Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

Does God Pick the Pope?

DoesGodPickthePope

When Pope Benedict was elected in 2005, I was overjoyed.

As much as I loved John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger spoke to me in a special way, and I was thrilled when he became pope.

I was puzzled, though, by the way people began announcing him as “God’s choice” and speaking as if—in every conclave—the Holy Spirit himself selects the pope.

It’s customary for people to speak that way in the jubilation that occurs whenever a new people is elected.

I knew that, but this was the first conclave I witnessed as an adult, and as a Catholic, and I hadn’t experienced it first hand.

That kind of language is understandable as a way of building confidence for the new pontificate, but is it literally true?

Does the Holy Spirit really select the best possible man for the job, or is it a form of pious hyperbole?

Common Sense

Common sense would suggest the latter. The cardinals in a conclave certainly invoke the Holy Spirit and seek his guidance, but he does not override their free will.

We’ve had some really bad popes in the history of the Church, and not just ones like Peter who made mistakes and then repented.

We’ve had some genuinely bad actors in the papacy (for example, Benedict IX, who reigned three different times between 1032 and 1048).

So in what sense can the election of a pope be said to be God’s will?

Divine Providence

Everything that happens in history takes place under God’s providential care.

By his omnipotence, God could stop any event from occurring, and so if something happens, it’s because God allows it.

The election of a pope thus can be said to be God’s will in the sense that any historical event can.

In this broad sense, however, the fact that something is God’s will does not guarantee that he approves of it.

It may be God’s will to allow a man to commit adultery, but that doesn’t mean he approves of the adultery.

Is the election of a pope in accord with God’s will only in this minimal sense or does it involve something greater?

Divine Guidance

While God does not override human free will, he does offer guidance. Jesus gave the Church certain promises in this regard, stating:

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth (John 16:13).

And:

Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age (Matt. 28:20).

God has thus promised to give the Church his guidance. He has also promised it to individuals:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him (James 1:5).

If an individual man seeks God’s guidance, he can count on it being given. This does not mean it will be easy to hear or understand, or that the man will act on it, but it does mean that God will offer his assistance in some way.

Similarly, when the college of cardinals seeks God’s guidance in a conclave, they can be confident he will give it. Indeed, given the weightiness of the decision facing the cardinals and the implications it will have for the entire Church, they can expect he will provide even greater guidance.

This does not guarantee that the guidance will be easy to hear or understand, or that the cardinals will act on it, but it does mean that God’s assistance will be provided.

By presuming the discernment and good will of the cardinals, we may presume the man they elect was chosen in accord with God’s guidance and thus that his election was God’s will in a greater way than if God merely allowed it.

A Marriage Analogy

We should be careful about assuming that there is only one correct choice for pope, for the process of selecting a pope is similar to the process of selecting a spouse.

Pop culture sometimes promotes the idea that everyone has a soul mate—a single, best individual that they should marry—but the reality is more complex.

Each marriage prospect has different strengths and weaknesses, and depending on who you choose, your marriage will unfold in different ways. But that doesn’t mean there is a single, best candidate you must find.

Even if there is, identifying that person with confidence cannot be humanly accomplished, given the number of factors and the number of unknowns in play.

Similarly, candidates for the papacy have different strengths and weaknesses. Depending on who the cardinals choose, the next papacy will unfold in different ways. But there may not be a single, best choice—or one that is humanly knowable.

After the Choice is Made

Once a selection has been made, however, a new mode of divine will comes into play.

In the case of a marriage, once you exchange vows, it is God’s will that you treat that person as your spouse.

The realm of possibilities that existed before has now reduced to a single person, and that person is your divinely ordained spouse. He ordained that you be spouses in the moment the vows were exchanged, and “what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matt. 19:6).

It’s now your job to make the marriage work, not to worry about what-ifs and might-have-beens.

Similarly, when a man accepts his election as pope, he becomes the divinely ordained pope, and it’s now everyone’s job in the Church to support him in the various ways that are appropriate to their station and to make the papacy work.

Spouses are not perfect, and neither are popes. Just as every marriage has challenges and requires work, so does every papacy.

Cardinal Ratzinger’s Views

When he was still a cardinal, Benedict XVI acknowledged the fact that cardinals can elect sub-optimal popes in an interview with German television back in 1997.

When asked whether the Holy Spirit is responsible for the election of a pope, he said:

I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the pope. . . . I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined (John Allen, The Rise of Benedict XVI, 6).

He continued:

There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!

Similarly, in his final address to the college of cardinals, Pope Benedict stated:

Before I say goodbye to each one of you personally, I would like to tell you that I shall continue to be close to you with my prayers, especially in these coming days, that you may be completely docile to the action of the Holy Spirit in the election of the new pope. May the Lord show you the one whom he wants.

Benedict’s prayer that they will be docile to the Holy Spirit indicates the possibility that they will not be docile.

Implications for the Future

Nobody knows when the next conclave will be, but we can draw several implications from all this.

First, we can be confident from the fact that the cardinals seek God’s guidance that he will give it to them, as he has promised.

Second, even if they make a sub-optimal choice, we can be confident that God will ultimately bring good out of it, for “in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom. 8:28; cf. CCC 311).

Third, we need to pray. We need to pray now that good cardinals will be chosen, and when they meet in conclave, we need to pray that they will earnestly seek and heed God’s guidance.

Does the Second Coming Mean We’ll Never Have Space Colonies? (And More!)

In this episode of Catholic Answers Live (March 8, 2018, both hours), Jimmy answers the following questions:

00:07 What are the Orthodox objections to the Filioque (“and the Son”) clause in the Creed, and what are reasonable responses?

09:52 What is the history of sacrificing animals to God?

17:14 Were the Great Flood and other Bible stories ripped off from the Sumerians?

28:47 What should one make of Fr. Raymond Brown and the Jerome Biblical Commentary?

34:58 Are all our future sins forgiven? How to answer this claim?

44:51 What is the status of the Johannine Comma? Is it inspired and part of the Bible?

51:51 What are some recent philosophers that we can learn from the same way that Aquinas learned from Aristotle?

1:02:14 Does Jesus returning to earth for the Second Coming mean that mankind will never establish colonies on other planets?

1:09:50 How to disagree with the pope without making it seem we’re anti-pope or “popier-than-the-pope”?

