The Denominational Distinctives I: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant

In a previous post on LarrySanger.org, I listed some “questions that distinguish the denominations.” More precisely, I attempted to list, tentatively, questions that, taken together, are minimally adequate to distinguish the doctrinal commitments of the major denominations (and quite a few minor ones, as well). I got much useful feedback on that list. What follows reflects the first section of an edited list, i.e., not the original list. I will cover later sections in later posts.

The word “tentative” in the above title is important. I am not stating my final positions, and, in a few cases, this is the first time I have thought carefully about these questions at any length. I am, however, committed to avoid approaching the questions in a casual, slap-dash way, as if they did not really matter. I approach this exercise with the operational assumption that all of the questions might be important, indeed very important, even if I cannot always understand what the fuss is all about.

With that as preamble, let’s dive in.

I. What is the rule of faith: sola scriptura, the authority of the Church (Sacred Tradition or Magisterium), or something else?

I have already determined that I adhere to sola scriptura; see this essay in defense of the doctrine. To summarize:

Sola scriptura may be understood as the view that we should not advance doctrinal positions without scriptural support. There are many warnings in the Bible itself not to extend our doctrine-construction beyond the word of God. Such warnings are often broad and seem to depend on a pre-existent notion of what the word of God is. So what is meant, in such texts?

Both Scripture and early Christian practice have much of relevance on this point. The Bible consists of the writings of prophets, apostles, and their close associates, who were thought to speak on behalf (or as messengers) of God, or as witnesses and disciples of the Son of God. By contrast, the writings of the early Christians who were directly taught by the apostles, such as Clement and Ignatius, were not adopted into the canon of Scripture. Indeed, even today we can read these writings and see some things that clearly extend beyond the Bible on certain doctrinal points. In many cases, such points were not made into doctrines of the Church. Why not? Clearly, it is because these men neither said they spoke on behalf of God—nor did others claim this of them. Similarly, the conclusions of the first ecumenical councils of the church, such as the A.D. 325 Council of Nicaea, were defended not as inspiration or as tradition, but on the basis of Scripture. These councils were not adopted into the Bible, though they could have been, if they had been regarded as inspired and as reliable as Scripture itself. This suggests that the later Roman Catholic Church at some point changed its view on the relative reliability of church pronouncements.

If we must not advance doctrinal positions without scriptural support, that does not necessarily mean that all Catholic or Orthodox distinctives are simply ruled out; for all we have said so far, perhaps they can be given adequate scriptural support. But, generally speaking, even Catholics themselves will concede that Sacred Tradition or the Magisterium are required to justify, adequately, certain doctrines, such as those of Purgatory, indulgences, and the Assumption of Mary, to take the relatively obvious examples. This is not to say that those are “doctrines of devils”; it is to say, however, that they extend beyond what can be adequately supported on the basis of Scripture. But Protestants are well within their rights to rest on sola scriptura, firmly rejecting such doctrines as later accretions of an all-too-human tradition that became comfortable with adding speculative doctrine uninspired by the word of God.

II. Are post-Schism Roman Catholic ecumenical councils valid and authoritative, or not?

Some of the points expressed by later Roman Catholic councils (after the Great Schism) might well be correct, insofar as they are adequately rooted in the Bible. But insofar as they extend beyond what can be demonstrated from Scripture alone, they are not valid. Qua ecumenical councils, these councils are not binding for purposes of determining doctrine, because the only thing that may be adverted to, for purposes of determining distinctively Christian doctrine, or the distinctive commitments of the Church, is that which can be demonstrated based on the Bible. So, my view on this question is fairly straightforwardly determined by my position on sola scriptura. That is, you might say my position on the question is redundant—but only for sola scriptura Protestants, not for Orthodoxy.

III. Is the filioque clause (“and from the Son”) a legitimate development of Nicene doctrine, or a corruption?

The second version of the Nicene Creed, that of 381 A.D., specified the person and role of the Holy Spirit this way: “And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke by the Prophets” (source).

But fairly soon after that version was published, various branches of the Church edited “Who proceeds from the Father,” adding “and the Son”, like this: “Who proceeds from the Father and the Son“. The italicized phrase translates a single Latin word: filioque. Thus, the controversy was over whether the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” alone, or whether he also “proceeds from the Son.” Thus, the Western doctrine is called the double procession of the Holy Spirit. This is the specific thing the eastern branch of the Church was concerned to deny.

The Eastern Church took issue with the addition of filioque. When the bishop of Rome, Pope Leo IX, sought to impose his will over the entire Church and finally insisted on this addition being accepted universally, this led to mutual excommunications, in 1054, of key church figures. It seems Cardinal Humbert walked into the Hagia Sophia insisting that Patriarch Michael Cerularius accept the filioque. When he refused, Humbert excommunicated Cerularius. In response, Cerularius and the Holy Synod of Constantinople excommunicated Humbert and his delegation, not excommunicating Leo IX since Leo had recently died. After that, positions further hardened, centers of authority separated, and traditions grew apart. This slow-moving ecclesiastical civil war and its resulting division later came to be called the Great Schism. Thus, from what was essentially a power play centered on a relatively minor point of doctrine, the original (decentralized) Church was dissolved, or transformed, while the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church were born. Rome and the Popes went on to centralize the Western church even further, while the Eastern church remained without a single, central authority.

There is nothing, as far as I can tell, about the controversy over the filioque itself that is conceptually wedded to either side of this ecclesiastical controversy; many other points of dispute could have sparked a schism, which is perhaps best regarded as an attempt by the Pope and the Roman bishopric to assert its supremacy over all. The filioque issue itself seems to me fairly minor in terms of its impact on the rest of doctrine and practice. So, despite its historical importance, this is an issue to which I (like many Protestants) have given little thought. This is not to say I do not want to study it more, though.

In cases where I approach theological questions seriously for the first time, what I do is go through some relevant texts, seeing what they say. I have assembled quite a few, in the hope that they are adequately representative. I add my commentary on each afterward.

Filioque: relevant texts

John 14:16
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

This affirms that the Father will give the Comforter, but does not say anything regarding the Son; so it is consistent with the notion that the Holy Spirit proceeds (i.e., to us) from both.

John 14:26
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

This contains two intriguing details. The first is that the Father sends the Holy Spirit in the name of the Son. This colors the issue in an interesting way, because while it affirms that the Spirit is sent by the Father, he arrives in the name of the Son. If the Spirit is sent “in the name of” Jesus, then surely there is a sense in which he proceeds from the Son. The second item here is that the task or function of the Spirit with respect to us (or, at least, to the Apostles to whom Jesus was speaking!) is to “bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” This suggests that when the Spirit communicates to us, at least part of what he communicates is “whatsoever I have said unto you.” Thus the Spirit would seem to be an emissary, sent by the Father, but carrying the message of the Son.

John 15:26
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth [ἐκπορεύεται] from the Father, he shall testify of me:

Here, as in 14:16 and 26, the Comforter is said to be from the Father, while testifying about Jesus. Yet is sent by Jesus. This provides a sense in which the Comforter might “proceed” from the Son; but it does not use the word ἐκπορεύεται (ekporeuetai) but instead the word πέμψω (pempso, “will send”). It does affirm again that the function of the Comforter is to speak for or about Jesus. The question is, does that entail another kind of “procession”? Perhaps. We will have to see.

John 16:7
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

This again says two interesting things. First, it clearly states that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit depended on Jesus being absent from earth and returning to heaven. We are not here told why this is the case. Second, Jesus again claims “will send [πέμψω again] him unto you.” The question, again, is whether this means the Spirit proceeds from Jesus? Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps there is a metaphysical or theological distinction to be drawn between the Spirit proceeding from the Father but being sent by the Son. What makes matters even more difficult is that, as I am inclined to think, many (not all) such recondite metaphysical or theological distinctions are unlikely to be found in or settled by what the Bible writers intended. I doubt John had such elaborate and detailed distinctions in mind; but perhaps he had some distinction he was marking out by using two different words.

