (2 Tim. 2:14). I hold that something goes in that category if the parties agree on the facts but express them in different language.
Here that does not apply, as you and I have a disagreement regarding facts.
I asked the basis for your claim that the Virgin Mary has no knowledge of the fact people are asking for her intercession–a claim that I would have questioned even when I was Protestant.
You then responded (thanks!), and to make sure I was understanding you and get to the essence if your reply, I highlighted the core of your response in yellow and put the other words in blue. (1 of 2)
I included a screenshot of what he said in his previous post with the relevant claims highlighted, and I followed up with another post, in which I said:
Speaking from the viewpoint I had when I was Presbyterian, I take it that your case for Mary not knowing that people are asking for her intercession is the following:
P1: After death, the redeemed are in perfect peace and focused on the worship of God.
P2: Mary is dead and among the redeemed.
C1: Therefore, Mary is in perfect peace and focused on the worship of God.
P3: If Mary were aware that people are asking for her intercession, it would rob her of peace.
P4: If Mary were aware that people regard her as a mediatrix, it would rob her of peace.
C2: Therefore, Mary has no knowledge of the fact people are asking for her intercession.
You then make a second argument, which appears to be:
P5: Scripture does not teach that Mary knows people are asking for her intercession.
C3: Therefore, Mary has no knowledge of the fact people are asking for her intercession.
I don’t want to waste your or my time commenting on these if I have misunderstood your position, so could you let me know of anything that needs adjustment in them?
In particular, could you flesh out the second argument further? As stated in your original post and in my reconstruction, it needs something more.
Thanks very much! (2 of 2)
All that happened on January 7th, but James didn’t write back.
So I let a week go by and then reposted both comments.
No response again, so I let a second week go by and reposted them again. To make it clear these were new and not just old item, I wrote at the top of the first:
Howdy, James (@HwsEleutheroi)! Just bumping this up since you haven’t responded yet.
And at the top of the other, I wrote:
- @HwsEleutheroi Bumping this one also.
No response again, so I let a third week go by and wrote:
Howdy, James! (@HwsEleutheroi). Hope you’re doing well! It’s been 3 weeks, and if you’re not going to respond, could you let me know?
Thanks, and God bless you!
Still no response, so I let a fourth week go by, and on January 31st, I wrote:
Okay, I give up! It’s been over 4 weeks, I’ve tried multiple times, and James White (@HwsEleutheroi) still hasn’t responded. He hasn’t shown that Mary is unaware that anyone is asking for her intercession, but based on his lack of response, there is no evidence that JAMES is aware I’ve been speaking to him.
This prompted snarky comments by many of the X users, who had long been skeptical of whether James would respond to me. For example, BigHatNate wrote:
Really funny how good questions that expose how bad his arguments are just never get seen and aren’t responded to. Must be stuck in a memory loop replaying his debates from the 90’s.
Hmm. I’m afraid I don’t know why you’d think that.
JAMES WHITE: My first debate in August of 1990 was with Catholic Answers Representative Gerry Matatics at St. Cyprian’s Roman Catholic Church in Long Beach, California. . . .
When I debated Mitch Pacwa on this subject. . . .
Actually, I just realized this is my sixth debate on this subject. . . .
I’ve debated Roman Catholic apologists who have said you have as much warrant to believe in the bodily assumption of Mary as you have to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And he worked for Catholic Answers, by the way, at that time. . . .
I just invite you to go back and listen to any debate I ever did with Catholic Answers representatives. . . .
As I’ve debated Tim Staples, Robert Sungenis, on these issues. . . .
And I’ve been asking Roman Catholics for a long time, especially since I debated Gerry Matatics of Boston College in 93.
And all of that was from just one debate I did with him . . . and he does that in basically every debate he participates in . . . so yeah, I guess I do know why you’d think that.
Figuring Out James’s Arguments
In any event, our conversation on X gave me additional insight into James’s claim that Mary has no idea that people have been asking for her intercession.
So even though he decided to start ignoring our conversation—without even saying, “I’m sorry, but I’d prefer not to continue this for now”—let’s see what we can glean from what he said.
He began by saying:
Thankfully, the saints in heaven are absorbed in the perfect worship of their redeemer.