1:20:48 Could the Internet cloud be the Beast and our smart devices be the mark of the Beast?

1:29:53 If Mary was conceived without original sin, why did she die? Would Jesus have been spared a natural death if he hadn’t been crucified?

1:34:54 Does everything that occurs in our lives have a special divine purpose or do some things not have a special purpose?

1:39:34 What is the difference between development of doctrine and changing doctrine? Can doctrine ever change and become the opposite?

1:46:58 Did God instruct Abraham to perform an intrinsically evil act with the sacrifice of Isaac? How does this relate to God’s goodness?

Watch the Video on YouTube!

Jesus and the Mystery of the Bronze Serpent

7_brass-serpent-crucifixion In this live stream, I tackle the following questions:

00:01 How to understand Jesus’ reference to the bronze serpent in the desert? (John 3)

07:39 How can a Protestant with an illness receive healing through the Catholic sacraments?

18:09 If God used evolution to produce the human race, were Adam and Eve’s parents non-humans, and would they have had souls?

21:15 If a Catholic wants to marry an atheist, what does the Catholic need to do in terms of the wedding, etc.?

23:30 Should the Church mandate the Tridentine, Latin Mass for everyone to restore reverence?

29:27 Did Jesus appear to Mary after the Resurrection?

31:44 What’s the difference between being unworthy to receive Communion and receiving Communion unworthily?

34:43 What does Paul mean by “works of the Law” in Romans 3:28, given that he talks about sin and morals earlier in the chapter?

44:25 Who is the greatest member of the Legion of Super-Heroes?

45:34 Who created the Nefilim or giants in the Old Testament?

49:24 Is danger of death the only situation in which Protestants can receive Communion in a Catholic church?

52:05 How to answer Bart Ehrman’s charge that the New Testament contains contradictions that undermine Christian claims?

1:02:08 Why did John the Baptist call Jesus the Lamb of God? How did he know this title?

Praying for the Past: Another View

AdobeStock_115388656 Can we pray for God to help someone in the past?

The Church has no teaching on this subject—one way or another—and intelligent, orthodox Catholics can have different opinions.

My good friend and colleague Tim Staples recently wrote a piece arguing that praying for those in the past doesn’t make sense.

I have a different opinion, as I’ve discussed on my personal blog (see part 1 and part 2).

Here I’d like to do a quick recap and then interact with Tim’s objections.

The Basic Idea

Praying for past events can involve three principles:

God is eternal, existing outside of time in an eternal now
God is omniscient, knowing what is happening in every moment in time
God is omnipotent, being able to affect every moment in time

The last two principles are the most important. We’ll see later that the first isn’t essential.

But using all three: If I pray for someone now, in 2018, then God knows about my prayer in the eternal now, and, from there, he can affect any moment in history—whether past, present, or future.

An Example

Fifty years ago, in 1968, one of my grandmothers died of breast cancer. I only have dim memories of her, and I don’t know much about her spiritual life.

I could pray, if she is in purgatory, for God to aid her purification, but I don’t know if she was close to God in life and thus likely to die in his friendship.

I do know God loved her and, even in her dying moments, could give her the grace to make a choice for him.

I also know that God is aware of my prayers. Therefore, today—in 2018—if I ask God to help my grandmother as she lay dying, God will hear my prayer in the eternal now, and from there he is capable of giving her his grace in 1968.

It thus makes sense to me to pray for her dying moments, though they are in the past from my perspective.

I’m not the only one who’s thought this makes sense. Figures such as Padre Pio and C.S. Lewis have said the same thing, and there is traction for the idea in the private revelations of St. Faustina.

Now let’s look at Tim’s arguments.

Argument #1: Changing the Past

Much of Tim’s post warns against the idea of changing the past. Some might think that, by praying for God to do something in the past, we are asking him to change what happened.

Tim is right to object to this line of thought.

But by praying for my grandmother, I’m not asking God to change what happened in 1968. It’s not like there was an original timeline in which my grandmother died outside of his friendship and I asked for him to erase that timeline and replace it with one where she didn’t.

In 1968, my grandmother either died in God’s friendship or she didn’t. I’m not asking him to change what happened. But since I don’t know which happened, I’m asking him to give his graces to her when she died.

In other words, I’m asking him to affect that moment, not change that moment.

I thus agree with Tim (and Aquinas, whom he quotes) that once a timeline exists from God’s perspective, it cannot change. That’s not what I’m asking.

Argument #2: The Church’s Liturgy

Tim argues that the Church’s liturgy does not include prayers for past events, and that’s true as far as I know, though I haven’t done a check of its present and past liturgical texts to see.

This doesn’t mean praying about the past is nonsensical or prohibited. In addition to liturgical prayer, the Church has a rich tradition of private devotions and private prayer.

Further, the Church’s tradition is living, and if someone realizes a new form of prayer is possible, it will be allowed under Christian liberty unless it can be shown to be impermissible.

Also, the Church’s liturgy incorporates prayer that isn’t explored in the official texts. That’s what “the prayers of the faithful” are for at Mass.

There are countless topics not mentioned in the Roman Missal (e.g., frozen embryos in fertility clinics, people dying in airplane crashes, astronauts on the International Space Station), and it’s permissible to intercede concerning these during the prayers of the faithful.

In fact, if a priest invites the faithful to offer their own petitions, I would be perfectly free to say, “For my grandmother in her dying moments, we pray to the Lord”—unless someone shows why I can’t.

Until that’s shown, it seems such prayers can find a place in the liturgy at these times.

Argument #3: The Practice of the Church

Tim argues that “the practice of the Church would seem to exclude prayer for the past as a valid option for Catholics. The Church never prays for people in the past other than what we find, for example, in the Catechism in the section on purgatory.”

However, the Catechism isn’t a treatise on everything permitted for Catholics. It is, as its name indicates, a catechetical text—one that provides basic instruction on what the Church teaches. By its nature, it doesn’t go into speculative topics or matters of permitted theological opinion.

The Catechism isn’t meant to be used with an “if not mentioned, then not permitted” hermeneutic. That would shut down the entire enterprise of theology, which by its nature goes beyond basic catechesis.

And when we look at the practice of the Church, we do find individual Catholics—e.g., Saint Padre Pio—praying for people in the past without censure from Church authority.