John 16:13–15
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

This adds even more detail to the latter passage (16:7). The Spirit will guide the Apostles (and quite possibly us as well) into the truth, not of himself but what he is told to say. But we learned already in 14:26 and 15:26 that he will speak on behalf of and testifying about Jesus himself; here, Jesus adds the similar points that the Spirit will glorify Jesus and show that which he (the Spirit) has received from Jesus. Yet the last sentence here (v15) might be thought to be particularly relevant to the question of double procession: Jesus says, “All things that the Father hath are mine,” just after saying that the Spirit will show that which he receives from Jesus. In context, this suggests that, since whatever the Father has, the Son has as well, it follows that the Spirit might communicate things that, as it were, originated with the Father. That is basically what “he [the Spirit] shall take of mine [which includes things of the Father], and shall shew it unto you” means.

What these cryptic statements mean is not clear. On the narrow question of whether the Spirit “proceeds from” the Son, matters have really become no clearer. It certainly is the case that the Spirit gives us the messages and gifts of the Son, which are at least sometimes (perhaps always) messages and gifts of the Father. Whether these proceed from the Son is another question, and whether this means the Spirit itself proceeds from the Son is a still different question. Nevertheless, the fact that Jesus explicitly avows that “All things that the Father hath are mine,” in the context of communications from the Holy Spirit, seems particularly important.

John 20:22
And when he [Jesus] had said this, he breathed on them [the Apostles], and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.

This famous event, unique to John, has been described as “an earnest” of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all the rest of the disciples at Pentecost. What is important to the issue here is that the breath (pneuma, a word that also means “spirit”) of Christ is said to convey the Spirit himself. Thus, he proceeded to the Apostles out of the mouth of Jesus, so to speak; what remains to study is whether that is what is meant by “procession” in “double procession.”

Luke 24:49
And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.

“The promise” and “power” (of the Spirit: this is implied) are said to come from “my Father” and “on high.” Once again, this does not deny that the Spirit does not also proceed from Jesus; but neither does it affirm that it does.

Acts 2:33
Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he [Jesus] hath shed forth [ἐξέχεεν] this, which ye now see and hear.

This is surely a key text, because it provides another word describing the relationship between Jesus and the Spirit: ἐξέχεεν (execheen, “pour out” or “shed forth”). Peter is speaking at Pentecost, explaining that speaking in tongues, as shown by the gathered disciples to the Jewish visitors from many lands, has two heavenly explanations: (1) Jesus received the promise of the Holy Ghost from the Father; (2) Jesus “shed forth” this same Spirit to the assembled disciples, evidence of which was visible and audible. Similar remarks as before apply.

Romans 8:9
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

Much in line with what John said in 16:7 and 13–15, Paul here casually describes the Holy Ghost as “the Spirit of God” as well as “the Spirit of Christ.” This suggests that he is properly called the Spirit of both. Again, perhaps there are further fine metaphysical distinctions to draw here, with regard to “procession.”

Romans 8:11
But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Here Paul describes the Spirit as he who raised Jesus from the dead; this might well be used to argue that he does not “proceed” from Jesus, or not always. More of course can be said here, of course. But this is not a strong argument, considering that sometimes it is even said that Jesus raised himself from the dead (see, e.g., Jn 2:19 and 10:17–18).

Galatians 4:6
And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

Here, God is said to have sent the Spirit; but it is “the Spirit of his Son” which is said to have been sent! This is very much in line with John’s remarks in Jn 14–16.

Philippians 1:19
For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, …

Here is another instance of the Spirit being referred to as Jesus’ own.

Titus 3:5–6
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on [ἐξέχεεν again] us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; …

Similarly to Gal 4:6, Paul implies that it is the Father who “renewed” the Holy Ghost (in us) but who did it “through” Jesus Christ. Once again, this might or might not point to abstruse metaphysical distinctions. The simple reading is that, before, the Holy Ghost did not dwell in us; but he does after we are born again, by “renewing” the presence of the Holy Ghost in us.

Analysis

Now, having rehearsed these verses and made a few non-committal remarks about how they bear on the question, I think we can make a few more general, helpful, and I hope uncontroversial summary statements. The Holy Spirit is said most consistently to proceed or come from the Father; but added to this, we are told that Jesus would send the Spirit himself, and that the Spirit was of both the Father and the Son, and shed or poured from both. Moreover, we must not forget the intriguing details the Gospel of John supplied, such as that the Spirit communicated the message of Jesus and that the Father has given all things to the Son.

As a point of general exegesis, I would add here that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was a notion introduced by prophecies that might well have been familiar to Jesus’ audience.¹ When Jesus adverted to these prophecies, he might well, at that point, be expected to say that the Spirit would come from the Father; this, it stands to reason, would serve to dignify and lend credibility to the deliverances of the Spirit, in the mouths of the Apostles. It is particularly important that Jesus should say this, as an endorsement of the preaching of the Apostles, who, it was said, were inspired by this same Spirit, as Jesus said they would be (quoted above, particularly John 14–16). After all, they would be battling critical Jews who denied apostolic authority and even, in some cases, the authority of Jesus himself. So, they needed a “letter of recommendation” (to use Paul’s term), and that from the highest and least controversial source: the Father himself.

Yet Jesus also, quite clearly albeit less frequently, stated that this same Spirit carried his own messages. This was to underscore his own authority. And we should never forget Jesus’ clear, relevant pronouncement: “I and my Father are one.” (Jn 10:30)

So what bearing does all this have on the question of the double procession? To answer that, we must first ask: What is the doctrine of the double procession?

The simple formulation of the doctrine is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son both, and not from the Father alone. But this language of “proceeding” or “procession” seems to be special jargon that both the Western church and Orthodoxy use. A key question in my mind is whether both traditions actually understand the term in the same way.

Whatever mysteries are involved, we may say that there are two things that the terms might mean, at least on first glance. In the first (“ontological”) sense, “procession” refers to an eternal relationship between two, or maybe three, persons in the Trinity: The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from (or out of) the Father. Here, the arrival of the Spirit is metaphysical or ontological, which is to say that the Spirit “proceeds” into being from the Father. This suggests an ontological priority of some sort (not temporal, or in time, because this relationship is held to be eternal, or atemporal). The question, then, is whether the Spirit also eternally “proceeds” into being from the Son as well.

In the second (“economic”) sense, the Spirit proceeds from the Father (and, as the text says often, the Son) to us in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. On this concept, procession is something that happens between the Father (and maybe the Son) and the Spirit with respect to us; such procession was not even occurring before human beings were created, obviously.

I am not now definitively claiming that the filioque in either of these senses is settled by Scripture. The reason I draw this distinction is to raise a question: How do the warring sides understand it? Could this, perhaps, be a semantic dispute?

I do not think so. I have not read widely about the Trinity yet, as much as I want to, so I will not pretend to have a well-informed or interesting opinion on this. I gather, however, that the Latin (so, Western Church) Fathers Hilary, Ambrose, and Augustine, whose writings are perhaps most responsible for the addition of the filioque, definitely understood the filioque to refer not just to the economic sense but also to the ontological sense. They each developed arguments that, yes, made use of the fact that Jesus sent his Spirit, but the conclusion of the argument was that the Spirit eternally proceeded from the Son.

The economic question is fairly obvious in light of many texts: the Spirit is of Christ; Christ sends him; he speaks for Christ; all things of the Father are also held by the Son, and this is stated in the context in which the Son sends the Spirit. Therefore, there is a double procession of the Spirit in the economic sense: he proceeds to us from both. But the ontological question lies shrouded in mystery.