He then clarified this by saying:
those who have entered into their rest are no longer plagued by the sinfulness of the human condition which, of course, Mary would have to be suffering
If she knew people are asking for her intercession.
James then gave his most forthcoming reply, but he also said a bunch of stuff that was not relevant to his argument, so I highlighted the relevant material and eliminated the rest.
I then structured this material as two more formal arguments, sticking quite closely to his original words so as not to accidentally distort his thought. I asked White to clarify if I’d misunderstood anything.
Unfortunately, it was at this point he chose to stop responding, but let’s proceed to look at the arguments on the assumption I understood him correctly.
Steelmaning James’s First Argument
Here’s James’s first argument:
P1: After death, the redeemed are in perfect peace and focused on the worship of God.
P2: Mary is dead and among the redeemed.
C1: Therefore, Mary is in perfect peace and focused on the worship of God.
P3: If Mary were aware that people are asking for her intercession, it would rob her of peace.
P4: If Mary were aware that people regard her as a mediatrix, it would rob her of peace.
C2: Therefore, Mary has no knowledge of the fact people are asking for her intercession.
We can actually make this argument more efficient, because it still includes material that is not relevant to the case James is trying to make. I didn’t initially eliminate this material because I was trying to stick close to the words he had used, but now let’s steelman his argument by making it as efficient as possible.
The first thing we can simplify is the initial part of the argument.
Premise 1 is that after death the redeemed are in perfect peace and focused on the worship of God.
We don’t need the last part of that, because that just tells us what they are doing while they are at perfect peace. James’s argument actually hinges on the idea that the dead have perfect peace.
Bringing in the fact they are worshipping God is a distraction, as illustrated by the fact that I initially took James to be saying that they were so focused on the worship of God that they didn’t have the mental bandwidth to do anything else.
Furthermore, it’s debatable that they are spending all of their time worshipping God, because various Bible verses like 2 Timothy 2:12 and Revelation 20:4, 20:6, and 22:5 speak of human saints reigning with Christ. And 1 Corinthian 6:3 speaks of us judging angels.
Well, doing things like reigning and judging are not the same thing as worshipping God, so it’s debatable whether they spend all their efforts doing nothing but worshipping God.
So we’ll eliminate that bit and just have Premise 1 state that after death, the redeemed are in perfect peace.
P1: After death, the redeemed are in perfect peace.
Premise 2 can encounter problems since it asserts that Mary is dead and among the redeemed. She’s definitely among the redeemed, but a Catholic would say that she’s actually not dead today.
The majority opinion among Catholics is that she did die but then she was raised to life again when she was taken to haven.
As a Protestant, James believes she is dead, and I believed that, too, when I was Protestant.
I’d be happy to leave this premise the way it is since I was seeking to show that—even from the viewpoint I held when I was a Presbyterian—I would question James’s argument.
However, I want to make James’s argument as strong as possible, so that it doesn’t immediately include a premise that a Catholic would disagree with, and there is a way to do that.
We don’t have to get into the issue of whether Mary died, whether she is still dead, or how she was taken to heaven. Both Catholics and Protestants agree that she is in heaven now.
So let’s modify Premise 1 and Premise 2 to simply refer to being “in heaven.” In other words,
P1: People in heaven are in perfect peace.
P2: Mary is in heaven.
From that, Conclusion 1 follows, and it now simply states that Mary is in perfect peace—since we eliminated the bit about being focused on the worship of God.
C1: Therefore, Mary is in perfect peace.
We now come to Premise 3, which is that if Mary knew that people were asking for her intercession, it would rob her of peace. In substance, this is fine, but let’s rephrase it so that it functions better in a formal argument. It now becomes
P3: Mary would not have perfect peace if she knew people are asking for her intercession.
We can do the same thing with Premise 4, which becomes:
P4: Mary would not have perfect peace if she knew people regard her as a mediatrix.
Now, we could leave this premise in the argument, but it’s actually another unnecessary bit.
The term mediator is ambiguous. In one sense, everyone who is asked to intercede can be understood as a mediator—so if I ask you to intercede for me, I’m asking you to function as a mediator in this sense, and if you take the premise this way, it’s just restating the previous one.
