“Even when it comes to issues such as the veneration of saints and their relics, which actually do have a very long history (perhaps approaching that “1,500 years”), there are so many qualifications that have to be made about the variety and complex modes of development of the beliefs as to render apologetic use of general statements about them worthless. How did the very simple pious veneration of the early martyrs as examples of holiness to follow turn into the vast complex of ideas that saints in heaven can see us and hear us and can intercede for us with God, that their intercession with God is superior to that which we can have through Christ, that they had an excess of merit that can be transferred to our accounts to help us in our own salvation, that the pope alone controls the dispensation of graces from these saints, and that we can do such things as bury statues of them in our back yards to help us sell our houses?”
http://www.tgenloe.com/?p=1680
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteUnrelated to this post but I would greatly appreciate if you and Jason could comment on a recent post I did for CADRE on the apostles' ability to prevent legends from taking root in the tradition about Jesus:
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2009/06/eyewitness-control-of-gospel-tradition.html
Do you think it's a good argument, and do you see any weaknesses? Be as unsparing with your criticism as possible, please:)