My present view, for what little it is worth (I am no expert), is that the Trinity is already quite a mystery enough for us to be insisting on things about the internal relations of the persons of the Godhead about which neither the Bible nor a priori reasoning can offer anything definite. I have read enough of speculative theology, as opposed to biblically based systematic theology, to have developed a decided distaste for it. By “speculative” I mean reasoning that extends beyond both Scripture and things strictly, logically entailed by correct scriptural exegesis. This is particularly difficult considering that we have no (or woefully inadequate) immediate experience of God. Reasoning and philosophy I love; but this does not mean I think we can, or should, attempt to rule on questions about the things of God that lie well beyond our purview.²

So, on this question, for now, I remain agnostic. Perhaps when I finally read books on the Trinity like Augustine’s De Trinitate, which is definitely in the queue, I will change my mind. Maybe that will even change my attitude toward theological speculation. As to the dispute between the Western and Eastern Church, for now, my entirely amateur opinion is this: I suspect the dispute is neither clear nor important enough to justify a denominational division. But I don’t even know that, to be honest.

IV. Should we affirm sola fide, i.e., that we are saved by faith alone, or do our good works also contribute to our salvation?

This is among the most complex and disputed questions on this list. I have begun writing a very long analysis, but it will take a while to finish. In lieu of that, here is a briefer analysis, of which I am fairly confident for now. The key question here is the one that is central to soteriology, the theory of salvation: What saves us? Or, in virtue of what are we saved? There are many other, related questions, but we will focus on this (or these, if they are different). The best way to develop my answer to this question is to follow a certain definite exploration of Bible verses.

We begin by observing those many verses that indicate that we are saved by faith; we immediately contrast these by those verses—also many—that indicate that we are saved by righteousness. Next, we add the further complexity of those verses, found especially in the apostle Paul, that we are not saved by works; and, finally, we must consider the notion, found in James 2, that faith without works is dead. The solution to this tension may be found in the insight that faith, in the core, operative sense, means faith in a person, not propositions, and that we while faithfulness to a person is, in itself, something entirely spiritual or a matter of trust, it is shown to be bogus if it does not produce good effects in behavior (called “fruit” in the standard biblical metaphor). If we are to show we actually have faith in God, we must act in earnest, not in “bad faith.” Thus, we are saved by faith, but it must be genuine faith that produces good works (or “fruit”). We are not saved by these good works, which are simply inadequate to cover our sins. We are indeed saved only by our loyalty to the Lord.

This, by the way, is simply not to address the role that the atonement of our sins by Jesus Christ plays in our salvation, which is a distinct theological question. Nor is it directly to address the means of grace (whether external objects or rites are, or can be, involved in our salvation). Nor does it say much about repentance as a necessary condition of genuine faith. I do not go into these topics because they are not essential to the questions over which Protestantism separates from Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

1. We are said to be saved by faith.

Let us begin with a small selection of basic verses, first from the Old Testament. Some who are unfamiliar with the Old Testament and soteriology might be surprised that the Old Testament prophets say we are saved by our faith. But they do, and often. The first instance I will mention is important but indirect:

Genesis 6:9
These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

To “walk with God,” as other patriarchs and prophets are said to do, is to adhere to him, to be faithful to him. It is no coincidence that Noah’s life (and those of his sons, and their wives) was saved, while the rest of humanity was wiped out.

Deuteronomy 6:5
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

The most fundamental law, which is also implied by the first two commandments, is the love of God. This both requires and results in faithfulness to God, or so it can be cogently argued (although I will not bother now). If there is one law that we must follow above all, and which certainly was not set aside under the new covenant, it is this one.

1 Samuel 26:23
The Lord render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness: for the Lord delivered thee [Saul] into my [David’s] hand to day, but I would not stretch forth mine hand against the Lord’s anointed.

The operative concepts here concern our righteous treatment of each other; this is an image of what God expects from us toward himself. In other words, it was righteous for David to spare Saul’s life, because Saul was anointed king by the Lord, and thus Saul’s life was not his to dispose of. David’s point is that he expected to be rewarded by the Lord for his own righteousness (presumably, with his own life, and so it came to pass: Saul never did manage to kill him).

Psalm 31:1, 5–6
In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness.
…Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.
I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the Lord.

The Psalms are filled with verses connecting trust in the Lord to our salvation. If, like Jesus (Luke 23:46), we will “commit our spirit” into the hands of the Lord, we will be saved, delivered in our resurrection to a new life, as Jesus first demonstrated.

Isaiah 12:2
Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.

This makes it quite explicit: we have our salvation through our trust in the Lord.

Isaiah 50:10
Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.

The fear of the Lord—however we characterize it—is closely tied to trusting in God. By this fear and trust we walk in his light, unafraid.

Habakkuk 2:4
Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith

Here is one of the few OT verses that explicitly tie salvation (or, life) to faith (Heb. emunah, also rendered “faithfulness”).

The point in rehearsing this variety of OT verses is that it is profoundly wrong-headed to suppose the theme of salvation by faith cannot be found in the OT. It is everywhere in the OT, it is one of the best reasons to read the OT, and, as we will see, its doctrine is ultimately the same as in the NT. Of course, what the NT adds is the revelation of “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints” (Col 1:26), namely, it is owing to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross that our sins are forgiven, so that it is possible for us to be ultimately saved for eternal life with him.

Here then are some classic NT verses saying we are saved by faith:

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Note that in this famous verse we are called to believe in him—not that he exists, not that he died for our sins (that hadn’t happened yet when Jesus said this), not any proposition—but in him.

John 5:24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

Here, the object of faith is not the Son but the Father who sent him. How can this be? Curiouser and curiouser!

Next, I will give the full length of a quotation (a whole pericope, a self-contained passage), in order to consider a point in its full context. I could have done so with other texts, but this one achieves an important purpose:

Luke 7:44–50
And he [Jesus] turned to the woman [described as a “sinner”], and said unto Simon [his Pharisee host], Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine [Simon’s] house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint [apply fragrant oil]: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

The woman is described simply as “a sinner” who is looked down upon by the Pharisee at whose house Jesus ate. She used expensive ointment on his feet and wiped them with her hair, showing her faith that Jesus was worthy of such honor. In the end, Jesus honors her in return, saying she “loved much” and that it is her faith that has saved her—and not her good works, for she was a sinner, nor her gesture, which was an expression of her faith. In other words, her greatly loving faith, expressed by works, in spite of her sins, saved her.

It is common for some to conclude, on the above basis, that what is necessary is to declare, in a prayer, “I believe that Jesus Christ is my savior. Amen.” Some such expression of belief, they seem to think, is what saves us. But the next set of verses tends to leave such people filled with confusion and consternation. Let us turn to them next.

2. We are also said to be saved by our righteousness.

It is widely regarded as an exclusively Old Testament doctrine that we are saved by our righteousness. For example:

Ezekiel 18:5–9
But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right… He shall surely live, saith the Lord God.

Psalm 37:39–40
But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: he is their strength in the time of trouble.
And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.

These are representative samples of the prophets and the Psalms, which assert that salvation and life are a result of righteousness and obedience to God’s law. Now, some read such verses and conclude, “Well, it is a good thing that we live under a new covenant and that we are no longer under the law!” Indeed—and we will soon return to this point. Yet such people tend to be filled with “confusion and consternation” when Jesus and Paul speak just like the OT prophets:

Matthew 5:20, 48
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. …
(v. 48) Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

This, in the first chapter of the famous Sermon on the Mount, has caused no end of confusion. Must we be perfectly righteous? Must we really be perfect? Is that what saving faith requires? “Who then can be saved” indeed!

Toward the end of the sermon, Jesus doubles down:

Matthew 7:21–23
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

This, some worry, sounds like “works salvation.” Some people will have done “many wonderful works” (on their own telling), but Jesus will reject them because they “work iniquity” and have not done “the will of my Father which is in heaven”? Is he contradicting himself (in John 3:16) and the OT prophets?

Paul is the great champion of sola fide, often saying we are saved by faith. Yet in some places, he sounds just like Jesus in this way:

Romans 2:6–7, 13
Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life…
(v.13) For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

What? Render to us according to our deeds—not our faith? The “doers of the law shall be justified,” and not the faithful?