On the other hand, the term mediator can mean something more than just an intercessor. It could mean something like an extra good or extra special intercessor. It might even have more involved than that.
But if you take Premise 4 this second way, it becomes irrelevant to the argument at hand. I asked why Mary would be unaware that people are asking for her intercession, and James would be talking about what people believe about her, which is not the same thing.
Rather than get into a discussion about Marian titles and what they mean, we’ll thus remove this premise from the argument, because it doesn’t change anything, and the same principles apply.
If it could be established that the idea of Mary as a mediator is a false doctrine and if Mary being aware of people believing false things about her would deprive her of peace, then the conclusion would be the same.
We’ll thus keep the argument focused on the actual question that was asked, which is the idea that Mary doesn’t know people are asking for her intercession.
So, given that Mary is in perfect peace and that she would not have this peace if she knew people were asking for her intercession, we can infer Conclusion 2, which becomes:
C2: Therefore, Mary does not know that people are asking for her intercession.
We thus have a steelmanned, more efficient version of the argument, with all the irrelevant or distracting bits removed so that it’s directly focused on my question. In its new form, the argument goes:
P1: People in heaven are in perfect peace.
P2: Mary is in heaven.
C1: Therefore, Mary is in perfect peace.
P3: Mary would not have perfect peace if she knew people are asking for her intercession.
C2: Therefore, Mary does not know that people are asking for her intercession.
Evaluating the Argument
Now that we have James’s argument stated in a more formal way, with clear premises and conclusions, we’re in a position to evaluate it.
The first thing, I would say is that this is a logically valid argument. I could put the argument even more formally—in terms of symbolic logic—to demonstrate this, but the argument’s current form will do for our purposes. It’s valid.
What validity means in logic is that the argument has a proper logical form, so that if the premises are true then the conclusion will also be true.
So the question of whether James’s argument actually works comes down to whether its premises are true.
When it comes to Premise 1—that people in heaven are in perfect peace—that’s definitely true.
The book of Revelation says of God’s people that in the heavenly city New Jerusalem,
[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:4).
Now, this is referring to a future reality—since death has not yet been destroyed—but I’m happy to concede that the other principles are true of what it’s like to be in heaven right now. There is no mourning nor crying or pain there.
I thus regard Premise 1 as true.
What about Premise 2—that Mary is in heaven?
Speaking from my present, Catholic perspective, I would definitely agree with that. The Catholic Church infallibly teaches that Mary was assumed into heaven at the end of her earthly life.
Speaking from my former, Presbyterian perspective, I would also agree with this premise. I couldn’t be as sure of it since the only infallible authority I would recognize—Scripture itself—never says that Mary ended up in heaven. That’s something that a person who believes in sola scriptura or “by Scripture alone” couldn’t say with absolute confidence.
However, as a Protestant, I—personally—would feel no hesitancy asserting that Mary is in heaven, and James definitely agrees with that, so we may agree that Premise 2 is also true.
From these two premises, Conclusion 1 naturally follows: Therefore, Mary is in perfect peace.
The Crucial Part of the Argument
This much basically all Christians would agree on. We therefore come to the crucial part of James’s argument, which is Premise 3:
P3: Mary would not have perfect peace if she knew people are asking for her intercession.
James would regard this premise as true, but what evidence would he offer for why we should think this? In the X discussion, he said:
Obviously, burdening her with the often sinful, selfish requests of hundreds of millions of people on earth, over the course of a thousand plus years, soaking her in the pitiful sinfulness of mankind, would be to rob her of her reward and her peace.
Here James is envisioning Mary being aware of the individual requests for intercession from numerous people, and that doesn’t fully engage the issue. Speaking as a Protestant, I might not have granted that Mary was aware of each individual request for intercession that someone makes, but I would have still challenged the claim that Mary has no idea people are making such requests in general.
As I said last time,
JIMMY: All this raises a very important question that would’ve occurred to me even if I were Protestant. Why wouldn’t Mary know that people had been praying to her? Even if you think that God doesn’t tell her himself, is it really credible to believe that in the last 2000 years, nobody who’s come up to heaven has thought to mention it to her blessed mother? There are a lot of people down on earth asking for you to pray for them. No one’s mentioned that? In fact, a lot of people who are in heaven were among those who asked for her intercession in life. And many of them rightly or wrongly believed that their prayers were answered through her intercession. So upon arriving in heaven, one of the things they would do would be to say, “Thanks, Blessed Mother. I want to thank you for praying for me during my life.” And even if Mary hadn’t been praying for them, she would thus learn that people on earth were wanting her prayers. The only way to avoid this happening would be to put Mary in some kind of heavenly sensory deprivation tank or heavenly solitary confinement. And I find that idea very difficult to credit.