Argument #4: The Disservice Argument

Tim argues that if it’s possible to pray for the past, then the Church has done a disservice to past souls by not praying for them in the liturgy.

There are several responses.

First, theology develops over time, and we can’t expect earlier ages to use practices only thought of later.

The first Christians didn’t think of reserving the Eucharist in tabernacles for the faithful’s adoration, but we can’t say the Church did a disservice to prior Christians by not having thought of this earlier.

If the idea of praying for the past is only now gaining popularity, the Church hasn’t done a disservice up to now.

Second, the Church does pray for every soul. The Catechism explains:

The Church prays that no one should be lost: “Lord, let me never be parted from you.” If it is true that no one can save himself, it is also true that God “desires all men to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4), and that for him “all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26) (1058).

This doesn’t explore how God may apply his grace to souls. It leaves that up to God. But the Church does pray for every soul.

Third, the Church has always prayed for people in the current day. In 1968, the Church was praying (implicitly or explicitly) for my grandmother as she lay dying.

Thus, there are no souls left out of the Church’s intercession.

Fundamentally, the Church favors praying for the salvation of souls, and unless a compelling reason is shown why I shouldn’t, the Church favors me praying for my grandmother’s salvation.

Argument #5: God’s Eternity

Tim’s final argument deals with the nature of God’s eternity. It’s too complex to describe here, and I don’t share all of Tim’s premises.

We both agree God is eternal (outside of time), but we differ on the nature of time. He holds that only the present exists, while I hold the past and future also exist (see here).

However, for the sake of argument, I can grant everything he proposes about time and eternity.

So let me eject from my argument the fact God is eternal and focus just on his omniscience and omnipotence. Even if (per impossible) God were not outside of time, the following would be true:

In 1968, as my grandmother lay dying, God would know (by his omniscience) that in 2018 I would be praying for her happy death.
In 1968, God would be capable (by his omnipotence) of giving her his grace.
Therefore, in 1968, God would know about my 2018 prayer (by his omniscience) and be capable of granting it (by his omnipotence).

Eternity doesn’t need to be brought into the discussion. Neither does the reality of the future year 2018. God could still, in 1968, grant the prayer I would one day make, so my prayer makes sense.

A Marian Postscript

Tim also discusses an objection some might make concerning Mary’s Immaculate Conception: Didn’t God give her this grace early based on what her Son would later do?

Tim says that he did and that this did not involve changing the past.

He is entirely correct. God did—around 17 B.C.—give graces to Mary in anticipation of what her Son would accomplish in A.D. 33.

In the same way, God could—in 1968—give graces to my grandmother in anticipation of what I would ask in 2018.

There’s more Tim and I could say, but I hope this has been an illuminating discussion of a topic on which Catholics may hold different views.

What to Do if You Want to Believe but Aren’t Sure? And More! (Live Stream)

Faith-and-Doubt-2

In my first live streaming from home, I tackle these questions:

03:53 Why did Jesus tell the disciples to take swords but then stop them from using them?

08:25 Why do we trust the Eucharist for eternal salvation?

09:08 What should you do if you want to believe but feel torn between Christianity and skepticism?

18:09 Why the fish on Fridays rule?

21:04 If you aren’t sure whether you believe, can you go to Communion?

23:49 What to make of total consecration according to St. Louis de Montfort?

25:14 What to make of Pelagius?

27:06 How to reconcile the accounts of Saul’s conversion in Acts?

29:46 How to explain we need the Church for the Real Presence?

31:50 How can the Woman in Revelation 12 be Mary when others think she’s Israel? How can she experience pain in childbirth if Mary didn’t?

New Vatican Document on Salvation: Top Ten Things to Know

salvation_intro_at_the_cross The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has released a new document on the subject of salvation.

The CDF is the department at the Vatican charged with looking out for doctrinal errors, and it does not release documents very often.

1) Why was the document released?

On March 1, the prefect and secretary of the CDF—Archbishops Luis Ladaria and Giacomo Morandi—held a press conference in which they announced the new document.

The document can be read online here.

Archbishop Ladaria explained that the document arose after some theologians asked the Congregation to further examine themes discussed in its earlier document on salvation, Dominus Iesus (2000).

This document proved controversial because it explained the Church’s faith in Jesus Christ as the unique Savior of mankind, which some took as a slight to non-Christian religions.

The new document—Placuit Deo (Latin, “It has pleased God”)—reaffirms Christian teaching on Jesus as “the only Savior of the whole human person and of all humanity” (n. 2), but it does not dwell on the issue.

Instead, it focuses on two problematic tendencies in modern society that Pope Francis has called attention to, comparing them to the ancient heresies of Pelagianism and Gnosticism.

2) What is Pelagianism?

Pelagianism was a heresy which minimized or denied the need for God’s grace in avoiding sin and achieving salvation.

It is named after Pelagius, a monk from the British isles who lived in the 300s and 400s.

Pelagianism was fought by St. Augustine and others, and it was condemned at a variety of councils.

The new document, Placuit Deo, explains:

According to the Pelagian heresy, developed during the fifth century around Pelagius, the man, in order to fulfil the commandments of God and to be saved, needs grace only as an external help to his freedom (like light, for example, [or] power), not like a radical healing and regeneration of the freedom, without prior merit, until he can do good and reach the eternal life (fn. 9).

3) What is Gnosticism?

Gnosticism was a heresy that arose in the second and third century. It took many different forms.

Gnostics claimed to have special knowledge about the nature of the world and an alleged hierarchy of divine, celestial beings.

They commonly saw the material world as evil, being produced by an inferior divine power who was identified with the God of the Old Testament.

Salvation consisted in liberation from the flesh by embracing the gnostic message.

4) Is Gnosticism the belief that we are “saved through knowledge”?

No. This common claim is a mistake based on where the word “gnostic” comes from (gnosis, one of the Greek words for knowledge) and that ignores what gnostics actually believed.

Religions generally see a connection between salvation and knowledge. They hold people need to know what to do to be saved:

In Christianity, people need to know and act on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In Buddhism, people need to recognize the Four Noble Truths and follow the Eightfold Path.
In Islam, people need to know and submit to the will of God.

Each of these religions could be called “gnostic” if all you mean by that is that they think people need knowledge to be saved.