I am deliberately presenting this in such a way as to express the common confusion; but we will not be confused for too long. Let us turn next to the classic texts that express we are not saved by our works.

3. Yet, we are said to be saved by faith and not by our works.

The locus classicus of sola fide is this clear pronouncement by Paul:

Ephesians 2:8–9
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

“Grace” is a gift, unearned, and not in exchange for any work; we who are saved cannot boast of our salvation, because it is the gift of God. Paul gives Abraham as the classic example:

Romans 4:2–5
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

This—as sola fide Protestants never tire of explaining—provides the solution of how it can be that Jesus demands righteousness, even perfection. Abraham’s belief in God “was counted unto him for righteousness”; this was unmerited, but, again, a gift from God.

It is not only Paul who says God gives us grace in spite of our sins. Think again of what Jesus said to the sinner woman who washed his feet with expensive ointment. And consider what he says about another sinner:

Luke 18:10–14
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican [tax collector]. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. [Jesus now speaks:] I tell you, this man [the publican] went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

The man who humbles himself in faith before God, insisting on his own sinfulness, is the one that—paradoxically?—will be saved. If we are saved, it is by our faith, not by our works.

So far, we have presented the discussion of that whereby we are saved as a kind of dialogue. Let us trace the path of this dialogue. We began by saying that the Bible is full of pronouncements that we are saved by faith in God. But it also says, quite sternly, that we are saved by our righteousness. This is not a theological interpretation, but a straightforward summary of biblical assertions (some are quoted above, such as Mt 5:20 and Rom 2:6–7). Yet it also denies that we are saved by our works. This is looking like a contradiction, and now I will make it even worse, by discussing James.

4. Yet again, James says that faith without works is dead.

In a famous passage in chapter 2 of his epistle, James begins with two rhetorical questions:

James 2:14-17
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

The puzzle James confronts us with is whether a person can be saved if he “hath faith, and not have works? Can faith save him?” James’ answer is very clear: absolutely not. This might look like a contradiction of the passages quoted in section 3 above, but it is not. As James explains, “faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” In other words, the cases we are considering are those who pretend (perhaps even to themselves) to have faith, but do not really have it. Only if faith really does “have works” is it alive, or genuine. It is perhaps best to say that it is not really faith at all.

James is responding—perhaps, so say some commentators—to those who read the words of Paul, and concluded that they can do whatever they like. The error here is called antinomianism, and it was a problem of many morally self-indulgent Greeks, whose culture made broad excuses for all sorts of bad behavior. So, James was not criticizing or correcting Paul; rather, he was correcting those who had misinterpreted Paul. He goes on to explain in a little dialogue (Jas 2:18) how he would respond to such an antinomian, which can be explained with interpretive interpolations: “Yea, a man may [rightly] say [to an antinomian], Thou hast faith, and I have works”—very well then—”shew me thy faith without thy works”, and good luck with that. You will not be able to do so. But, James goes on, “I will shew thee my faith by my works.” In other words, it is hardly as if James denies having faith and claims only works. Rather, he is saying that his works demonstrate the reality of his faith.

Still, the apparent contradiction between the verses found in sections 1 and 3, on the one hand, and section 2, on the other, remains. What does save us—our faith, or our works (or righteousness)?

5. The resolution of the tension: the object of faith is a person.

One insight remains to be put on the table, and it makes all the difference.

Thus far, we have not discussed what the object of faith is. We can say it is Jesus, or God, but often we say we have faith that God exists, or that Jesus is Lord, or that our sins are forgiven due to the blood of Christ on the cross, or some other such proposition.

Maybe it will help some to make a short detour into the branch of philosophy called epistemology (the theory of knowledge). Epistemologists distinguish between two different kinds of knowledge: we can know who and we can know that.³ A similar distinction can be drawn with regard to belief. We can believe that God exists, or we can believe in God himself, personally. Believing that takes a proposition (a statement like “God exists”) as its object; believing in takes a person as its object.

Now, as it happens, there is a similar distinction in the Greek word that we translate with “belief” and “faith”: πιστεύω or pisteuo. This can be used to speak of our belief that a statement is true, but it can also mean to have faith (or belief, if you prefer) in a person.

Now, why does this matter? It matters because most pastors teach the doctrine of salvation by faith as belief in certain propositions, again, such as God exists or Jesus is Lord or Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Now, if you remind them, they will say, “Yes, in fact there is a threefold distinction of faith, notitia, assensus, and fiducia. The knowledge component is notitia. We must not only have the information, though, we must assent to it: assensus. But in addition, we must trust Christ (or God): fiducia.” Now, I am very sorry to have to criticize distinguished old medieval distinctions that have done service to the Church for centuries, but I do not find exactly this in the text. I think that most of the time what is meant is, indeed, fiducia, or personal faith in God. And, regardless, the pastors seem to forget all this and most often speak of faith as simple assensus. But, as James said elsewhere in the passage we discussed, “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” (Jas 2:19) In other words, their mere belief that there is one God hardly saves them; what they lack is fiducia, or belief in God. They are damned because they are in rebellion.

If you will go back over the texts above, you will see that fiducia is generally what is meant. In John 3:16, “whosever believeth in him” is pointing to a personal faith or trust. Jesus calls on his listeners to “believeth on him that sent me,” referring to faith in God. This use of “belief in” and “belief on” is to be distinguished from “belief that.” Now, since Father and Son are united in being or substance, for a Christian (who accepts this doctrine) to believe in one is to believe in the other. Thus, it does not really matter whether we say that the object of saving faith is God, or Jesus, or even the Holy Ghost: all are God, and united in the Godhead, and this is the God in whom we repose our trust. When Paul writes, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Rom 4:3 again), he is not saying that Abraham believed merely that God would give him an heir; rather, he is saying that Abraham believed in the faithfulness of God, or in other words, that Abraham trusted God. It was clearly that broader sort of trust that was “counted for righteousness.”

Finally, we may go back to the various OT discourses about how we are saved. Throughout, the object of faith is certainly the Lord God, and over and over, especially but not only in the Psalms, we find his trustworthiness praised. For example: “And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.” (Ps 9:10) Or consider this, from Isaiah: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength.” (Isa 26:3–4) There is, I maintain, a close connection between the way to salvation in both testaments; it is the same God, and thus the same way to salvation. This is also why it was never in any doubt whether the Old Testament saints saw eternal life, so that Jesus could say, “But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Mt 22:31–32)

It matters profoundly that the object of our faith is God, because this helps make good sense of all the doctrines discussed here. We are saved by faithfulness toward the Lord, because he adopts us into his family. We are saved by righteousness—not by our own, though our fidelity is shown through our paltry attempts at it—but by that of Jesus. We take him as our Lord and Master, and his perfection covers our imperfection. Again, we may agree with Paul, when he says we are saved by faith, not our works, which are only “loss” and even “dung.” Yet we may (indeed, must) also agree with James, when he says that faith without works is dead, for what sort of loyalty are we demonstrating to our Lord if our supposed faith makes no difference in our life?

6. “Believe the Gospel”

So I do maintain that we are saved by faith alone, and it helps, in clarifying this, to say that the object of our faith is not a proposition but God. Nevertheless, I am not disagreeing with those who say they are saved by their sincere faith that Jesus is their Lord. They are correct, but this is because of the particular features of that proposition. If you take Jesus to be your Lord, consider what this means. If Jesus is Lord, then he is Immanuel, or God With Us; and if he is also the King of Israel, consider what follows. (The following is summarized from an earlier blog post.)

The original Gospel proclamation, as Jesus preached it, was the announcement of the Kingdom of God and the arrival of its King. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). All Jews who heard this understood exactly what was being claimed: this was the long-awaited restored kingdom of Israel, prophesied in Scripture, and the time was now. To declare allegiance to the King was to enter into that Kingdom. Hence, when Jesus told his disciples, “follow me,” or, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother… he cannot be my disciple,” this was not some new or secondary teaching. It was the natural consequence of the royal announcement: personal loyalty to and love of the Sovereign of the Kingdom was demanded.