So Mary doesn’t have to be aware of each individual request for her intercession that people on Earth are making in order to be aware that people on Earth have been asking for her intercession.
She could thus learn of this without being emotionally burdened by the content of the individual requests, which is a serious flaw in James’s argument, though he might be able to repair the damage by arguing that even being aware that people have been asking you to pray for them is such a traumatic, pearl-clutching experience that those in heaven would have their heavenly peace ruined by it.
I’d challenge that idea by saying it doesn’t bug me in this life if people ask me to pray for them, and so merely knowing that people are asking for Mary’s intercession shouldn’t bug her, either.
But—to quote the Pirate King—
PIRATE KING: We waive that point. We do not press it. We look over it.
So let’s look closer at James’s stated reason for why Mary couldn’t know about people asking for her intercession without it violating her heavenly peace—namely, that
Burdening her with the often sinful, selfish requests of hundreds of millions of people on earth, over the course of a thousand plus years, soaking her in the pitiful sinfulness of mankind, would be to rob her of her reward and her peace.
What can we say about this?
Are People in Heaven Burdened by Requests for Intercession?
It’s certainly true that—in this life—we can be emotionally burdened when we learn of the individual requests that people make for us to pray for them.
For example, if someone contacts me and says, “I’ve just learned that I have terminal cancer; can you pray for me?” then I will feel sad—a negative emotion—but I care about others and I’ll naturally tell the person that I’m so sorry to hear about their diagnosis and I’ll be more than happy to pray for them!
That’s what Christian love demands in this life. As St. Paul says:
If one member [of the body of Christ] suffers, all suffer together (1 Corinthians 12:26).
And so we should:
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15).
If I’ve just learned that someone has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, my heart is going to go out to them, and I’ll feel sad. But—in love for them as a fellow creature of God—I’m more than happy to pray for them.
The question is: How does this dynamic work with people who are up in heaven?
One way of answering this question is by assuming that the emotions of people in heaven work the same way that our emotions do in this life. In other words, the same things that would make us sad make them sad, too.
So if I’m in heaven and someone asks me to pray for their terminal cancer diagnosis, that’s going to make me sad—marring my heavenly peace.
This is the position that James is advocating.
Angelic Intercession
But there are reasons to question whether this is the case. In the first place—as we saw back in Episode 16 of The Jimmy Akin Podcast, the angels are interceding for us. That’s what Jesus is referring to when he says,
See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father (Matthew 18:10).
In other words, their angels have guaranteed access to the Father to intercede for those over whom they are watching.
So angels are definitely aware of the sins and sufferings of humans, but does that mar their heavenly bliss? Does that burden them so that their spiritual joy is ruined?
The answer is either yes or no. If you answer the question yes—that they don’t have perfect joy because of the people they’re interceding for—then that would give you reason to suppose that joy in heaven is not yet complete, and if it’s not yet complete for the angels then that would give you reason to suppose that it’s not yet complete for humans, either, in which case Mary and others in heaven could know about our requests for their intercession.
This is not my preferred view. I think that the angels and saints in heaven do have perfect peace and joy—in which case I must infer that the angels have this perfect joy despite their awareness of the sin and suffering of the humans for which they are interceding.
But you might try to build a firewall here that would let the angels know about these things while humans could not.
You might say, well, angels are not humans—so their emotions don’t work like ours. As a result, it’s possible for angels to know about human sin and suffering without it marring their heavenly peace and joy, but it would not be possible for humans.
Thus, angels get to know about these things, while humans must be prevented from knowing about them.
That answer would be based on speculation—not proof—about how angelic emotion is different from human emotion.
Christ’s Intercession
But now we encounter another problem, because we’re explicitly told that Jesus is interceding for us in heaven. In Romans 8, Paul says:
Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us (Romans 8:34).
