Praying to saints

SpareOom (New Messages)
1

Lewis writes the following in Letter 3 of “Letters to Malcolm”:

"Apparently I have been myself guilty of introducing another red herring by mentioning devotions to saints. I didn’t in the least want to go off into a discussion on that subject. There is clearly a theological defence for it; if you can ask for the prayers of the living, why should you not ask for the prayers of the dead?..

"The consoling thing is that while Christendom is divided about the rationality, and even the lawfulness, of praying to the saints, we are all agreed about praying with them. ‘With angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.’ Will you believe it? It is only quite recently I made that quotation a part of my private prayers–I festoon it round “hallowed be Thy name”…One always accepted this with theoretically. But it is quite different when one brings it into consciousness at an appropriate moment and wills the association of one’s own little twitter with the voice of the great saints and (we hope) of our own dear dead…

“You may say that the distinction between the communion of the saints as I find it in that act and full-fledged prayer to saints is not, after all, very great. All the better if so. I sometimes have a bright dream of re-union engulfing us unawares, like a great wave from behind our backs, perhaps at the very moment when our official representatives are still pronouncing it impossible. Discussions usually separate us; actions sometimes unite us.” [end of Lewis quote].

I especially pick up on “if you can ask for the prayers of the living, why should you not ask for the prayers of the dead?”, especially the dead that we know are in heaven, e.g. the apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary. I personally find it helpful, for example, to ask for the Blessed Virgin Mary’s help.

2

Sorry, forgot to add:

Dimitry

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8)

3

Lots of reasons, but for the sake of brevity I’ll limit to two for the time being:

  • There’s absolutely no biblical instruction or example commending the practice

    • The only biblical example of any attempt to communicate with the dead[1] is in 1 Samuel 28. To say that it isn’t commended would be a gross understatement.

  • There’s no reason to believe they can hear your request.

    • They’re still human–glorified though they be, and thus free of the noetic effects of sin, they are neither omnipresent, omniscient, nor omnipotent. They aren’t present with us on earth, nor do they have the mental capacity to hear, understand, and process the prayers–excuse me, requests for prayer–from all those around the world who are making them.

  1. That is, the dead with respect to us on earth. Those who die in Christ live forever, but as David said of his son (2 Samuel 12:23), we will go to them, but they will not (and cannot) come to us. ↩︎

4

To my simple mind, whether or not the dead can actually hear our prayers would depend on how we understand the phrase “sleep in Jesus”. Those who sleep are not unconscious, but they also don’t necessarily hear very well. To communicate with those who sleep, we must first wake them, and in this context that would require resurrection. From where I sit, I am not convinced that asking the dead to pray on our behalf is particularly productive.

5

Jesus said to the “good thief” “this day shall you be with me in paradise”. This could imply that he would be alive and conscious. We use the phrase “the communion of saints” in our HC service, does this mean that we remain in communion with all alive or dead. I don’t know so I’m just asking. A long time ago when I was a teenager and with my mother in Italy she left her handbag on a park bench. Now this was very shortly after WW2 and Italy was very poor and quite lawless so we were desperate. The contents of that bag were incredibly valuable, our passports, our travellers cheques, our money, a very big haul to any one. An old lady said “pray to Saint Anthony” and my protestant mother in desperation did. Shortly after we received a call at our pension that the bag had been handed in to the local police and we could collect it. Alright, proves nothing but a nice story nonetheless.
Some of the saints appear to have things assigned to them. The ones I like best are St. Anthony lost things and Saints Simon and Jude lost causes, for example when you go into an exam and realise you have done no revision!! What we must not do is worship the saints as if they are demi-gods.

6

Clearly, though, the “assignment of duties” to saints must be considered no more than superstition! And that would also clearly make certain “saints” who have passed actual demigods, worthy of veneration (which is what happens), who are nearly omnipresent and omniscient.

And what would be the difference, I wonder, between seeking “assistance” from a dead saint and the assistance King Saul sought from a dead prophet (as Dan wisely pointed out)?

While the Lord High Heretic is not a fan of anathematizing creeds, he does believe that Lewis had a rare misstep in logic on this topic. I will put it down to him trying a bit too hard to be a bit TOO ecumenical.

