Monday, February 11, 2019

The cult of the dead

Protestant England was particularly troubled after the war [WWI] was over, because most of its very Protestant churches were unable to permit prayers fro the dead that so many bereaved families would have liked to offer. Spiritualism, with its promise of renewed contact with the departed briefly flourished because of this, prompting Rudyard Kipling to write his poem "En-Dor," warning the bereaved that they were being cruelly manipulated for gain. P. Hitchens, The Rage Against God (Zondervan), 117. 

The cult of the dead is widespread in paganism. Necromancy is a common expression. And this remains popular with mourners who attend a séance in the desperate hope of contacting a departed loved one. A way to exploit people in crisis. 

There are different paradigms for the cult of the dead. In the West, Catholicism is the best known. That includes prayers for the dead. On that paradigm, your eternal destiny is fixed at the moment of death, but prayers can expedite the passage from Purgatory to heaven. Prayers for the dead are only availing for souls in Purgatory. You must die in a state of grace. If you die in mortal sin, you're out of luck. That's an exclusivist paradigm, although modern Catholicism is increasingly inclusivist. When traditional Protestant theology forbids prayers for the dead, that's the specific context. 

Then you have inclusivism in freewill theism, which may include postmortem salvation. On that view, you're not heavebound or hellbound at the moment of death. Your eternal destiny is indeterminate at the moment of death. That will be settled after you die. This is driven by one or more theological assumptions. Primarily, freewill theism's belief that everyone should have an equal opportunity to be saved, yet in this life, spiritual opportunities are highly inequitable, so postmortem salvation compensates for disparities in this life. It's also a way to reconcile inclusivism with the Gospel demand that indexes salvation to faith in Christ. If that's not possible in this life, you get a second chance in the afterlife. 

Another paradigm extrapolates from the principle of retroactive prayer. This can be combined with exclusivism. On this view, prayers for the dead don't change the decedent's postmortem condition. Rather, if availing, they affect his spiritual trajectory before he died. 

The basic idea is that God's relation to time is different from the supplicant. It isn't always necessary to pray before the event, as if God must wait to find out what we pray for, then act after the fact. If God is outside of time, or God knows the future, then God can set the answer to prayer in motion before we pray. That's consistent with exclusivism, but fundamentally different from the traditional Catholic paradigm. If you think about it, many prayers require the chain of events to be underway prior to prayer for the prayer to be answerable. On this view, prayers for the dead are just a special case of that general principle. The decedent's eternal destiny is fixed at the moment of death, yet postmortem prayers may retroactively affect his final destiny prior to death.  

I've discussed this before. Now I'd like to quote from a recent article that provides some additional argumentation: William M. Webb, "Petitionary Prayer for the Dead and the Boethian Concept of a Timeless God," International Philosophical Quarterly 59/1 (2019), 65-76. 

I disagree with Webb's characterization of God's viewpoint as a timeless present. I regard God as strictly timeless. But his argument doesn't turn on that nuance. 


Although prayer for the dead is widely practiced by members of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, the practice is less com­mon among Protestants and is generally condemned within Evangelical Protestant circles.1 Maintaining that a postmortem change in spiritual state is not possible, various authorities within conservative Evangelical traditions claim that petitionary prayer for the dead is at best useless, on account of the immediacy and irrevocabil­ity of the deceased’s fate,2 and at worst sinful inasmuch as it wills a state of affairs contrary to that which God has already providentially brought to pass.3

Gould enumerates three requirements for the practice to be rational: (1) The real influence requirement—prayer makes a difference to what God does; (2) the personal existence requirement—the departed consciously exist as the very same people that they were in life, and (3) the open future requirement—a change of spiritual state is possible after death.5

