Entry 171 - Praying to the Dead

12/30/19

Let's use a court case as an example to better illustrate an example of using a chain of subjectivity to defend one's doctrine. Say Bob was accused of running a red light. Then witness A says in court he saw Bob run a red light. But then John, who wasn't even there, says he felt in his heart that Witness B who was there when Bob ran the red light, is a good person and therefore a good witness, and believes the testimony of Witness B that Bob would never do such a thing because he is a good person in his heart. Obviously you are going to believe witness A rather than John, who wasn't even there! I mean it would've helped to have Witness B there, but even then, if Witness B isn't going to relay the objective facts and only use his subjective perception of the character of Bob, then that also isn't a very good defense against Witness A! 

That is what is happening with the doctrinal arguments of the Bible in regard to praying to the dead. I'm not saying one is completely false and one is completely true, but that they both have aspects of subjectivity, however one is using a chain of subjectivity while the other is using a mixture of objectivity and subjectivity. I could look at these verses and see it a certain way, and then a Catholic can look at these same verses and see them in a completely different way. But I would use different verses to defend my position, and Orthodox and Catholics would possibly use different verses to defend their position. 

I would use the verse where Jesus says "pray in this way" and then says "Our Father who art in heaven" while Orthodox and Catholics would probably use the verse in Revelation where the martyrs are offering up their prayers to God as a reason to pray to the deceased because they are up there still praying and can intercede for us much better than we can. If we are speaking solely in terms that are objective, non-bias, non-Christian, historically, archaeologically, with witnesses and so forth, the "Our Father who art in heaven verse" has more than two or three witnesses (different gospels mentioning the same words from Jesus), making it a little less likely to be completely subjective and much more likely to have an objective component. 

However, speaking from the same lens of objectivity in regard to the verse recorded in Revelation having no witnesses and only experienced subjectively by John on the island of Patmos, it is not as strong solely on the premise of objectivity. (One happened outwardly, and multiple people recorded it, the other was a vision that happened inwardly and was already subjective). 

The latter requires one to have faith that John's vision was from God and was correct. And on top of that, the verse in Revelation never explicitly tells us to pray to the dead, so with those two premises, it's probably a better idea to only pray to God.  So as stated above, the Orthodox and Catholics are using a chain of subjectivity to defend their doctrine, but they definitely aren't the only ones who do so. It takes time to be conscious of this, but once one is, it's hard to not see a chain of subjectivity being used to defend an argument.