What makes Gnosticism distinct is not its belief that knowledge is important for salvation. It’s the specific content of the knowledge they thought would let one achieve salvation. The CDF explains:

In general, the gnostics believed that the salvation is obtained through an esoteric knowledge or gnosis. Such gnosis reveals to the gnostic his true essence, i.e., a spark of the divine spirit that lives inside him, which has to be liberated from the body, external to his true humanity. Only in this manner, the gnostic returns to his original being in God from whom he has turned away due to a primordial fall (fn. 9).

5) What are the tendencies in modern society that the CDF warns against in the new letter?

The first tendency is a kind of self-sufficient individualism that doesn’t properly appreciate the role of Jesus in salvation:

On one hand, individualism centered on the autonomous subject tends to see the human person as a being whose sole fulfilment depends only on his or her own strength.

In this vision, the figure of Christ appears as a model that inspires generous actions with his words and his gestures, rather than as he who transforms the human condition by incorporating us into a new existence, reconciling us with the Father and dwelling among us in the Spirit (n. 2).

The second tendency is a kind of isolationism that conceives of salvation as an exclusively personal thing that involves only the individual and God. This is sometimes called a “just me and Jesus” attitude, and it does not appreciate our obligations toward others and the world:

On the other hand, a merely interior vision of salvation is becoming common, a vision which, marked by a strong personal conviction or feeling of being united to God, does not take into account the need to accept, heal, and renew our relationships with others and with the created world (ibid.).

6) How has Pope Francis spoken of these tendencies?

The CDF explains:

Pope Francis, in his ordinary magisterium, often has made reference to the two tendencies described above, that resemble certain aspects of two ancient heresies, Pelagianism and Gnosticism.

A new form of Pelagianism is spreading in our days, one in which the individual, understood to be radically autonomous, presumes to save oneself, without recognizing that, at the deepest level of being, he or she derives from God and from others. . . .

On the other hand, a new form of Gnosticism puts forward a model of salvation that is merely interior, closed off in its own subjectivism. . . .

It presumes to liberate the human person from the body and from the material universe, in which traces of the provident hand of the Creator are no longer found (n. 3).

7) In speaking of these tendencies as Pelagianism and Gnosticism, is the pope being literal?

No. The CDF explains:

Clearly, the comparison with the Pelagian and Gnostic heresies intends only to recall general common features, without entering into judgments on the exact nature of the ancient errors. . . .

However, insofar as Gnosticism and Pelagianism represent perennial dangers for misunderstanding biblical faith, it is possible to find similarities between the ancient heresies and the modern tendencies just described (n. 3).

8) What does the CDF see as the antidotes to these problems?

A complete discussion can be found by reading the document in full, but put concisely:

Contra individualism (“neo-Pelagianism”), we cannot rely simply on ourselves for salvation (e.g., by trying to be morally good person). God’s grace in Jesus Christ is essential for salvation. The sacraments are means by which God gives us his grace.
Contra isolationism (“neo-Gnosticism”), salvation is not a purely private and spiritual matter. We must take seriously our responsibilities toward other Christians, the Church, and all of creation.

9) Are there any particularly interesting points the document discusses?

One is a rejection of the common idea that our final destiny is to live as disembodied spirits with God in heaven. While we may be disembodied before the final resurrection, the document reminds us that, “total salvation of the body and of the soul is the final destiny to which God calls all of humanity” (n. 15).

Another point, which will be particularly interesting for Protestant Christians, is the document’s acknowledgement that Mary is “first among the saved” (n. 15), meaning that she also is a recipient of God’s grace (cf. CCC 508).

10) Did we have any idea this document was coming?

Yes. In his annual address to the CDF last January, Pope Francis mentioned it.

He also mentioned that the CDF has been doing a study of Christian principles and economics and another study on euthanasia and the care of the terminally ill.

We may soon see documents on those subject also.

No Doubt About It: Jesus Was a Miracle Worker, and Everyone Knew It

Akin-EHRMAN1 Despite their disagreements, both believing and skeptical Bible scholars can agree on certain things about the life of Jesus.

One of these is that, during his day, Jesus had a reputation as a miracle-worker. Accounts of his healings, exorcisms, and other miracles are found throughout the Gospels.

While skeptical scholars may dismiss miracles like the Feeding of the Five Thousand, the Walking on Water, and the Resurrection, even they admit that the evidence we have points to Jesus performing healings and exorcisms.

Not that they believe these were genuinely supernatural, but they’re prepared to concede that Jesus engaged in activities similar to those of modern faith-healers and exorcists, that some of the people he ministered to reported a relief of their symptoms, and that he thus gained a reputation as a wonder-worker.

However, Bart Ehrman—ever a contrarian—begs to differ.

Ehrman’s View

In his book, Jesus Before the Gospels, Ehrman writes:

I want to consider whether it is absolutely certain that Jesus was already understood to be a miracle worker even in his own day, prior to his death.

My view of that question is a minority position, but one that I want to explain.

I think the answer is no.

I am not saying that I know for certain that Jesus was not considered a miracle worker during his life. But I do think there are grounds for doubt (p. 221).

To say that his position is a minority one is an understatement. I can’t think of anyone—outside the realm of mythicists who don’t think Jesus even existed—who doesn’t hold that Jesus had a reputation as a miracle worker.

So how does Ehrman argue his case? He says:

Let me begin by making two points that I think everyone can agree on: (a) With the passing of time, Jesus’s miracle-working abilities became increasingly pronounced in the tradition, to an exorbitant extent; and (b) the stories of his miracles were always told in [sic] to make a theological point (or more than one point) about him (ibid.).

Based on these two points, Ehrman makes two general arguments.

Ehrman’s First Argument

In essence, the first argument is that—after Jesus’ death—stories about his miracles grew over time, both in terms of the sheer number of them and in how impressive the reported miracles were.

From that, one could infer that, the earlier you go, the fewer and the less impressive the miracle stories would be. And, Ehrman would suggest, perhaps there were none at all in Jesus’ lifetime.

To back up the initial premise of this argument, he writes:

That Jesus’s miracle-working abilities increased the more Christians told stories about him should be pretty obvious to anyone familiar with the noncanonical Gospels.