And if this King is Immanuel, or God With Us, then allegiance to him is—again—trust in God.

The announcement of the Kingdom remained the core of the Gospel even after the resurrection. The news became fuller, of course, as the King revealed more of himself through his suffering, death, and resurrection. Paul declares that Christ “died for our sins … was buried … and rose again” (1 Cor 15:1–4)—and this, too, is part of “the gospel.” But these events do not constitute a new Gospel; rather, they are the great climactic acts of the same King who had already called for our loyalty. To share the Gospel is not simply to preach a set of theological doctrines about the atonement. It is to proclaim the story of the arrival of the Kingdom, the enthronement of the King, and the proper response: trust, love, obedience, and loyalty to the one who has defeated death and now reigns. To believe that Gospel, if sincere, is to be genuinely loyal to God With Us. That loyalty is what saves us.

7. What then is the answer?

This, then, is how I understand sola fide. To sum up: The Bible indeed proclaims throughout the salvation of the Lord to those who are faithful to him. But it also warns that we are saved by our righteousness, and that we must strive for righteousness. Yet it also denies that we are saved by our works, but only by faith. This sounds like a contradiction, so—how is the paradox resolved? Part of the answer is given by James: faith without works is dead. If we are genuinely faithful, our lives will bear fruit. Those whose lives are unchanged may claim to believe in Jesus, but to them he will say, “I never knew ye.” Now, the key to the solution of the “faith versus works” paradox may be found in the fact that the object of faith is a person, not a proposition. It is our faithfulness in the person of the Lord that saves us, even as the faith of the sinner woman, who sat adoringly at the feet of Christ, saved her despite her sins. In the context of this basic truth, the tangled propositions each turn out to be true, plausible, and profound. We may even find a way to agree with those who say they are saved because they believe that Jesus is Lord. At least, if there is a sincere belief of that sort, it entails that we are genuinely loyal to our King, who is God With Us, and it is that loyalty that saves us.

In this way, it seems we may affirm the Protestant doctrine of sola fide. But I can imagine some disagreeing, on the following grounds:

If you are saying that you must “bear fruit” in order to be saved, then for that very reason you are disagreeing with sola fide. You are saved, in part, by your works. Your works are not enough by themselves for your salvation, as Paul said, and yes, they must flow from faith; but if salvation requires genuine fruit of repentance, then sola fide is mistaken.

There are two ways to respond to this:

The Protestant response. One is to hold fast to sola fide by insisting that, while works are a necessary condition of salvation, they are not constitutive of what saves us, “lest any man should boast.” We are saved, as Paul says, only by the grace of God and by our faith. If our works are a condition of salvation, they are so only in a secondary sense; we are not saved by our works but by our faith, with good fruit being only evidence of faith. These might sound like fine distinctions, but they are important. Scripture (reflected in sections 1 and 3 above) makes it very clear that we are saved by faith alone.

The Orthodox response. The other is to embrace a joint condition, or what Orthodoxy calls a synergy between our active works and our faithful acceptance of God and his grace. (I will come back to the Catholic position later.) Such a position can admit that we are saved primarily by personal faith, but that there is no point in denying that our salvation is conditioned upon good works, or even that the sacraments can have some role to play. We will discuss the latter later on. This is not to insist that we are saved by our works; it is only to describe our works as part of a unified condition (a synergistic state) of salvation, which is all indeed due to God’s grace, so again, we have no grounds on which to boast.

The Protestant position is both more familiar and easier for me to defend. But I concede that the difference between this and the Orthodox position strikes me as being surprisingly slight and little more than a semantic dispute. In other words, I could retreat to a simpler, traditional sola fide formulation, but then in my view we are not doing full justice to all the Scripture on these issues. At the same time, I see no specific advantage to insisting on the Orthodox position over the Protestant one. It is not somehow more correct to say that works are part of salvation, instead of saying they are evidence of faith, without being in themselves salvific.

I have set aside Catholicism for purposes of this discussion, because it goes beyond mere synergy, more legalistically requiring specific sacramental works in the form of Baptism and the Eucharist. This seems to directly contradict the clear statements in sections 1 and 3 above—and in any case, I currently doubt these legalistic requirements are required by Scripture for salvation. That remains to be proven (in a question we will take up later).

At this point, I see no strong theological reasons to insist on one formulation over another, for purposes of committing myself to a denominational position. A choice will have to come down to other issues, it seems.

V. Can and should we pray to the saints (for their intercession)?

The point of this question is to support the idea behind the common Catholic and Orthodox practice of praying to saints. They hold that we do not ask them for things, but rather we ask them to pray on our behalf to God. There are other, related questions we must explore in order to do this one justice. I will take them up in order. In each case, imagine the question preceded by, “According to the Bible.”

1. Do we (or some of us) experience some conscious existence (in heaven, hell, or anywhere else) immediately after death?

The Bible has surprisingly little by way of clear depiction of conscious existence immediately after death, as opposed to what is called “soul sleep,” i.e., the notion that we are unaware of anything in the period between our death and our resurrection. But what it does have seems quite clear on the question.

Perhaps the clearest and most convincing occurs at the Transfiguration:

Matthew 17:3
And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.

It is widely accepted (at least, among those who take the Bible seriously) that these were not mere symbols or figments of imagination, but Moses and Elijah themselves. If so, at least they at the time of the Transfiguration had a conscious existence. Much to the same effect, Jesus said:

Matthew 22:31–32
But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

The standard way of interpreting this passage has it that Jesus is making an inference from the statement in Ex 3:6 to the conclusion that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are presently alive, not that they will be alive in the resurrection; after all, his point depends on the fact that the present tense is used in the verse from Exodus.

There are other such textual arguments that we may treat more briefly. Jesus tells the thief on the cross, “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” (Lk 23:43) This might be the single clearest short verse in support of the proposition: they were both about to die; Jesus said they would be together, and hence enjoy a continued existence; and, to make it even clearer, Jesus says they will be together in Paradise. Paul says he desires to “depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better” (Php 1:23) than continuing his life of trials. The suggestion is that he would very soon be with Christ if he were to die. Another is found in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, in which the impoverished Lazarus goes “to Abraham’s side” upon his death, while the rich man is shown suffering in Hell, even as his brothers go on living (Lk 16:19-31). This is often understood as a parable and therefore not to be used as a literal depiction of what happens in the afterlife. But, considering that it coheres very well with the rest of the relevant verses, it seems reliable at least on the notion that there is some conscious, personal existence after bodily death.

In the Old Testament, there are also the many references to how, after a figure died, he “was gathered to his people” (Abraham, Gen 25:8), “gathered unto their fathers” (Joshua’s generation, Judg 2:10), “slept with his fathers” (David, 1 Kgs 2:10), etc. There are many other examples. This is less definitive, as it can be understood as simply the burial of his bones in a family tomb or ossuary. There are also, however, references to an apparent expectation of a figure being reunited with loved ones in death. Jacob welcomed death so that he would be reunited with his beloved, supposedly-dead son Joseph (Gen 37:35), and David expected to be reunited with his infant son in death: “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” (2 Sam 12:23)

There are a number of other textual arguments to be made, especially with regard to the actual depiction of the saints in Heaven in the book of Revelation. We will discuss these later.

Those who believe we do not enjoy such conscious existence after death insist on the references to so-called soul sleep. This seems to be the position of Solomon, who writes, “but the dead know not any thing” (Ecc 9:5) and, “there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest” (Ecc 9:10). The typical way of explaining this is by saying that not all the First Temple Hebrews agreed with the resurrection (and, therefore, the possibility of conscious, personal existence after death), and perhaps Solomon was one who did not. But even this is not strictly necessary. All that we need to say, about such passages, is that from the point of view of the living, the dead bodies of our beloved family and friends do no work, and have no knowledge, etc. That much is certainly true.