In this article I argue that petitionary prayer for the dead can be justified apart from a belief in the possibility of a postmortem change in an individual’s spiritual state, and therefore, it can be defended in spite of the criticisms traditionally leveled by Evangelical Protestants. While I accept the first two of Gould’s prerequisites, I challenge point (3). By adopting a Boethian or Augustinian conception of God’s relationship to time, the requirement for change in an individual’s spiritual state after death becomes irrelevant along with the majority of traditional criticisms against the practice. By placing God outside of time in such a way that all prayers—past, present, and future—are apparent to God as part of a “timeless present,” the practice of praying for the deceased can be defended on the same grounds as petitionary prayer about the future. Indeed, I submit that a Boethian understanding of God’s eternity necessarily entails a position in which petitionary prayer for the dead is not qualitatively different than petitionary prayer about the future.

As a compatibilist, my personal view is that a Boethian conception of God’s relationship to time actually eliminates many of the problems raised against petitionary prayer in the same ways that it has been said to eliminate problems brought about by theological determin­ism, the tension between our apparent freedom of will and God’s sovereignty, and the problem of evil.12

To say therefore that praying for the well­being of the dead entails asking for something that is impossible fails to acknowledge that God perceives these prayers at the same time during which he perceives the life of the deceased in its own pres­ent. It would only be impossible for these prayers to be efficacious, then, if God were somehow unable to act in time in response to future prayers thus perceived—a serious limitation to God’s omnipotence!

I would say that if we accept theological determinism, then all of God’s decrees become eternal under the Boethian position.32 According to the eternalist’s understanding, God knows what he will do from eternity just as surely as he knows what he has already done. This means that all petitionary prayer—whether it be directed at the dead, the living, the past, the present, or the future—runs the risk of willing a state of affairs in opposition to God’s settled will. If God is timeless, then it could be said that prayer for the future, which is already determined, is also poten­tially sinful by the same rationale. God perceives prayers for the future in the same eternal present from which he would perceive prayers for the past, both of which he has already foreordained through his eternal decrees. If the supplicant knows that God has ordained some circumstance in the future, isn’t he being presumptuous to request something different?

To the degree that an eternalist is committed to the practice of petitionary prayer on Biblical grounds, I would suggest that he has some interest in not casting blame on the practice of prayer for the dead when his reasons for assigning that blame also condemn petitionary prayer in general.

Therefore, there is no reason to believe that God is unable to act in time in response to future prayers made on behalf of past or present persons.

In fact, if the mind of God contains knowledge of all prayers from all times in a tenseless present, then it would seem that God’s temporal relationship to future prayers is exactly the same as God’s temporal relationship to past prayers, that is to say, it is atemporal in both cases.  From the timeless perspective, prayer for those who have died in the past is no less rational than prayer for those who will die in the future.

Additionally, if petitionary prayer about the future is deemed acceptable, then prayer for the dead need not entail a situation in which the supplicant is praying for a counterfactual circumstance in opposition to the state of affairs which God has presumably brought to pass any more than prayer regarding the future offends against God’s knowledge or decrees about what will come to pass. God’s sover­eignty over the ultimate fates of deceased individuals can be maintained because God perceives prayers on behalf of the deceased individual while the deceased individual is still alive.

9 comments:

  1. Steve I've got a question on a related issue. Would you say that it's consistent with Calvinism and (if true) retroactive prayers to pray for one's election? Praying for one's salvation isn't problematic, but what of election? I've gone back and forth on this issue. At times it seems to me that God could ordain we pray for our election and God respond to that prayer retroactively without denying unconditional election. It sometimes seems to me that the decree of election could be logically anterior to a decree by God that person X would pray for election and the decree to answer that prayer in the affirmative. Just as God could decree that Hezekiah would have an additional 15 years of life logically prior to a decree that Hezekiah would pray for more years and God's decree to answer that prayer. The answer to the prayer really was causally connected to the prayer, even if it was already logically settled that Hezekiah would have those additional 15 years.