Regards,
Michael
LHH of SpareOom, recently relocated to the west coast of Free Florida, where he was greeted and baptized by Hurricane Ian immediately upon arrival.

7

Friends,

Are we being presumptuous to assert what departed saints can or cannot do or what belief in the “communion of the saints” exactly entails? Like so many other details of significance such as the details of how God created the universe or how He will end this present one and usher in the new heavens and earth, some things are simply shrouded in the wisdom and counsel of God. I am quite willing to leave them there.

My mother used to say, "Our loved ones are with the Lord and we are with the Lord, so we can’t be very far away from each other.’ When she died in March of 2006, the words “the communion of the saints” took on a far deeper and richer meaning for me.

I do not ask my mother to pray for me. But I do add my (admittedly feeble) and felt rather than thought “amen” to the bliss she must be experiencing in the presence of the Lord. My “prayers” for help from my mother take the shape of meditating on her godly life, her wise sayings, her very practical approach to the life in Christ, and considering what she might say to me now.

I do believe heartily in the communion of the saints as I do believe in every word of our shared ecumenical creeds. I just can’t get dogmatic about specific applications and am willing to have room for others to apply the fact of that communion differently.

Definitely still learning and growing!

Ruby

8

I think that is the most natural reading of those words, yes. But I’m not convinced that something like “soul sleep” is inconsistent with them either–in that case, the meaning would be that from the thief’s perspective, he would seem or appear to be in paradise immediately after his death, even though there was an intervening period of (and during) which he was not conscious. But again, I think the most natural reading is that “this day” means “this day.” And figurative though it often is, Revelation certainly depicts the saints in heaven as being conscious prior to the final judgment. But this doesn’t demonstrate, or even suggest, that they’re aware of what’s happening here even in a general sense[1], much less that they can hear our individual requests.

We confess the Apostles’ Creed every Sunday, which includes confession of the “communion of saints.” And while that phrase could mean many things, I think we best understand it to mean that we join with the saints (“saints” in the biblical sense of all the redeemed, not that there’s some narrower category among the redeemed of saints) on earth and in heaven in worshiping God. Something like this is even stated in pieces of liturgy I’ve heard, which go something like, “and now we join with the saints and angels in heaven singing Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God almighty…”

But to pray to them is to worship them. It is, implicitly if not explicitly, to ascribe to them attributes that belong only to God such as omnipresence and omniscience (both of which they must possess in order to hear and understand us).

“We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). He is our High Priest who can and does sympathize with us (Hebrews 4:15)–he is no less sympathetic (indeed, he is more so) than Mary and the other saints. He is the one mediator between God and Man (1 Timothy 2:5), which he is able to be because he is truly God and truly Man. He is at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us, and we cannot be separated from his love (Romans 8:34-37). We have a perfect mediator in heaven; we need no other.

I remember you in Oregon–that’s quite a move if my memory’s correct. But I’m now near Savannah, GA, so that was also quite a move.

There’s certainly a sense in which that’s “somebody else’s story,” but I think we can safely assert, contra Mormon doctrine, that men do not become gods on death, and if that’s true, they do not become endued with the incommunicable attributes of God on death, nor do (nor can they do) things unique to God. The saints cannot forgive sins, for example; only God can do that. We can similarly say that they do not become omniscient or omnipresent.

Beyond this, it’s naturally less clear. What a mind looks like when it’s been perfectly cleansed from sin is something we struggle to imagine. But while it’s immeasurably greater than ours, it isn’t infinite.

  1. The saints in heaven are depicted as being aware of the persecution on earth (e.g., Rev. 6:10), but that’s clearly because they themselves were killed in that way, and they know what’s going on on earth because they just recently left. ↩︎

9

I am hesitant to contribute here, because although I have been working part-time for some years on a PhD thesis with a closely related topic, my focus has been upon how ideas about the immediate afterlife changed and developed between the last documents of the New Testament and the production by Julian of Toiedo of the first systematic theological work about that state, the Prognosticum Futuri Saeculi, towards the end of the eighth century. Quite what relation, if any, might exist between these ideas and reality is a problem wholly outside the scope.of my research.

