Stock Protestant objections to the practice of invoking the saints to pray for us have been around for quite some time: “Jesus is the one mediator,” “we shouldn’t communicate with the dead,” “the dead can’t hear us,” etc. And a plethora of successful responses have been given. So, whenever a non-stock objection comes along, it’s quite nice.
Protestant apologist Gavin Ortlund has provided us such an opportunity. In his video, “Praying to the Saints: A Protestant Critique,” he argues that when we consider “how the prayers to the saints actually played out” in medieval piety, we discover that it led to many distortions.
Ortlund gives several examples. I can’t quote them all. But here are some relevant excerpts that include the primary “distortion” that concerns him:
“Lord, we ask that Thou, placated by the intercession of all Thy saints . . . We pray thee, Lord, that the merits of blessed Mary, who is both perpetually a virgin and the bearer of God, may attend us and always implore Thy forgiveness for us” (Cursus Honarum of the Blessed Virgin Mary, according to the Ordinarium of the Church of Hildeshelm).
“O noble Mary, excellent above all, procure for us forgiveness.”
“O holy virgin Mary, and all the saints and elect of God, come to aid me, wretched one, now and in the hour of my death, and make the Lord our God propitious to me by your merits and prayers.”
“Through you forgiveness is granted to the guilty” (Sequence to Our Lady and Sequence in Praise of the Virgin).
For Ortlund, the above invocations are “inherently wrong” and in “error” because the soteriology (study of salvation) embedded within them is flat-out contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. As he puts it, “it is subtracting from the sufficiency of Christ because the specific tasks that are the property of Christ in the gospel are being assigned to Mary here.” Which tasks? Procuring the forgiveness of sins and propitiating or placating God, which, for Ortlund, can be done only by the death of Jesus on the cross.
It’s because of these distortions, Ortlund explains, that Protestants, including himself, are concerned with the practice of invoking the intercession of the saints. And such a concern is good enough reason for him not to engage in the practice, at least when combined with the lack of New Testament and early Christian evidence that Christians requested that the saints in heaven pray for them.
We’ll set aside for now Ortlund’s concern about the lack of early evidence for invocations. It’s his concern about these so-called distortions, and his reasoning about them, that I would like to focus on here.
Assuming for argument’s sake that these requests are distortions, notice how Ortlund concludes that we shouldn’t invoke the saints’ help because such invocations have played out in a way that violate the Bible’s teaching on salvation—namely, that we are forgiven of our sins through the merits of Jesus’ death on the cross.
Now, one might think Ortlund is guilty of committing the association fallacy, which asserts that the quality of some things within a category (when not essential to the things within the category) is a quality of all things within that category. If Ortlund were to conclude that all invocations of the saints are violations of the gospel because some were, then he would be guilty of fallacious reasoning. But Ortlund simply argues that such invocations can lead to violations, and on this basis, he chooses not to engage in the practice.
But why should we reject the invocation of the saints simply because some invocations lead to a violation of the gospel (again, assuming that the above invocations are violations of the gospel)? We don’t reject interpreting Scripture just because some interpretations lead people to destruction (2 Pet. 3:15-16). Nor do we reject the practice of religion simply because some who practice it do so in a way that leads to unjust conflict and violence.
Concerning the interpretation of Scripture, we realize that it’s not interpretation that leads to destruction. Rather, it’s specific interpretations along with whatever method the interpreter is using. Similarly, when it comes to religion, we realize that it’s not religion that leads to conflict and violence. Rather, it’s the perversion of religion by the one causing unjust conflict and violence.
The same line of reasoning applies to the so-called “distorted” invocations of the saints. In the examples Ortlund gave, it would be the specific requests that are “distorted” and the soteriological beliefs driving these specific requests. And if that’s the case, there’s no need for Ortlund to persuade others away from the practice of invoking the saints’ intercession. There could be some invocations that are not problematic and thus worthy of Christian practice.
Now, this response assumes that the requests in the above excerpts are actual “distortions.” But we have good reason to think they’re not.
Recall that Ortlund is concerned with the invocations because they take away from the sufficiency of Christ insofar as they attempt to procure the forgiveness of sins from and propitiate or placate God. Notice the hidden assumption: nobody except Christ can procure the forgiveness of sins from God or propitiate him.
If by “procure” Ortlund has primary causality in mind, then we agree. Only Christ is the efficient cause of the forgiveness of sins. But that’s not how the above excerpts should be read. The “procuring” is by way of request. In other words, the above prayers are simply asking Mary to pray that God would forgive us of our sins.
Is it okay for Mary to do this? Well, it’s not at all different from Paul praying, “May the Lord grant [onesiphorus] to find mercyfrom the Lord on that Day [the Day of Judgment]” (2 Tim. 1:18). If Paul can pray for a Christian to be forgiven by God, so can Mary. And if it’s okay for Mary to do this, then the above requests made of Mary is not a “distortion” of the gospel.
Concerning the request that Mary would propitiate or placate God, all this entails is a request that Mary would ask God to be more favorable to us. If Paul and Mary can ask God to forgive our sins, which is just one way in which God can be favorable to us, then Paul and Mary can ask God to be favorable to us in other ways.
As much as I appreciate Ortlund’s honest and charitable expression of his concerns with the Catholic practice of the invocation of the intercession of the saints, when it’s thought through, the concern dealt with in this article doesn’t justify a rejection of invoking the saints. Not only are the requests in the excerpts not violations of the gospel, which is a major motivation behind his concern, but his reasoning is fallacious even if we grant that these requests are perversions. If Ortlund wants to justify his rejection of the practice of invoking the saints, he’s going to have to ground himself in better arguments.
***This article was originally published by Catholic Answers Magazine Online, September 19, 2023.