In chapter 1 I referred to some of the striking accounts: as a newborn Jesus was a walking, healing Son of God; as an infant he ordered palm trees to bend down to provide his mother with some fruit; as a five-year-old he could make mud sparrows come to life, wither playmates who got on his nerves, and kill with a word teachers he found irritating; after his miraculous life, at his resurrection he emerged from the tomb as tall as a mountain; and on and on.

These, of course, are simply the narratives I’ve already mentioned—not the sum total of what one can find in the accounts (ibid.).

Here Ehrman refers to things reported in several noncanonical gospels. The childhood-related stories come from the Infancy Gospel of Matthew (aka Pseudo-Matthew) and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

The reference to his being as tall as a mountain when he came out of the tomb comes from the Gospel of Peter.

What can we say about these?

More Time = More Stories

It’s certainly true that there are more stories about Jesus performing miracles in print today than there are in the surviving literature of the first and second centuries.

This is a function of the fact that people have had an additional eighteen centuries to write books about Jesus.

Some of these are novels—like Ben-Hur or The Robe—and the authors of historical fiction regularly produce new accounts of miracles in their works, even though they expect their audience to recognize the fictional nature of the accounts and don’t expect them to believe these miracles actually took place.

Also, there have been people like Joseph Smith who wrote books that are ostensibly non-fiction, such as the Book of Mormon, which also contain new stories of Jesus performing miracles. In these cases, the authors do expect the reader to believe that the stories actually took place.

There are thus more stories about Jesus’ miracles today just because people have had more time to write them.

Some of these stories are no doubt more dramatic for the same reason: The more time you have to think things up, the more time you have to think up really dramatic things.

But this doesn’t give us a good reason to suppose that there were no stories about Jesus’ miracles in his own day.

What You’d Need to Show

If you want to show that the number of stories circulating about Jesus’ miracles in his own day may have been zero then you need to show something much more specific than just a general trend toward more stories over time.

You’d need to show an early and steep trend. You’d need to show that there was a trend to a dramatic rise in the number of miracle stories in the first and second century.

You’d also need to show that these stories were not understood as fictions (like the miracles in modern novels) or as symbols but as things that people were expected to take as the literal truth.

Only on the basis of such a trend could one propose that the number of miracle stories in circulation went from zero in Jesus’ day to the large number reported in the canonical Gospels.

This is something Ehrman fails to do.

Ehrman’s Noncanonical Examples

There are problems with each of the three noncanonical gospels Ehrman cites.

To begin with, the Infancy Gospel of Matthew was not written until the seventh century, which is way too late to show any kind of trend existing in the first century, when the canonical Gospels were written.

By contrast, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter were probably written in the second century, making them potentially relevant. However, there are problems here also.

It is not clear that the authors of the Infancy Gospels (pseudo-Matthew and pseudo-Thomas) expected people to take their stories as real history.

Early Christians liked fiction just as much as we do, and there are works of early Christian fiction.

Furthermore, the authors of Christian fiction often did not explicitly label their works as fiction, just as modern author’s don’t. If you look at the beginning of Ben-Hur, you won’t find any warning saying, “This is just a novel. Don’t take it as real history.”

Modern authors expect their readers to tell the difference between history and fiction, and ancient authors could expect the same thing—particularly when their audience is reading about things not found in the Gospels being read in church.

When you go through the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the quaint stories it contains about Jesus’ childhood (making sparrows out of mud and bringing them to life, striking people dead, etc.), it’s easy to imagine the author simply making up these stories as part of an exercise in historical fiction—something he never meant people to take as real history.

Just like Anne Rice never meant people to take seriously the things she made up in her book about Jesus’ childhood (which, incidentally, includes material from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas).

We thus have a real question about whether the stories of this work were ever intended to be taken as literal history.

The same is true about the Gospel of Peter.

Jesus’ Head Above the Skies?

Here’s Ehrman’s own translation of the relevant passage:

39 [T]hey saw three men emerge from the tomb, two of them supporting the other [i.e., Jesus], with a cross following behind them.

40 The heads of the two reached up to the sky, but the head of the one they were leading went up above the skies.

41 And they heard a voice from the skies, “Have you preached to those who are asleep?”

42 And a reply came from the cross, “Yes” (Lost Scriptures, 33).

So Jesus is being supported by two men whose heads read up to the sky and Jesus’ head reaches above the sky. They are followed by a floating cross, and when God speaks, the cross speaks a reply.

Did the author mean for all this to be taken literally?

The ancients were not stupid. They trafficked in symbols, and it’s easy to think the author (pseudo-Peter) expected the author to recognize the non-literal nature of the account.

In particular, incredible heights read like deliberate hyperbole to make theological points: the two figures accompanying Jesus are heavenly in nature (their heads reach to heaven), and Jesus himself is superior even to them (his head reaching above the heavens).

There are thus real reasons to doubt that any of the examples Ehrman cites are relevant to showing the existence of an early and steep trend of Christians inventing miracle stories that were meant to be taken as real history.

But let’s suppose I’m wrong. Suppose that both the authors of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter did mean for people to take these stories literally.

What then?

Looking at Other Non-Canonical Gospels

If there was the kind of early, steep trend that we need, we would expect to see it in other early noncanonical gospels.

Do we?

One of the best-known second century gospels is the Gospel of Thomas, which is a collection of sayings. According to Ehrman himself:

The book records 114 “secret teachings” of Jesus. It includes no other material: no miracles, no passion narrative, no stories of any kind (Lost Scriptures, 19).

Huh. So no miracles in Thomas. Doesn’t really fit the pattern that Ehrman is proposing.

I haven’t done a careful study of the other second/third century gospels and done a count of the miracle stories they contain (many are too fragmentary for that), but my impression is that they don’t support the trend, either.

In fact, many of them are principally dialogues where Jesus talks to people to communicate (Gnostic) teachings—not works filled with miracle narratives.

Looking at Early Non-Gospels

A related problem is that, if early Christians were rapidly inventing new stories about Jesus’ miracles, this trend ought to show up in works that aren’t narratives about his life.

For example, the Apostolic Fathers and later, second century authors ought to be reporting them.

We ought to find them saying things like, “I know this isn’t found in the Gospels, but here’s this really awesome story about a miracle Jesus did.”

Once again, I haven’t done a study for purposes of making a count, but my impression is that—while they may mention a few noncanonical miracles—there is no general and accelerating trend to reporting new Jesus miracles in their works.