Similarly, in Hebrews 7, we read:
[Jesus] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25).
So if Jesus is interceding for us, he presumably knows what we need intercession for—that is, the different problems in life that we face. For example, if someone has terminal cancer, or if they’ve fallen into sin, or if they’re desperately lonely, or if they’re grieving the loss of a loved one, then Jesus knows about it and intercedes for them.
Yet does that prevent Jesus from being in heavenly bliss?
Again, the answer is either yes or no, and most Christians are going to go down the path of saying no, it won’t mar Jesus’ heavenly joy.
The alternative to saying this—to say yes, it does deprive Jesus of heavenly joy—would mean saying that he’s still suffering today. And that would be a problem because he finished his suffering on the Cross. As Jesus himself declared in the Gospel of John:
[Jesus] said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit (John 19:28).
And as we read in Hebrews:
[Jesus] has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself (Hebrews 7:27).
So most Christians will say that Jesus’ suffering was over when he died on the Cross. He is no longer suffering today—up in heavenly glory. Consequently, most Christians will answer our question by saying no, Jesus’ present awareness of mankind’s sin and suffering does not interfere with his heavenly joy.
Now, you might try to build a firewall between Jesus and us the way we previously tried for angels. You might say that Jesus is God, and so it’s as God that his heavenly joy isn’t ruined by knowing about mankind’s sin and suffering. His divine emotions don’t work the way our human ones do, so it’s okay for Jesus to know—in his divine nature—about man’s current sin and suffering, but we humans can’t be allowed to know about it, or it would make us sad in heaven.
But that’s going to be a problem because—in addition to his divine nature—Jesus also has a human nature. And if someone with a human nature would have heavenly joy ruined by knowledge of man’s sin and suffering, then you’re going to have to put Jesus’ human nature in a heavenly sensory deprivation tank—just like us!
That would then put you in the uncomfortable situation of saying that—while Jesus in his divine nature is omniscient and knows all about human sin and suffering, he is utterly lacking this information in his human intellect. In his human intellect, Jesus just doesn’t have any idea that mankind is currently sinful and suffering.
And that’s going to run into problems with what we read in Hebrews also, for it says:
We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
Now, only Jesus’ human nature is capable of experiencing weakness and temptation—or testing; it’s the same word in Greek. Yet here the author of Hebrews teaches that Jesus can sympathize with our weakness because he was tempted or tested just as we are, yet without sin. That means that he is envisioning Jesus—who is currently in heavenly glory—sympathizing with our weakness in his human capacity.
So we can’t build a wall between Jesus’ human and divine natures and say that he knows all about our sin and suffering—our weakness—in his divine intellect but not in his human intellect. The author of Hebrews is saying that he can sympathize with us—precisely in his human intellect—because his human nature has gone through the same kind of trials that we have.
Consequently, we must conclude that Jesus does know about our sin and suffering in his human intellect, and yet this does not interfere with his heavenly joy.
Human Awareness
This reveals that it is perfectly possible for a human intellect to be aware of mankind’s current sin and suffering and yet not have its enjoyment of heavenly glory destroyed.
The historic Christian position thus has been that our emotions just won’t work the same way in heaven that they do here. We will know about bad things happening in the world, and we’ll even have sympathy and compassion for those experiencing them, yet it will not cause us distress in heaven.
This is just another illustration of the same problem that people often ask about when they wonder how we will be able to be happy in heaven if some of our relatives are in hell. The answer is that we will know that’s what befell them, but—in the glory of heaven—we somehow won’t be distressed by the fact.
How will that work? I’m not sure. I’m not yet in heavenly glory. I’ll have to wait until I am to know, but I am given the assurance by Revelation 21:4 that every tear will be wiped away and there will be no mourning nor crying nor pain.
[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:4).
So we will be able to be aware of unpleasant things without them ruining heaven for us.
We see this in Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:
[The rich man] called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.”
But Abraham said, “Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.”
And he said, “Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment” (Luke 16:24-28).
So Abraham knows that the rich man is in hell. Further, the rich man knows that his five brothers are still alive and down on Earth and need to be warned, and he communicates this information to Abraham, so Abraham knows that, too.
This shows us that those in the afterlife are aware of unpleasant things, and yet it doesn’t ruin their peace and happiness.