    I ask this question because non-Christians sometimes use as excuse for striving for salvation the fact that if Calvinism is true, then their election is already settled. They can't pray for their election, and therefore there's no use trying/striving for salvation. If what I've argued is at least logically consistent, then I can offer such people hope without being dogmatic on the reality/truth of retroactive prayers. Leaving them with no excuse to pray for their salvation, and even [surprisingly] their election.

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    1. Since non-Christians don't believe Calvinism is true (or Christianity in general), why would they use that as an excuse?

      Predestination doesn't mean you try to pray, but you can't. It means you don't try to pray in the first place (if you've been predestined not to pray). The way to found out what you've been predestined to do is just go ahead and do things.

      Prayer doesn't affect predestination; rather, prayer is the effect of predestination. Just as a fictional character can't influence how the author.

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    2. //Since non-Christians don't believe Calvinism is true (or Christianity in general), why would they use that as an excuse?
      //

      They'll admit they don't believe in Calvinism, but still say, "If you (me, AP) are right about unconditional election, then there'd be no use for me to seek and pray for my salvation [or election] since it's already settled."

      //Predestination doesn't mean you try to pray, but you can't. It means you don't try to pray in the first place (if you've been predestined not to pray). The way to found out what you've been predestined to do is just go ahead and do things. //

      It seems to me that the unregenerate can "attempt" to be saved and "pray" without regeneration. It's not a true seeking or praying because the unregenerate wouldn't/couldn't do that (Rom. 3:10-11). But later on down the road (say years) God can regenerate them so that they do genuinely seek God and pray to Him. From the person's perspective there might not be any psychological difference between the two seekings. I use that to encourage non-Christians to attempt to pray and seek God and His salvation. Citing promises like those in verses like James 4:8; John 6:37b; Matt. 11:28-30; Isa. 55:6-7; Jer. 29:13; Ps. 145:18; cf. James 1:8.; Luke 11:9-10; Heb. 11:6. Christian experience down through history also seems to confirm the psychological fact that Christians have claimed to seek God prior to actually being saved. That those early attempts at seeking God apparently "failed" [assuming they weren't just backslidden]. It's not uncommon for a fundamentalist to say he was raised in a Christian home, prayed the "Sinner's Prayer", did his devotions and thought he was saved, only to live a reprobate life for many years and then later to be genuinely convicted of sin and converted.

      //Prayer doesn't affect predestination; rather, prayer is the effect of predestination. Just as a fictional character can't influence how the author.//

      You putting it that way, I now realize that the difference between praying for one's election and praying for additional years to live is the difference between praying for something (a decree) outside of time and praying for something within time and history. In which case, you're right. One cannot pray for one's election. Though, I do think one can pray for one's salvation/conversion (a prayer for something within time/history). Thanks Steve!

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    3. Oh, other examples of false seekings after God that aren't inspired by regeneration and the Holy Spirit are when such "seekers" convert to a false religions like the Hare Krishna movement, Islam, Hinduism (etc.). Or even remaining atheists. Claiming they sought God and prayed, and nothing happened. I think of the experiment that Justin Brierley recommended atheists take by praying to God. The majority of those who claim to have participated didn't end up becoming Christians (though some did).

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  2. //I disagree with Webb's characterization of God's viewpoint as a timeless present. I regard God as strictly timeless.//

    What's the difference? I suspect I'm not the only one who wonders.

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    1. A timeless present is incoherent. If it's timeless, it's not temporal.

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    2. I guess that means the common theological claim of God being timeless and experiencing an eternal "now" is incoherent. Okay, thanks :-)

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  3. --The basic idea is that God's relation to time is different from the supplicant. It isn't always necessary to pray before the event, as if God must wait to find out what we pray for, then act after the fact. If God is outside of time, or God knows the future, then God can set the answer to prayer in motion before we pray.--

    Did... Did you just manage to reconcile Calvinism and Arminianism?

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    1. No, because I didn't state the basis of divine foreknowledge. And that doesn't resolve the tension between freedom and foreknowledge. That's a different issue.

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