Preliminary Conclusion

We don’t seem to have evidence for the kind of trend that Ehrman needs to show if he wants to argue that there may have been no stories of Jesus working miracles in his own day.

And things only get worse when we look at the canonical Gospels.

That’s what we’ll talk about next time . . .

Affecting the Past—Today! (with St. Faustina)

divine-mercy-old-testament-historyisreseach-cc-dipinto_originale_autentico_divina_misericordia_gesucc80_confido_santa_faustina_pittore_eugeniusz_kazimirowski_1934 Recently I wrote about the possibility of praying across time.

For example, you might pray for the salvation of a person who has already died.

The theory is that, since God is outside of time, he is aware of your prayer in the eternal now and can intervene at any point in history, including when the person your are praying for was still alive.

Your prayer today—in 2018—could thus be applied to someone as he was dying a century ago, in 1918 (perhaps as a result of the Spanish Flu).

I mentioned that this view has been endorsed by figures such as C.S. Lewis in the Protestant community and, apparently, by Padre Pio in the Catholic community.

I also asked if readers were aware of other Catholic figures who had discussed it, and several wrote back with examples.

Here’s one of them . . .

The Divine Mercy Novena

A reader pointed out that, in the Divine Mercy Novena contained in the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, Jesus is reported as saying that the actions of various groups living today have an effect on his experience of the Passion, back in A.D. 33.

These remarks occur on five of the nine days of the novena. On the various days, Jesus asks that specific groups of people be brought before him in prayer.

Here’s what St. Faustina reported him saying:

Second Day

1212 Today bring to me the souls of priests and religious, and immerse them in my unfathomable mercy. It was they who gave me the strength to endure my bitter Passion.

Third Day

1214 Today bring to me all devout and faithful souls, and immerse them in the ocean of my mercy. These souls brought me consolation on the Way of the Cross. They were that drop of consolation in the midst of an ocean of bitterness.

Fourth Day

1216 Today bring to me the pagans and those who do not yet know me. I was thinking also of them during my bitter Passion, and their future zeal comforted my Heart.

Fifth Day

1218 Today bring to me the souls of heretics and schismatics, and immerse them in the ocean of my mercy. During my bitter Passion they tore at my Body and Heart; that is, my Church. As they return to unity with the Church, my wounds heal, and in this way they alleviate my Passion.

Sixth Day

1220 Today bring to me the meek and humble souls and the souls of little children, and immerse them in my mercy. These souls most closely resemble my Heart. They strengthened me during my bitter agony. I saw them as earthly angels, who would keep vigil at my altars.

A Matter of Perspective

These passages do not show Jesus referring to the perspective he has as God outside of time. They are consistent with him simply having foreknowledge at the time of his Passion.

This is fine for our thesis that present actions can affect the past. In fact, I made the point in my previous post that even if one doesn’t have the eternal perspective that God does, simple foreknowledge is enough to achieve this effect.

If God—or anybody else—knows what someone will ask in the future, he is capable of acting on it now. A future request can thus affect matters that (from the future perspective) are in the past.

In the novena passages, Jesus refers to people living in the future (from an A.D. 33 perspective). This is evident from the fact that St. Faustina was expected to pray (at least) for the people living in her own day.

It is also evident from the fact that in A.D. 33 there were as yet no religious (the invention of religious orders came later), that he refers to those “who do not yet know me,” and that the various heresies and schisms that have affected the Church had not yet arisen.

He also depicts the actions of these people affecting him back in A.D. 33—most notably when he refers to the heretics and schismatics both tearing at his body and heart “during my bitter Passion” and alleviating his passion “as they return to unity with the Church.”

Strikingly, the actions of these people at two different times—(1) when they are in a state of separation and (2) when they are later reconciled—are said to affect Jesus’ Passion in two different ways.

A Word of Caution

It should be pointed out that, although the Church as declared Sister Faustina a saint and incorporated Divine Mercy Sunday into the liturgical calendar, it has not directly ruled on the authenticity of her private revelations.

Also, the Church acknowledges that, even in the case of an authentic private revelation, we must take into account “the possibility that the subject might have added, even unconsciously, purely human elements or some error of the natural order to an authentic supernatural revelation” (CDF, Norms for Discerning Presumed Apparitions or Revelations).

We therefore need to be cautious in how far we press the details of St. Faustina’s reported revelations.

Nevertheless, this represents another instance where the idea of present actions affecting the past has received acknowledgement in the Catholic tradition.

What Every OCD Sufferer Should Know About Vows and Promises

Our Lady Undoer of Knots Have you ever felt a sudden compulsion to promise or vow something to God, even though it seemed irrational?

If so, you’re not alone.

Sudden, rash impulses are part of the human experience (due to original sin), and for some people, impulses of this kind are a frequent thing.

Recently I received an email from a gentleman who was concerned about promises and vows he felt driven to make by obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

He was concerned that he was making, or might be making, sudden, irrational promises that would bind him under pain of sin, including mortal sin.

I’ll keep his email to me private, but I wanted to share my response so that it can be of assistance to others.

The Basic Response

First, here’s what I sent the gentleman in reply to the query:

Dear [Name Withheld],

Thank you for writing. The problem you are experiencing is one that many people who suffer from OCD have.

The good news is that promises/vows/oaths that are the result of a pathological thought process (which OCD is) are not binding.

Ignore them.

When the impulse comes to make such a promise, do your best to put the issue aside and not worry about it.

If you compulsively make a promise anyway (or think/feel that you have), recognize that it is not binding on you.

You will please God more if you resist the pathology of OCD by ignoring such promises (and, to the extent possible, ignoring the impulse to make them).

Setting aside such thoughts is a sign of health, and working towards a healthy thought process is what pleases God.

I hope this helps, and God bless you!

Jimmy Akin

That’s the basic advice I would give anyone dealing with this kind of concern, but there is more we can say, which may also be of help.

The Limits of Promises

One of the things people sometimes forget is that promises have limits and unspoken conditions.

Suppose that you promise your spouse you’ll pick up some ice cream on the way home from work so your family can have it for dessert that night.

But after work you are kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to drive the kidnapper to another state.

By the time you get shed of the kidnapper, it’s way past dinnertime, and you arrive home an exhausted wreck.

No sane spouse would expect you to have fulfilled your promise to pick up ice cream under these conditions.