Still, it may possibly be instructive to give a brief overview of the history of prayer through the dead.

Thus, there is early evidence, from inscriptions in catacombs, of Christians asking recently deceased family members to intercede for them, though similar later inscriptions tend instead to request the prayers of recently dead martyrs alone.

Those about to be martyred were also believed to have special intercessory powers, which, for example, enabled Perpetua to assist her dead brother Dinocrates. The [ab]use of this during the so-called Decian persecution caused considerable problems of church discipline for Cyprian in Carthage.

We know that the dates of death of local martyrs were carefully recorded in a number of churches, and those deaths were commemorated, though there seems to be no evidence until the second half of the third century that martyrs who had died other than recently were thought to have any role to play in the lives of the living. At about this time there appear inscriptions in the catacombs of the Appian Way of individual devotions to the martyrs Peter and Paul, which has been compared by some to the pagan concept of tutelary deities of the city, and it may be no coincidence that the setting up of the Roman martyr calendar, mostly of local saints but including some from North Africa, seems to have coincided with the widening of this cult to other martyrs.

Later we see figures like Paulinus of Nola, who promoted the cult of Felix of Nola, and the poet Prudentius who wrote poems extolling the intercessory capabilities of saints from his native part of Spain and wider afield. Septimus Severus also promoted the cult of Martin of Tours, a non-martyr saint, as an intercessor after Martin’s death, and so the cult of the saints grew broader yet.

Mary is a curious case. There is a prayer to her from the third century, Sub tuum praesidium, which seems to be requesting her intercession, but nothing further until the early fifth century. It looks as though her cult thereafter developed along the lines already existing for other saints.

As a final comment, Augustine divided the Christian dead into three groups: those whose lives had been too bad for prayer by the living to benefit them after death, those whose lives had been so good that the living should rather seek their intercession, and the middling ones, whose final fate was as yet undetermined, and for whom the prayers of the living might procure salvation, or make damnation more bearable.

10

Since this is ostensibly a forum devoted to the life and works of C.S. Lewis, and since Dimitry was kind enough to open the discussion with reference to Letters to Malcolm, surely it’s worth reviewing what else he had to say on the subject. Goffar’s C.S. Lewis Index gives five references under the heading of “Devotions to saints,” one in his letters (“undated letter just after 20 Jun 52”), one in God in the Dock (part IV, letter 7) with a cross-reference to that letter, and the other three in Letters to Malcolm, letters 2 and 3. I don’t have the letters, but I do have GID and LM, so…

The discussion in GID appears to be Lewis’ portion of a series of correspondence published in the Church Times in 1949, and appears on pages 331-335 of my copy of GID. The subject of discussion, as nearly as I can ascertain from only one side of it, is Lewis’ concern that the question of devotion to saints “be openly and authoritatively decided” by the church, rather than being quietly left to the discretion of each priest:

I merely claim that the controversy exists. I share Mr Every’s desire that it should cease. But there are two ways in which a controversy can cease: by being settled, or by gradual and imperceptible change of custom. I do not want any controversy to cease in the second way.

Earlier in this correspondence:

Mr Every (quite legitimately) gives the word invocation a wider sense than I. The question then becomes how far we can infer propriety of devotion from propriety of invocation? I accept the authority of the Benedicte for the propriety of invoking (in Mr Every’s sense) saints. But if I thence infer the propriety of devotions to saints, will not an argument force me to approve devotions to stars, frosts, and whales?

11

This question clearly separates Catholic and Orthodox on the one side and some Protestants on the other. C.S. Lewis held an eclectic position that usually is slapped from both sides.

My personal position is that “Saints” (everybody who is or will be saved) do not live in the same time as we do. Therefore there is nothing unreasonable in prayers through Saints to God (that’s what prayers to Saints really are). I wrote about this in my blog (https://populscience.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-theological-multiverse.html) although this particular post does not mention prayers through Saints.

To change a little the focus of the question, what do those Protestant who oppose prayer through Saints think about prayers through our Guardian Angels? Guardian Angels are attested by Christ Himself (see Matthew 18:10). Do you also oppose those prayers?