Abraham also says that a chasm has been fixed so that those who would otherwise cross into hell to help the damned will not do so. Under the symbolism of the parable, this suggests that the saved will even have compassion for those who are lost—though there isn’t a literal, physical chasm preventing them from acting on this.
Now, you could say that this is just a parable, but Jesus’ parables reflect situations from real life, and what this particular parable suggests is confirmed in the book of Revelation, which shows the same things. For example, in Revelation 6, we read:
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.
They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been (Revelation 6:9-11).
Here we see the martyrs in heaven calling out for justice to be done on those who killed them down on Earth. They are thus aware that their killers are still alive and that they have not faced justice yet.
They also know that other people are going to be dying on Earth, because they are directly told that this is the case. And the fact the passive voice is used suggests that it’s God himself who tells them about the forthcoming martyrdoms.
There are other passages in Revelation that also show that those in heaven will be aware of unpleasant things without heaven being ruined for them.
For example, there is the Final Judgment, and that is going to be public! We read about this judgment in Revelation 20, where John says:
I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:12, 15).
And this is a public event. As Jesus says in Luke 12:
Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops (Luke 12:3).
So we will know about people who are lost. We will see it ourselves! The Virgin Mary will see it. And yet it will not ruin heaven for us—or for her.
Now, if the Virgin Mary can witness the Last Judgment—and can see all those souls being lost forever—then I think she can handle hearing about the much smaller problems people face in this life. Compared to the spectacular problem of being eternally lost, any other problem is trivial.
So James’s argument that the Virgin Mary can’t know that people are merely asking for her intercession because it would ruin heaven for her fails—and fails spectacularly.
A Common Christian Understanding
Nothing I’ve said is distinctly Catholic. These are all things that most Protestants would agree with.
The biblical evidence just does not show that God is going to put us in solitary confinement in heavenly sensory deprivation tanks. He’s not going to shield us from knowledge of bad things happening in the world. Instead, he’s going to—somehow—shield us from the emotional burden of those things.
This shielding is likely through the fact that we’ll have a larger awareness than we do in this life. We’ll finally see the big picture—how everything fits together—how God is never unjust or unfair and how his mercy embraces all of creation, even when some of his creatures refuse it.
It doesn’t matter whether one adheres to Calvinism, to Arminianism, to Catholicism, or to any other standard version of Christianity. The Bible points to us knowing about unpleasant things in the afterlife without experiencing unpleasant emotions.
This is why I say that I would have challenged James’s claim even when I was Protestant. I might not have thought that Mary knows each of our individual requests for her intercession, but the idea that she would be shielded from knowing the general fact that people are asking for her prayers is simply not tenable.
Some of those arriving in heaven would be bound to mention it to her.
Short-Circuiting Christian Love
My next question—as a Protestant—would be what would Mary do in response to that knowledge?
I might not have actually thought about this when I was a Protestant, but I would reason this way: Earlier I mentioned that if someone contacted me, said that they had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and asked for my prayer, I would be sad to hear this. Yet I would immediately be moved by compassion to pray for them. That’s something that Christian love demands, and as a Christian who has love for others, I would be more than happy to pray for them.
So what would happen if I were in heaven and I learned about the situation? Well, I wouldn’t feel emotional pain in the same way. We have Revelation 21:4’s assurance of that.
[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:4).
But I would still be the same loving person that I am in this life. In fact, I would be even more loving then than I am now. So I would be even more motivated to pray for the person. I would be even happier to do so.
And the same thing that is true of me would be true of the Virgin Mary. So—even as a Protestant—I would say that if the Virgin Mary learns that people on Earth want her intercession, whether generically or specifically, she would not experience pain due to this knowledge, but she would immediately want to pray for them and would do so.
If—even in this life—I want to pray for people who are facing adversity, then Mary would want to do so even more than I do. She might not experience pain at knowing what they’re facing, but she’d be just as motivated to pray.
The same way that Hebrews says Jesus can sympathize with our weaknesses and intercede for us, though he is also in heavenly glory.
We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
So whether you’re Jesus, Mary, or a lowly sinner like Jimmy Akin, the natural response of Christian love when you learn someone wants your prayers it simply to pray for them.