Paul also routinely speaks as if the soul “sleeps”: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” (1 Thes 4:13–14) But this, you will observe, need not imply that they are literally unconscious; we may just as well say that Paul means simply to be using a euphemism for “dead” or “in the grave.” The resurrection that Paul speaks of is the creation of the “resurrection bodies” of the now-dead, and does not refer to (and is compatible with) a conscious, personal existence in the interim.

My conclusion is that, since there is no easy way to escape the many references to conscious, personal existence immediately after death, and since the Old Testament passages and Paul’s references to the “sleep” of the dead can all be fairly straightforwardly construed in ways consistent with conscious existence, we should affirm that there is such existence, according to the Bible.

2. Do the dead pray to God and intercede for us with him?

If we say we can pray to dead saints—asking them to pray for us, in turn—then we assume that the dead can pray to, or in some other way confer with, God. Now, it needs no special proof to say that angels interact with God, so it is hardly as if God the Father is beyond interaction in the spirit realm. Moreover, Jesus, who is God the Son, was shown interacting with dead saints in the Transfiguration. Finally, Jesus stated outright that the thief on the cross would be with him in Paradise, and presumably interacting again. So, the answer here seems obvious: of course the dead may encounter God and submit petitions to him. But the question goes a bit farther, asking whether the dead saints intercede for us. This is a bit harder.

As it happens, by far the clearest example of this sort of thing can be seen in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, again, because the rich man directly asks something of Abraham from within the torments of Hell:

Luke 16:27–28
Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

Here, the rich man intercedes on behalf of his brothers who are still living. Now, strictly speaking, this is not a prayer from a saint but from one tormented in Hell; and it is not a request of God, but of Abraham. Nevertheless, if it is possible for the damned in Hell to make such a petition, then a fortiori it must be possible for the saints to do the same. All that would remain is that we affirm that the saints could speak directly to God, which as we will see is easy to admit. The problem with this verse is, again, that it is indeed a parable, and therefore a very shaky basis on which to build doctrine.

Other relevant verses are found in the book of Revelation chs. 4–8, which are sometimes called the Throne Room Visions. Here, the Apostle John says he saw a vision of Heaven itself, in which 24 elders—often, if not universally, understood to be the twelve patriarchs of the twelve tribes, together with the twelve apostles—are found surrounding, beholding, and praising God (see Rev 4; cf. 7:9–10 and 13–15). Perhaps the most significant instance often cited of the saints interceding comes here:

Revelation 5:8
And when he [the Lamb, Jesus] had taken the book [of seven seals, from the hand of the enthroned Father], the four beasts and four and twenty elders [i.e., the sons of Israel and the Apostles] fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials [more commonly translated “bowls”] full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.

So here we have 24 figures who are, probably, dead saints, presenting to the Lord in glory bowls which, metaphorically, hold “the prayers of saints.” Yet on examination this is not probative. It is not made clear whose prayers are being so presented, whether those of the elders themselves (which seems very possible) or of some other saints. This matters, because if they are presenting their own petitions, then they are not being shown, in fact, interceding for anyone else. Moreover, even if they are presenting the prayers of other saints, it is not clear where these prayers came from, precisely, nor is it clear whether they are presented individually or en masse. For all we can tell, the elders’ gesture is as much as to say, “Lord, please hear the prayers of the saints! Do not leave them unanswered!” To do this is not to act as a specific intercessor so much as a general advocate, which is different. This matters, too. Suppose, for the sake of argument (though this is never shown nor claimed), that St. John, when still living, prayed to St. Peter, after his death, and Peter never specifically passed on John’s prayer on to God; then John’s prayer to Peter accomplished nothing. John might as well have prayed directly to God, and Peter would still recommend John’s prayers, albeit en masse, along with those of all the other saints. I am very sure this will sound like contemptible quibbling to my Catholic and Orthodox friends, but it is not. It goes directly to the heart of the specific issue in question.

Again, it is not hard to find instances of people making direct petitions to God either in visions or in the afterlife, which we find later in the Throne Room Visions:

Revelation 6:9–10
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God… And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood…?

Here, however, the “souls of them that were slain for the word of God” are not interceding for others, but they are appealing directly to God for justice for themselves.

One last Throne Room vision is quite relevant:

Revelation 8:3–4
And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer… And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.

Here, it is an angel who, metaphorically, presents “the prayers of the saints” directly before God. Since this is a figure who is evidently not a “saint,” there is no question of it being an example of intercession. Yet the other question—whether the angel is being depicted as a specific intercessor for specific saints, or instead a general advocate for all of them at once—remains, and it is crucial to settling the issue.

Let us, then, assess the situation. The fact of the matter is that we can find no clear instance in which (a) a specific individual prays to, or even is simply heard by, a dead saint (or angel); and (b) the dead saint (or angel) presents that individual prayer to God, thereby interceding on behalf of the original person praying. Again, you might say this is quibbling, but I respectfully disagree. It is precisely on this point that we need examples or, barring that, some clear and strong reasoning that conditions (a) and (b) would be satisfied. Otherwise, we would be begging the very question at issue. The fact is that we can find no instances of a person in the Bible praying to dead saints or angels. They make direct requests of angels who speak for the Lord, who are immediately present; but that is different from, and cannot be used to justify a general practice of, praying to angels. Nor can we find any instances of any dead saint or angel passing along a specific prayer of a specific individual to God. The best we can find are general presentations of general prayers. Another example of the latter is found in the prophet Zechariah: “Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem…?” (Zech 1:12)

Here, then, we find a serious impediment to justifying the practice of praying to saints (or angels) for their intercession. Against this, an interesting reply may be urged, namely, that we do, after all, pray for each other. Let us consider this more briefly:

3. It is possible for us to pray for each other, is it not?

James wrote, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (Jas 5:16). We often pray for others—or we should—and we think such prayers might have some good effect. Thus Paul advised Timothy: “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men” (1 Tim 2:1).

“Well then,” an Orthodox or Catholic friend might reply,

this notion of yours that you must find a specific text of (a) a person praying to a saint or angel and (b) that being passed on to God, is shown to be nonsensical. We already know that, of course, we pray for each other. You have established that those dead in the body continue to live in the spirit, some being present even to God, and that such persons can interact with God himself. Simply combine those established, conceded facts with the notion that we pray for each other. Surely it follows that, just for example, some of our dead relatives and friends are praying for us even in Heaven, right now.

While this involves several steps of reasoning, it seems correct. The problem is that the ultimate conclusion, that the dead pass on our prayers to God, does not follow from the bare notion that our friends (or saints who do not know us) may pray for us. Among the living, it makes sense to form prayer chains and request prayers. What remains unsupported is the notion that the dead hear our prayers and specifically pass them on—as if the prayer chain passed across the veil, from the living to the dead.

In two interesting and relevant verses, God commands sinners to seek the prayers of saints. God tells the second Abimelech, in a dream, “Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live” (Gen 20:7). Similarly, God tells Job’s three friends, “My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: … and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept” (Job 42:7–8). What these verses establish very definitively is that God encourages his faithful children to pray for sinners. But, again, it does not follow from this well-established fact that we should pray to our dead friends, asking them to pray for us.

This much is certain: intercessory prayer among the living is a biblically solid and recommended practice.

4. Should or should we not attempt to pray to the saints?

I have saved several essential points until the end. Let us reflect on this: In China and Japan, it is common to reverence and pray to one’s ancestors, who are thought, in the afterlife, to be like minor deities. This is not an especially unusual or novel idea. It can be found, in varying degrees, throughout the world in various religious traditions. The 19th and early 20th century movement of spiritualists attempted to contact the dead, especially dead relatives, in séances and through other highly dubious practices. Now, my point in saying these things is not to compare the practice of praying to the saints to pagan practices. It is to point out that the desire to contact the dead is practically universal. That makes very plausible that we can expect the Bible to (a) demonstrate cognizance of attempts to contact the dead and (b) declare an opinion on that practice.