Regards,

12

When I was at the doors of death after receiving the second dose of the Moderna COVID “vaccine” that gave me an anaphylactique shock and a heart attack, I thought God had saved me through my wife (who called emergency in time) and through the doctors and medical personnel who treated me.

Why can I think that God can do things for me through other people, but I shouldn’t think that He can do things for me through my Guardian Angel and my Friends in High Places (as Corinna Turner calls the Saints: https://www.goodreads.com/series/326435-friends-in-high-places).

I think denying the possibility that the Saints can help us does not deny something to us or to the Saints, but to God: it denies the possibility that God can help us in that way. Who are we to decide what God can do or what means He can use?

And the Saints are not dead. They are alive. See Mathew 22:32.

Regards,

13

Manuel, I am not a Protestant, but using Matthew 18:10 to support “prayers to guardian angels” is quite a stretch.

Let’s allow that angels are assigned as guardians to people, and even that such angels can and do petition the Heavenly Father to help protect them harm and evil in the world. That does not suggest in the slightest that any of the “little ones” in this passage are directed to pray TO them. Nor that they should so pray.

I am not telling god what he can and cannot do. For example, god could grant requests prayed to a piece of stone, if he wanted to. It is suggested to us rather strongly that he does not want to. It is further suggested that prayers should be made directly to the father. And it also happens that there is no example of any other form of prayer in Scripture.

And to ding non-Catholics just a bit, it’s not much different when people pray directly to Jesus, rather than to the father “in the name of (by the authority given them by) Jesus” to do so. Now: God can still answer such prayers, but it’s because HE heard them and responds to them, not because some sleeping saint or anyone else has passed on their prayers up the chain, so to speak.

Regards,
Michael
Lord High Heretic of SpareOom

14

Yes, Mike, I surmised that I wasn’t going to convince you. After all, this discussion has been running for several centuries, without any group convincing the other. (Although personal conversions have happened).

But as this debate had started, I thought I should express my reasons, whatever the result. However, I don’t intend to enter an endless discussion again, as during the (in)famous Creed Wars (:slight_smile: of the history of SpareOom.

Regards,

15

The existence of “their angels” is attested by Christ (whether that’s general support for guardian angels for all people, all believers, all children, children of believers, some other group, or perhaps something different entirely isn’t clear), but that is not in question, any more than the existence of the saints (all believers who have gone before us) in heaven. But I see no more scriptural support for addressing prayers to them, or for requesting prayers from them, than for doing either of those thing to dead saints–which is to say, none at all.

Jesus told us how to pray: we pray to the Father (Matthew 6:9, Luke 11:2) in the name of the Son (John 14:13). Romans and Hebrews clarify that we pray through the power and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Nowhere in scripture–OT or NT–are we told to pray to the dead (or to angels), or to communicate with the dead (or angels) to ask them to pray for us. And the scriptures I’ve already cited show that Jesus is an adequate–more than an adequate, a perfect–advocate for us before the Father. All of the saints together are not more merciful, or sympathetic, or caring for us, than Jesus himself is.

Already addressed up-topic, but sure. Samuel was not dead. But Saul was condemned for seeking his aid, because this practice is explicitly repudiated in Leviticus 20.

I think there’s an important distinction here. God deals better with us that we deserve–that he does not condemn all of humanity to eternity in hell is better than we deserve. Gideon acted in unbelief when he set out his fleece (twice), but God graciously condescended to his unbelief–but that doesn’t make the unbelief commendable. Similarly, God may graciously hear and answer prayers that are not made as we’ve been told to pray–whether through saints, or angels, or by praying to the Son rather than the Father, or even by straight-up praying to an idol–but that doesn’t make any of those right.

16

Dan, what you’ve been saying, and what most Protestants apparently say (Lewis is not among them), is “if it’s not in the Bible, it is not worthy of belief”. But that statement itself, “if it’s not in the Bible, it is not worthy of belief” is not to be found, as far as I know, in the Bible itself, that is, it is extra-scriptural, and therefore, not worthy of belief?

Dimitry

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8)

| dan Geek the Magic Dragon
May 2 |

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Manuel_Alfonseca:

what do those Protestant who oppose prayer through Saints think about prayers through our Guardian Angels? Guardian Angels are attested by Christ Himself (see Matthew 18:10). Do you also oppose those prayers?