Scripture repeatedly indicates that those in heaven will be aware of unpleasant realities—that God is not going to shield us from knowledge that they exist, even if he does shield us from pain.
And so the natural response of Jesus—who Scripture explicitly says intercedes for us—as well as Mary, the other saints in heaven, and Christians here on Earth, is simply to pray.
I thus would conclude—even as a Protestant—that Mary and the others are praying for us. That’s the natural response of Christian love.
And the idea that God would prevent us from knowing about others desire for our prayers would actually short-circuit the natural process of awareness of the needs of others leading us to pray. It would short-circuit the natural response of Christian love.
James’s Sola Scriptura Argument
James also made a second argument, which in our discussion on X I summarized this way:
P5: Scripture does not teach that Mary knows people are asking for her intercession.
C3: Therefore, Mary has no knowledge of the fact people are asking for her intercession.
I also asked him:
Could you flesh out the second argument further? As stated in your original post and in my reconstruction, it needs something more.
And that’s true. Simply saying, “Scripture doesn’t teach that Mary knows people are asking for her intercession” does not entail the proposition that Mary doesn’t know this.
Scripture doesn’t address the question of whether Mary knows that people are asking for her intercession one way or the other.
As a result—as a Protestant—I would say that I couldn’t know from Scripture alone whether Mary knows our prayers or not. On the basis of the Protestant principle of sola scriptura, this question is undecidable.
I might be able to break that impasse by appealing to other considerations, like whether people arriving in heaven would be likely to tell her people on Earth wanted her intercession, but I couldn’t answer the question based on sola scriptura, so I’d have to leave it open—though I might think one option more probable than the other.
James’s sola scriptura argument thus doesn’t settle the question, and so I said I would need something more.
But let’s see what we can do with what he has given us. So let me back up and see how James originally phrased this argument. He said:
As is always the case, the issue is not the hypothetical “impossibility” of such a situation, but the impossibility for those who follow Jesus’ teaching to have Scripture as one’s touchstone. It is impossible because Scripture does not teach it, not because of some hypothetical concept.
Here James says that the issue is not a hypothetical “impossibility” of such a situation, which suggests that it is hypothetically possible that Mary intercedes for people.
However, he says it is an impossibility for those who follow Jesus’ teaching to have Scripture as one’s touchtone—that who use sola scriptura.
And he says it is impossible because Scripture does not teach it.
If I understand him correctly, James here indicates that it is theoretically possible that Mary could know the fact that people want her intercession and then pray for them. But he thinks it is impossible for those who believe in sola scriptura to entertain this idea—that sola scriptura prevents them from acknowledging this possibility since they take Scripture as their touchstone.
To this I say—and would have said as a Protestant—nonsense!
If Scripture doesn’t answer a question one way or another—like the issue of whether Mary knows people desire her prayers—then you can’t answer this question one way or the other.
For example, there are either an even number of angels or an odd number of angels, and if Scripture doesn’t support one view over the other then we can’t decide between them.
You thus can’t say, “Scripture doesn’t prove that there are an even number of angels, so we must assume that there are an odd number.”
You could equally well say that Scripture doesn’t prove that there are an odd number of angels, so we must assume that there are an even number.
Consequently, we can’t decide the issue one way or another. If Scripture doesn’t address the issue of whether Mary knows that people want her intercession—and it doesn’t—then we simply can’t decide this question based on sola scriptura.
James is thus wrong to conclude that a commitment to sola scriptura determines the outcome for faithful Protestants, and I would have thus challenged this even when I was a Protestant.
A Concluding Word to James White
I’d like to conclude with video with a word to James White himself.
I’ve tried to be as fair as possible toward his position. I’ve tried to consider different options and give them a fair hearing.
But what if I’m wrong? Well, it’s always possible that I have misunderstood James’s position and that he could come back with some killer argument that undoes everything I’ve said.
However, that would be dependent on James being willing to continue the discussion.
I asked him to do so—several times—and, for whatever reason, he didn’t respond.
I don’t blame him for that. I just need more information to understand his position better, as I indicated.
I’ve done the best I could with what he gave me, but James, if you think I’ve misunderstood or misrepresented you, please let me know.
I’d love to hear what you have to say.
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