There is an unstated condition when you make such a promise that you will keep it if it is reasonable to do so.

If something happens so that it becomes unreasonable (or even impossible) to keep the promise then you have no obligation to do so.

This offers hope to people who are suffering from OCD because it allows them to introduce reasonability as a check on any promises they may have made or fear that they have made.

They can ask themselves, “Is it reasonable for me to keep this promise?” and if the answer is no then they do not need to.

And the answer will be “it is not reasonable” more often than you might think . . .

Promises and Compulsion

Let’s go back to our kidnapper example. Suppose that the kidnapper was of the opposite sex and, while you were being forced to drive to another state, the kidnapper pointed a gun at your head and said, “Promise you’ll marry me.”

“But I’m already married,” you say.

“Doesn’t matter,” the kidnapper replies. “Promise to divorce your spouse and marry me instead—or I’ll kill you.”

To save your life, you make the promise.

But you are absolutely not bound to keep it. It was made under duress.

There is thus another limit on promises: To be binding, they have to be made freely, not under compulsion.

This is where obsessive-compulsive disorder comes in: There may not be a kidnapper physically holding a gun to your head, but there is something going on in your head—the OCD—that is creating a compulsion.

Promises that you feel compelled to make as a result of the condition thus do not count, and God does not expect you to keep them.

One way of seeing this is to change the situation a bit: Suppose that, instead of feeling compelled to make promises to God, your OCD made you feel compelled to make promises to your spouse.

No sane spouse of an OCD sufferer would expect such promises to be kept.

Instead, as soon as the OCD started manifesting itself in this way, a reasonable and loving spouse would say, “Honey, I know your OCD is trying to attack you by making you feel you need to make all these promises to me, but don’t worry. You don’t have to keep them. I release you from them all. Put them out of your mind and focus on having a healthy thought process.”

Well, guess what: God is not less reasonable or less loving than a spouse. He’s more reasonable and more loving.

Therefore, God does not expect you to keep promises made under the effects of OCD. He wants you to ignore them and to focus on thinking in as healthy a way as you can.

Promises to Sin

Sometimes people with OCD feel a compulsion to make promises to do something sinful. These also are not binding. Quite the opposite!

Suppose that, on your interstate flight, the kidnapper pointed a gun at your head and said, “Promise that you’ll help me rob a bank.”

To save your life, you do so, but then the kidnapper somehow loses the gun.

“You’re still going to help me knock over that bank, right?” the kidnapper says. “You promised!”

It doesn’t matter, though. You have no obligation to help the kidnapper rob the bank. In fact, you better not—especially now that the threat to your life is gone—because it’s illegal.

That illegality is key. Under civil law, no contract between parties is valid if it involves promises to do something illegal.

Even if two businessmen enter into a contract in good faith, believing that what they are promising to each other is perfectly legal, the contract will be null and void as soon as it is discovered that the terms entail an illegal act.

The same thing is true in the moral sphere: Promises to do something immoral are automatically null and void.

If your OCD is manifesting so that you feel compelled to make promises involving something sinful, that’s just all the more reason to set them aside and ignore them!

Vows and Oaths

I should say a word about vows and oaths, which are solemn forms of promises.

I don’t want to encourage scrupulosity by going into the details here of what makes a vow or an oath, but some OCD sufferers might think that just because they have the word “vow” or “oath” in their head instead of “promise” that it’s somehow more binding.

Not when OCD is involved.

Obviously, basic morality is still a fundamental requirement of vows and oaths. Just like you can’t bind yourself with a promise to do something sinful, you can’t bind yourself with a vow or an oath to do something sinful, either.

Adding solemnity to the promise doesn’t change the basic requirement that it be moral.

Also, precisely because of the greater solemnity of vows and oaths, they even more emphatically require freedom.

If freedom is required to give even basic promises, it’s even more clearly required to be able to make a more solemn promise.

Therefore, if your OCD is driving you to make vows or oaths, the compulsive aspect of the behavior prevents them from having the necessary freedom to be binding.

As before, the thing to do is to put them aside and ignore them.

You need to focus on developing healthy habits of thought, and that means ignoring compulsive promises of any kind.

God wants you to be happy and healthy, and ignoring such promises—and other manifestations of OCD—is what will please him.

Praying Across Time

time In the Back to the Future movies, Doc Brown chides Marty McFly for not thinking fourth-dimensionally.

He means that Marty—like most of us—is letting his options be limited too much by the here and now.

Marty’s not taking into account the possibilities that open up if we’re not stuck in that one moment of time we call the present.

Something similar happens in theology . . .

God and Time

We cannot grasp the full reality of who and what God is. He is infinite, and our minds are only finite.

As a result, we often depict God as if he were a human being—just as a way of helping us understand him.

That’s why Scripture talks about him having a strong right arm (a symbol of his omnipotence) and eyes that survey the whole earth (a symbol of his omniscience).

But in reality, apart from the Incarnation, he doesn’t have body parts.

One of the ways we picture God is as an old man—“the Ancient of Days,” to use Daniel’s phrase. We also picture him as an immortal Being who will live on and on into the endless future.

This envisions God as if he is bound by time the same way we are, and it has implications for how we relate to him.

If God is bound to time like us, always stuck in the present as that moment rolls ever forward into the future, then it would make no sense to pray for certain things.

Suppose that someone has died. In the here and now, that person’s eternal fate is sealed, for “it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27).

If God is bound by time the way we are, it would make no sense to pray for the person to be saved in the moment he died. He either was or wasn’t.

But things are not so simple.

God and Eternity

In reality, God is not bound by time. He is completely outside of time. All of history is simultaneously present to him like a giant mural.

From his eternal perspective outside of time, God simultaneously knows everything that exists, whether in the past, the present, or the future.

He is also capable of interacting with history at any point. This is illustrated by the fact that he not only created the universe in the beginning, he also—from his eternal perspective—sustains it at every moment of its existence.

The consequences of these facts are significant: If God is aware of everything in history then he knows it if on April 15 I am praying for a man who died on April 12.

Further, if he is capable of interacting with every point in history, he can give his grace to that man—as he is dying on April 12—in light of the request I make on April 15.

It thus can make sense for me to pray for the salvation of someone who is already dead.