The existence of “their angels” is attested by Christ (whether that’s general support for guardian angels for all people, all believers, all children, children of believers, some other group, or perhaps something different entirely isn’t clear), but that is not in question, any more than the existence of the saints (all believers who have gone before us) in heaven. But I see no more scriptural support for addressing prayers to them, or for requesting prayers from them, than for doing either of those thing to dead saints–which is to say, none at all.

Jesus told us how to pray: we pray to the Father (Matthew 6:9, Luke 11:2) in the name of the Son (John 14:13). Romans and Hebrews clarify that we pray through the power and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Nowhere in scripture–OT or NT–are we told to pray to the dead (or to angels), or to communicate with the dead (or angels) to ask them to pray for us. And the scriptures I’ve already cited show that Jesus is an adequate–more than an adequate, a perfect–advocate for us before the Father. All of the saints together are not more merciful, or sympathetic, or caring for us, than Jesus himself is.

Manuel_Alfonseca:

And the Saints are not dead.

Already addressed up-topic, but sure. Samuel was not dead. But Saul was condemned for seeking his aid, because this practice is explicitly repudiated in Leviticus 20.

Michael_Nicholson:

For example, god could grant requests prayed to a piece of stone, if he wanted to. It is suggested to us rather strongly that he does not want to.

I think there’s an important distinction here. God deals better with us that we deserve–that he does not condemn all of humanity to eternity in hell is better than we deserve. Gideon acted in unbelief when he set out his fleece (twice), but God graciously condescended to his unbelief–but that doesn’t make the unbelief commendable. Similarly, God may graciously hear and answer prayers that are not made as we’ve been told to pray–whether through saints, or angels, or by praying to the Son rather than the Father, or even by straight-up praying to an idol–but that doesn’t make any of those right.

17

dan Geek the Magic Dragon
May 2 |

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The existence of “their angels” is attested by Christ (whether that’s general support for guardian angels for all people, all believers, all children, children of believers, some other group, or perhaps something different entirely isn’t clear), but that is not in question, any more than the existence of the saints (all believers who have gone before us) in heaven. But I see no more scriptural support for addressing prayers to them, or for requesting prayers from them, than for doing either of those thing to dead saints–which is to say, none at all.

Just for the record, although it’s well known, we Catholics (and Orthodox) don’t accept the “Sola Scriptura” dictum.

Regards,

18

That’s a common misunderstanding of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and is not quite what I’ve been saying. A more accurate statement would be that “scripture alone is the sole infallible rule of faith for the church.”[1] And the reason for that is that scripture, and only scripture, is θεόπνευστος, inspired or breathed out by God.[2] Jesus describes scripture as the equivalent to God speaking directly to the reader[3], and both Peter and Paul include NT writings among their descriptions of scripture.[4] So, by its own testimony, scripture (including the OT and the NT) is the word of God. Nothing else is. That, from the pages of scripture itself, is ample reason to regard scripture as the highest authority, with no superiors or even equals.

Whether Lewis accepted this is a separate question. His professed belief (in the introduction to Mere Christianity) was that of the Church of England, of which the sixth Article of Religion states:

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

Goffar’s C.S. Lewis Index cites Christian Reflections, ch. 2, ¶9, that “Hooker has answered the contention that scripture must contain everything important or even everything necessary,” but as I don’t have a copy of Christian Reflections I don’t see further what Lewis says there. I infer from Goffar’s summary that Lewis cited Hooker approvingly. This article seems to discuss Hooker’s treatment of the subject.

We do recognize subordinate standards. I’m a member of a Presbyterian church, and we affirm the Westminster Confession of Faith. We treat it as an authority because we believe it accurately reflects what scripture teaches, and it’s only from scripture that it derives its authority. We have church documents–a book of church order, a constitution and bylaws–that all have authority within this church, but are all subordinate to scripture.

But what we’re dealing with here is not merely something on which scripture is silent (in that there’s neither direct teaching nor “good and necessary consequence,” in the terms of the Westminster Confession, that speaks to the issue), and therefore Christians (and churches) are free to do what seems good to them. If that were the case, it would still be wrong for the Bishop of Rome, or the Patriarch of Constantinople, or whoever else, to require of their members that they engage in any such practice, but the practice would be permissible.