In fact, the Bible does take notice of attempts to contact the dead. Essentially, the people called “mediums,” in most translations, or having “familiar spirits” in the KJV, were thought to conjure dead spirits from the pit; the Hebrew is אוֹב (ob). The Mosaic law is strongly opposed to this; for example, “A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit [ob], or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death” (Lev 20:27). Similarly, a “spiritist,” in most modern translations, or “wizard” in the KJV, is someone claiming secret knowledge, particularly one knowing about conjuring spirits; by extension, such words are used for “ghost.” Here the Hebrew is יִדְּעֹנִי (yiddeoni), and here a representative law is: “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard [yiddeoni], or a necromancer.” (Deut 18:11) The last word here, translated “necromancer” (KJV), is more explicitly and usually translated as “one who inquires of the dead”; the Hebrew is דֹּרֵשׁ אֶל־הַמֵּתִים (dores el-hammetim).

What is clear, from these texts, is that we absolutely must not seek to conduct a two-way communication with the dead. The most infamous example of this in the Bible is in the passage in which Saul seeks to communicate with his mentor, the prophet Samuel, who had died. Let me say at the outset that this is not just the same as praying to a dead saint; but there is a point to considering the passage. So let us read:

1 Samuel 28:7–8, 11–15
Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit [ob], that I may go to her, and inquire of her. And … they came to the woman by night: and he [Saul] said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit [ob], and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee. … Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice: … And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth. And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself. And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?

The story is worth dwelling on because it dramatically illustrates just how seriously the practice of attempting to communicate with the dead is taken. Later, Saul dies in part for this grave offense:

So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit [ob], to enquire of it; And enquired not of the Lord: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.

Now, the main way in which this differs from praying to the saints is that Saul sought an answer by making use of a medium. When a Catholic prays to Mary or St. Peter, for example, no answer is expected. They are not inquiring of the dead; they are submitting petitions through the dead. Moreover, it does seem as though the inquiring part is what is specifically forbidden, if you will consult the section above.

But I hasten to point out that this does not mean that praying to the dead would have been regarded as consistent with this law. The text is not perfectly clear: it does not address the question. In the word translated “necromancer” or “one who inquires of the dead,” the Hebrew דָּרַשׁ or darash can mean more than asking a question; it can also mean seeking and submitting a petition. In Psalm 34:4, we have “I sought [darash] the LORD, and he heard me”: this was not just a request for information, but for help. The fact cannot be denied that when a person prays to the dead, there is communication in one direction to the dead—and the law states, with the greatest sternness and clarity, that one must not communicate with the dead. Can we conclude from this alone that communication in one direction with the dead is permitted? No, we may not. That just does not follow. And the use of darash suggests, albeit weakly perhaps, that even petitions are forbidden.

We may construct another argument on the point, as follows. Never does the Bible, in either testament, show a prophet or an Apostle praying to the dead. Not even in the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, or the earliest Rabbinic literature (after Christ), are there any prayers to the dead—and this is quite despite the fact that that literature was quite “mystical,” compared to the Old Testament, with much verbiage about angels, demons, and eschatology. You would think that if the practice were current in the intertestamental period, it would appear at least in the adventuresome book of Enoch. But it does not. Moreover, the practice never appeared among Christians until the early 200s A.D., over 150 years after Christ departed the earth. This might be dismissed as an “argument from silence,” but frankly—to put my cards on the table—I think the silence is deeply significant, and speaks volumes. If it were permitted, then considering how common the impulse to speak to the dead is, among fallen humanity, then why was it never approvingly recorded in all of Scripture? Perhaps indeed it was because that would be considered necromancy.

We may expand this argument slightly by pointing out that the practice of praying to the saints was found in the pagan culture surrounding the early Christians. The first figures who wrote about (and recommended) prayers to the dead, the third century figures Clement of Alexandria and Origen (also of Alexandria) carried on their Christian activities (forbidden by the Roman Empire) in contexts that still mostly followed Greek and Egyptian religious practices. Those pre-Christian traditions did pray to heroic, ancestral, and semi-divine figures. The fact of the matter is that it is rather easy to see how the practice of prayer to the saints might have arrived in Christian tradition through cultural influence. Just imagine some Alexandrian Greeks or Carthaginian Romans praying to their ancestors from their childhood; and then, they are converted to Christianity. They might well seek to continue some of their old religious practices, just as, in Paul’s day, some recent Greek converts made excuses for eating meat sacrificed to Greek gods. I am not saying that pagan influence is known for certain. The facts, it seems, are lost to history. But it is possible and, I would argue, quite plausible, that Clement of Alexandria and Origen arrived at their practice of praying to the dead by way of pagan influence. And if that is how the practice originated, and if it did not originate with the Jews, the Apostles, or the Apostolic Fathers—which it does not seem to have done—then the practice would appear to be very suspect, for that reason.

I have saved what is perhaps the best—and most directly relevant—argument for last. Paul wrote to Timothy, explicitly affirming that there was “one mediator between God and men”:

1 Timothy 1:18–19, 2:1–6
This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: … I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

I give the full context of the key point, which I have bolded, to make quite clear what is being said. Paul is exhorting Timothy, whom he has mentored, to abide bravely in the faith. His first duty is to pray for all men, including kings and other leaders, it being “good and acceptable” for Timothy to do so; this is because all should be saved by “God our savior,” with the one and only mediator between the likes of Timothy and God the Father being “the man Christ Jesus.” But this is no merely human mediator: it is no contradiction of previous law on the matter, because Jesus lives and is God himself.

So, in the very context in which we find the earlier-quoted verse that we ought to pray for each other, Paul tells Timothy that there is one mediator, who will intercept and recommend our prayers to the Father. He could have said, “Timothy, when I am dead and gone, then pray to me, Paul, who will be in Heaven, and I will pray to God for you.” He says no such thing. He says, rather, that there is one mediator. No one else should come between you and the Father but the Son.

Isaiah speaks beautifully to the point this way, which again I give in its broader context. Isaiah is speaking in his own voice here, but on behalf of God:

Isaiah 8:16–20
Bind up the testimony [of the law], seal the law among my [Isaiah’s] disciples. And I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.

And when they [Israelites, but esp. any disciples of Isaiah’s] shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: [then reply to them] should not a people [instead] seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? [I.e., as the NASB has it: Should they consult the dead in behalf of the living?] [Go instead] To the law and to the testimony: if they [the unfaithful disciples] speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

The text is a little obscure, but when correctly understood, it is both germane and useful. We might gloss the discourse this way. Isaiah seems to be writing to his disciples or an inner circle, and he instructs them as follows:

[Very loose paraphrase]
Commit yourself to the law and ensure my followers do so as well; they themselves are “signs and wonders” that I am indeed a prophet, speaking on behalf of the Lord of hosts.

If any of the people, through the influence of the pagans among whom they live, tell each other to seek mediums who speak with the dead, then reprimand them. They should seek God, not mediums. Why should they seek the help of the dead for the living? They must be told to go instead to the written law (of Moses and Isaiah’s own witness). Those who are unwilling are benighted.

Similarly, the writer of Hebrews tells us to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb 4:16) If we may consult the very throne of God, why not do so? Why suppose it is appropriate to consult the mere dead as well?

While the weight of argumentation is clear on this question, it seems, I admit that there are no smoking guns. The Catholic and Orthodox practice of praying to the saints must make a certain assumption, and they are happy to make it. Namely, they assume that forbidden necromancy is two-way. When it is forbidden, it not just slightly frowned upon; necromancy is regarded as one of the more serious examples of apostasy in the Bible. But the only difference, as far as the Catholic and Orthodox position goes, is that there is purportedly a response from the dead in necromancy. One has to wonder if they would stop doing it if they actually did receive a response. After all, then it would be necromancy and it would be forbidden—and yet they, having only prayed, would have done nothing different.