Usually, our prayers concern the future, but they can also concern the present, and as this illustration shows, they can even concern the past.

We are thus capable of praying across the fullness of time—for things past, present, and future.

C.S. Lewis and Padre Pio

The idea of praying across time in this way is not something unique to me.

C.S. Lewis famously discussed it in his book Miracles (see Appendix B: “On ‘Special Providences’”).

A while back, a friend asked if I could name any Catholic figures who had discussed the idea, and off the top of my head, I couldn’t, though I was sure there were.

Recently, I came across a reference to such a figure: Padre Pio is reported to have made such prayers. Susanne Tassone writes:

A doctor who was very close to Padre Pio received a letter from a woman whose daughter was near death. The mother implored the future saint for his priestly prayers and blessings. The doctor was unable to get this letter to Padre Pio until several days after he had received it. After reading the letter to Padre Pio, this physician asked how should he answer it. Pio responded, “Fiat.”

The doctor knew that some time had passed since he had received the letter, and that the girl was at death’s door. He was perplexed by Padre Pio’s assurance that all was done, that the request for prayer would work. The Capuchin priest continued, “Maybe you don’t know that I can pray even now for the happy death of my great-grandfather.” “But he has been dead for many, many years,” replied the doctor. “I know that too,” said Padre Pio. “Let me explain by giving you an example.

“You and I both die, and, through the good fortune and the goodness and mercy of the Lord, we are obliged to stay in purgatory for 100 years. During these years nobody prays for us or has a Mass offered for the release of our souls. The 100 years pass, and somebody thinks of Padre Pio and the good doctor and has Masses offered. For Our Lord, the past does not exist; the future does not exist. Everything is an eternal present. Those prayers had already been taken into account so that even now I can pray for the happy death of my great-grandfather! . . . ”

The little girl in need of prayer, by the way, was healed (Praying with the Saints for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, 71-72).

I’m sure that the concept of praying for past events has been discussed by various Catholic authors, and perhaps someone can point to additional examples, but the logic behind such prayers is sound.

In fact, it would be sound even if God were not outside of time.

The Core of the Issue

All that is needed for requests concerning the past to be efficacious are two things:

Knowledge of what a future request will be, and
Possession of this knowledge when it is needed to affect matters.

A being does not have to be outside of time to have these two things. It is quite possible for us to have them in the here and now.

Suppose that every Tuesday when you get home from work, your spouse asks you to order a pizza for dinner. It’s now a Tuesday, so you know (for practical purposes) that when you get home your spouse will ask you to do this. You have foreknowledge of the request.

But suppose that this particular Tuesday there is some reason you won’t be able to order the pizza once you get home. You therefore order it in advance and schedule it to arrive at dinnertime.

When you get home, your spouse makes the request, and you’re able to announce, “Already taken care of!”

In this case, you had both of the things you needed: Knowledge of the future request and possession of this knowledge in time to affect matters.

Of course, one could quibble about whether one really had “knowledge” of the request, since humans don’t have infallible certitude regarding what their spouses will ask in the future.

But this objection would not apply to God, who does have infallible certitude regarding the requests that will be made to him. His omniscience guarantees that.

Thus even if God were not outside of time—if he were stuck to the present the way we are—then he would still be able to affect matters based on his omniscient knowledge of what people will ask him in the future.

Unlike Marty McFly, God has no problem thinking fourth-dimensionally.

The Practice of Praying Across Time

The possibility of praying about things in the past raises the question of when it is appropriate to do so.

I would answer this question by dividing things in the past into three categories:

Things we know happened
Things we’re uncertain about
Things we know didn’t happen

Things That Didn’t Happen

The most straightforward answer concerns the last category—things we know didn’t happen.

It is not appropriate to pray for these things.

The reason is that we know it was God’s will to allow our history to unfold in a way that didn’t include them. To pray for something we know didn’t happen would be to pray contrary to God’s known will.

For example, we know that the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. We know that God allowed that to happen as part of his providence, and it would be contrary to God’s known will to pray for the Twin Towers never to have fallen.

It would be equally improper to pray for things we know won’t happen in the future, because they are also contrary to God’s known will.

Thus God periodically told Jeremiah not to pray for the welfare of the people because he was determined to bring judgment on them (Jer. 7:16, 11:14, 14:11).

In the same way, it would be in appropriate for us to pray contrary to things we know will happen in the future (e.g., that the end of the world not happen).

Things That Did Happen

The answer for the first category—things we know did happen—is more complex.

Suppose you are considering praying—all these years later—that at least some people survive the 9/11 attacks.

Well, we know that some people did survive the attacks, so we know that it was God’s will to allow this to happen.

Praying that some survive thus is not praying contrary to God’s will. In fact, it’s praying in accordance with his known will.

It could even be that God allowed some of the people who survived the 9/11 attacks to do so because you are praying for them now.

I thus can’t say there’s anything wrong with praying for things that you know to have happened.

I do, however, have a note of caution: God has designed us as time-bound creatures to be principally oriented toward the future, not the past.

There is a sense in which, like St. Paul, we need to be “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:13).

Spending too much time thinking about the past can lead us to neglect the attention we need to give to future concerns.

I can’t rule out that some might grow closer to God by praying for something they know God allowed to happen in the past, but it’s easy to see how this kind of prayer could become a spiritual distraction from more urgent concerns.

Things We’re Uncertain About

The case where praying concerning past events is most appropriate is the middle one—things we aren’t certain about.

Suppose it is 9/11 and you’ve just watched the Twin Towers go down on television.

You know someone who worked in one of the towers, and that person either died in the collapse or he got away, but you don’t know which.

Because you don’t know, it’s appropriate for you to say, “God, please let him have escaped!”

In this case, you don’t know whether it was or wasn’t God’s will, so you’re neither praying against God’s known will nor praying for something you already know happened.

That’s the situation we’re in with most of our prayers: We don’t know whether God will grant them or not, but he encourages us “always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1).

This principle has a special application to the dying.

We can’t objectively tell whether a person is in a state of grace at the point of death, so this knowledge is by its nature inaccessible to us.

It thus makes sense, whenever someone has died, to ask God to have given the person the graces he needed for salvation at the moment of death.

In view of the stakes involved—eternal life and eternal death—I regularly make this prayer when I hear of someone dying, and especially if it is a friend or loved one.

Care to join me?