But scripture is not silent here; both its positive teaching and its prohibitions make it clear that this is not how prayers are to be made. In references already given up-topic, I’ve shown:

  • We are to pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, with the help and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
  • We have an advocate with the Father who can and does sympathize with us, and is constantly (and effectively) interceding for us.
  • We are not to communicate, or attempt to communicate, with the dead.[5]

These are enough to show that the various injunctions to pray for one another, bear one another’s burdens, ask others to pray for you, etc., do not extend to asking the dead to pray for you. But what scripture does not say is also telling:

  • First, and most obviously, scripture does not instruct us to seek the prayers of dead saints, nor does it give any positive example of anyone doing so (it gives one example of someone doing so, in 1 Samuel 28, but that example is decidedly negative)
  • Second, we’re given no reason to do so. We’re given no reason to believe that the saints are more loving, or caring, or merciful, or sympathetic, than is Jesus himself, and I think just stating this makes it obvious how strong a reason we have to not believe this.
  • Third, even if we were to accept that the saints were more loving, caring, merciful, etc., than Jesus is himself, we’re given no reason to believe that they have access, for lack of a better word, to us. The account of the rich man and Lazarus suggests, though doesn’t definitely state, that this is not the case.
  • Fourth, even supposing all of these are addressed, they’re still neither omniscient nor omnipresent–both of those qualities are reserved to God alone. If millions of people are seeking Mary’s intercession at any given time, how can she possibly hear them?

Now, you might reasonably observe that these last four points are arguments from silence, and you wouldn’t be wrong in doing so–but an argument from silence, while ordinarily weak, isn’t formally invalid.

  1. James White, Scripture Alone, (Bethany House, 2004) pp. 27-28. ↩︎

  2. 2 Timothy 3:16 ↩︎

  3. Matthew 22:31 ↩︎

  4. 2 Peter 3:15-16; 1 Timothy 5:18, Cf. Luke 10:7 ↩︎

  5. When Saul consulted with the witch of Endor (I can’t not think of Ewoks when I say that), Samuel was dead in exactly the same way, and to exactly the same degree, as the saints who have died since Christ’s ascension (or since Pentecost, or since whatever other time you want to choose as the beginning of the church age). Among Saul’s sins at that time was communicating with the dead. ↩︎

19

I’ve looked up what Lewis says in Christian Reflections about Hooker. In addition to the Goffar reference, here is another one, more definitive, I think. Lewis writes:

“I mentioned Hooker not because he simply denied that scripture contains all things necessary but because he advanced to prove that it cannot – which proof, I supposed most readers of Theology would remember”.

As far as actual prohibition of praying to the dead, you mention 1 Sam 28, where Saul asked the witch of Endor to call up Samuel. If I were to ask a witch to call up the Blessed Virgin Mary, this would certainly be very different from my praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and obviously, no good result could come from it.

You say that the Blessed Virgin Mary could not possibly hear all the thousands of requests made to her simultaneously. It’s interesting that this is the exact argument that Lewis attributes to atheists about God not being able to hear all those petitions simultaneously. Mary, of course, is not God. But how can we know what she or anyone else who has died can hear simultaneously? There is no reason to assume that their abilities remain exactly the same as they were here on earth. And there is certainly no scriptural passage which denies that ability.

As you have said, your arguments against praying to saints are arguments from silence, i.e. that scripture does not CONFIRM that one can pray to those who have died. But it does not deny it, either, and the practice of the Christian Church, both East and West, up until the time of the Reformation, had been (and still is, for the Catholic and Orthodox Church) to confirm it, and not because the Christian Church was not aware of scripture before the Reformation, but because of the actual myriad experiences of the faithful.

Dimitry

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8)

Everything else you mention, as you said,

| dan Geek the Magic Dragon
May 3 |

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dzarechnak:

Dan, what you’ve been saying, and what most Protestants apparently say (Lewis is not among them), is “if it’s not in the Bible, it is not worthy of belief”.