I am aware that Catholic and Orthodox theologians would reject what I say regarding what makes necromancy forbidden. “It has nothing to do with being two-way,” they would say. “The problem is that necromancy is driven by occult motives. Petitionary prayer to the saints, by contrast, is neither divinatory nor magical but rooted in love and the communion of saints, i.e., spiritual unity with them.” The problem here is that “occult motives” subtly begs the question of what makes the act forbidden. After all, what motivates the “occult” label is the desire to do something forbidden by the law. Besides, Samuel was certainly a saint, and Saul sought an answer from God through the medium (called the Witch of Endor) and Samuel. We might even say that he wanted to participate in the communion of saints, but for the fact that he was consulting a “medium.” Could we, then, seek answers from the saints through “godly mediums”? Why wouldn’t that be considered necromancy?

Similarly, when my opponents see the 1 Timothy text that says we have “one mediator,” they will respond, “Not only one.” And when they read the many texts that refer to Christ as our intercessor—

Hebrews 7:25
Wherefore he [Christ] is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

Romans 8:34
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Hebrews 9:24
For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.

1 John 2:1
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

they respond, “He’s not our unique intercessor. We have others who can stand between ourselves and God the Father.” I find this unpersuasive.

In summary, there is no clear instance of anyone in the Bible praying to a saint, who in turn passes the prayer along to God, thereby acting as an intercessor. What is clear is that we are not to seek to communicate with the dead. You might reply that praying to the dead is acceptable, as long as one is not seeking a response; but it is not at all clear that this is what the text means. It is quite possible, as far as I can tell, that the laws on necromancy forbid any consultation of the dead. What clarifies this issue in my mind is the fact that nowhere in the Bible is there any instance of a prophet or Apostle praying to or otherwise consulting with the dead, or at least, nor without being severely condemned, as Saul was. The practice did not appear until the third century A.D., quite possibly under the syncretistic influence of Egyptian and Greek religion, which did feature prayers to the dead. Finally, Paul told Timothy to pray directly to God, while Jesus is the “one mediator between God and men.” He echoes what Isaiah told his own followers, namely, that we should not consult the dead on behalf of the living; rather, as the author of Hebrews put it, we should “come boldly unto the throne of grace.”

VI. Is Mary to be given special honor and titles, as a unique intercessor above other saints?

Let us begin by simply applying the foregoing conclusion to the present case: Mary is no intercessor because we have, and need, only one intercessor, the omnipotent and omniscient Christ. Moreover, it is not appropriate to pray the Rosary, for the simple reason that we ought not to pray to dead saints, of which Mary is of course one.

Once such things are off the table, the rest becomes much less important—really, what is left are the issues over which, say, Lutherans might disagree with Baptists. These are not issues that particularly concern me.

For example, I am reasonably comfortable with the title “Mother of God,” as long as we acknowledge that “mother” in this phrase means something very different indeed from what it means with respect to us. Mary did not bring God into existence, in the way that our mothers brought us into existence. God the Son existed before and created Mary; we did not exist before or create our mothers. For more in this general vein, please see my (rather impolite) essay titled, “Five Reductios of Mariolatry.” As I put it there, “She is qualifiedly Mother of God, and not the Queen of Heaven. And certainly not the Spouse of the Holy Spirit.”

Moreover, on the Catholic doctrines of Mariology—Perpetual Virginity, Immaculate Conception (and sinlessness), and the Assumption—I find these unpersuasive. I have no desire to give offense, but, having acquainted myself with some of the reasoning and supporting Scripture behind these doctrines, I find them to be speculative and impossible to justify by Scripture alone. These doctrines, along with others such as Purgatory and papal supremacy, I find to have so little to recommend them that I admit I have simply not looked into them in detail. Even Catholics admit that their justification depends on the notion of the infallibility of church tradition and the Roman Catholic Magisterium (or, more generally, sola ecclesia). If one is committed to sola scriptura (as I am; see Question I above), such a rule of faith is overruled not just by methodology but by the incapability of the rule to be supported by Scripture.

VII. Is it acceptable for churches to display and for congregants to venerate (e.g., kiss, pray before) icons?

Having never been Catholic or Orthodox, this practice is entirely foreign to me, and, like Catholic Mariology, appears to me to have little basis in early Christian sources or Scripture. If it were proper and rooted in the earliest church, as opposed to being a later addition, then we would have images of Christ going back to his day. The reason, however, that we do not know what Jesus looks like is, I think, very straightforward: the Apostles regarded Jesus as the divine Son of God, and hence to make depictions of his likeness would run afoul of the Second Commandment:

Exodus 20:4–5
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them…

A painting or sculpture of him would be a depiction of the ascended God the Son, and we are commanded not to make likenesses of things that are “in heaven above.”

The reason for this injunction is to discourage the weak-minded from worshiping the image rather than God himself. Thus, when the Lord was represented by the Israelite northern kingdom with a pair of statues of golden calves (see 1 Kings 12:28–30), then “this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.” (v30) It does not require much acuity to see this was a straightforward repetition of the idolatry at the foot of Mount Sinai (Ex 32), for which the people were harshly punished, as an example to future generations.

My view is that this is probably not merely a ceremonial law, but is instead a moral law. I am not aware of any straightforward textual basis for this assertion, insofar as it is applied to the worship of the Lord. But there are some relevant arguments to make. Those who made representations of their gods did tend toward a reductionistic notion of them, thinking of them as actually having human or animal forms. Thus, the young and feeble-minded might be encouraged to think of Yahweh as taking the form of a calf or bull, which would be thoroughly wicked. This has little to do with the specific ritual or ceremonial aspects of the Hebrew religion, but with the more general respect owed to God. Moreover, the idolatry of Israel (the two golden calves) was regarded as a very serious sin, meriting generational curse; arguably, such a curse would point to a moral, not merely a ceremonial (ritual, formal) matter. As such, we would seem to be obligated to follow the Second Commandment today, even as applied to Jesus, who could have been depicted, should someone have so chosen. For what it’s worth, Paul reiterated the Second Commandment (“Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry”: 1 Cor 10:14), as did John (“Little children, keep yourselves from idols”: 1 John 5:21). Of course, I know how Catholics and Orthodox believers would reply: icons are not idols, and veneration of icons is not idolatry. Thus, as a direct argument against icon veneration, it is not very strong; but it does support the idea that the Second Commandment is a moral commandment and, thus, still in effect.

For the sake of clarity, we ought to distinguish between two functions of depictions of Jesus: for worship or adoration, and for narrative or other purposes. Drawing the distinction really depends on to what purpose a depiction of Jesus (say) is put. If an icon not only stands in a church building, but is specifically venerated, it is precisely this (according to the above argument) that seems contrary to the intent of the Second Commandment. The question is whether all depictions of the crucifixion (for example) are necessarily ruled out by the commandment; it seems to me the answer is “no, not necessarily.” At least, as often used across denominations today, such depictions serve a decorative, dignifying, and identifying function. Stained glass windows depicting Christ and saints might appropriately adorn and beautify a building, showing that it is indeed a Christian church. Again, the difficulties begin when such depictions become the center or focus of some period of worship (whether it is dubbed dulia is irrelevant: the question is what is actually being done). This, it seems to me, is explicitly forbidden by the commandment.

Thus, venerating, kneeling before, praying before, or kissing an icon strikes me—as it does Protestants generally—as straightforwardly violating the words, “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them”. Hence, with all due respect to my Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters, my answer to this question is “no.”

Footnotes

1. Joel 2:28–29; Isa 32:15, 44:3; Ezek 36:26–27, 39:29.[↩]
2. I can illustrate the methodological principle in play by pointing out that I also have no taste for speculation about orders of angels and demons, the nature of heaven and hell, etc., for similar reasons.[↩]
3. This is introduced with various terminology. Bertrand Russell introduced the distinction of knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Others speak of personal versus declarative knowledge.[↩]