That’s a common misunderstanding of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and is not quite what I’ve been saying. A more accurate statement would be that “scripture alone is the sole infallible rule of faith for the church.”[1] And the reason for that is that scripture, and only scripture, is θεόπνευστος, inspired or breathed out by God.[2] Jesus describes scripture as the equivalent to God speaking directly to the reader[3], and both Peter and Paul include NT writings among their descriptions of scripture.[4] So, by its own testimony, scripture (including the OT and the NT) is the word of God. Nothing else is. That, from the pages of scripture itself, is ample reason to regard scripture as the highest authority, with no superiors or even equals.

Whether Lewis accepted this is a separate question. His professed belief (in the introduction to Mere Christianity) was that of the Church of England, of which the sixth Article of Religion states:

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

Goffar’s C.S. Lewis Index cites Christian Reflections, ch. 2, ¶9, that “Hooker has answered the contention that scripture must contain everything important or even everything necessary,” but as I don’t have a copy of Christian Reflections I don’t see further what Lewis says there. I infer from Goffar’s summary that Lewis cited Hooker approvingly. This article seems to discuss Hooker’s treatment of the subject.

We do recognize subordinate standards. I’m a member of a Presbyterian church, and we affirm the Westminster Confession of Faith. We treat it as an authority because we believe it accurately reflects what scripture teaches, and it’s only from scripture that it derives its authority. We have church documents–a book of church order, a constitution and bylaws–that all have authority within this church, but are all subordinate to scripture.

But what we’re dealing with here is not merely something on which scripture is silent (in that there’s neither direct teaching nor “good and necessary consequence,” in the terms of the Westminster Confession, that speaks to the issue), and therefore Christians (and churches) are free to do what seems good to them. If that were the case, it would still be wrong for the Bishop of Rome, or the Patriarch of Constantinople, or whoever else, to require of their members that they engage in any such practice, but the practice would be permissible.

But scripture is not silent here; both its positive teaching and its prohibitions make it clear that this is not how prayers are to be made. In references already given up-topic, I’ve shown:

  • We are to pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, with the help and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
  • We have an advocate with the Father who can and does sympathize with us, and is constantly (and effectively) interceding for us.
  • We are not to communicate, or attempt to communicate, with the dead.[5]

These are enough to show that the various injunctions to pray for one another, bear one another’s burdens, ask others to pray for you, etc., do not extend to asking the dead to pray for you. But what scripture does not say is also telling:

  • First, and most obviously, scripture does not instruct us to seek the prayers of dead saints, nor does it give any positive example of anyone doing so (it gives one example of someone doing so, in 1 Samuel 28, but that example is decidedly negative)
  • Second, we’re given no reason to do so. We’re given no reason to believe that the saints are more loving, or caring, or merciful, or sympathetic, than is Jesus himself, and I think just stating this makes it obvious how strong a reason we have to not believe this.
  • Third, even if we were to accept that the saints were more loving, caring, merciful, etc., than Jesus is himself, we’re given no reason to believe that they have access, for lack of a better word, to us. The account of the rich man and Lazarus suggests, though doesn’t definitely state, that this is not the case.
  • Fourth, even supposing all of these are addressed, they’re still neither omniscient nor omnipresent–both of those qualities are reserved to God alone. If millions of people are seeking Mary’s intercession at any given time, how can she possibly hear them?

Now, you might reasonably observe that these last four points are arguments from silence, and you wouldn’t be wrong in doing so–but an argument from silence, while ordinarily weak, isn’t formally invalid.

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But, Dimitry, the scripture is extremely clear that there is only ONE mediator between God and man: the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is Our Lord Jesus Christ who specifically stated that we are to pray TO THE FATHER. And indeed, there is no example in all the thousands of years covered by scripture is there any example of anyone praying to “lesser beings.”

Now, there are lots of fundamentalist Christians who violate this principle by praying directly to Jesus, rather than to God as they are invited to do in the name of (authority given them by) Jesus. Of course, it’s up to God what prayers he chooses to listen to.

As to Lewis, I reiterate that his vaunted reasoning failed him in this case; he was trying a bit too hard to be ecumenical.

Regards,
Michael, LHH of SpareOom