Folks, it didn't seem necessary on an orthodox Christian forum to note against equating Christianity with any other religion. In the future such statements are not allowed.
I would suggest that all the "Saints" threads be combined into one thread and that all other future Saints threads be combined into one thread....same goes for the weekly anti-Anglo-Catholic threads and all other threads that have been "played out" over the last several months. It becomes a bit exhausting to have to argue one point in three or four different threads. It would encourage people to remain and to read the threads which are already dedicated to these subjects, instead of ignoring and creating a new thread on the same subject at whim.
I too would like to know how this shows lack of faith in God... Because it seems to me that then by thinking so (regardless if we should pray for saint or no) any kind of prayer asking is lack of faith in God.
Prayer to the saints is all in light of, and relation to, us. They're dead and buried to the world in which we live, so they are dead in this context. Too much pious mystical theology has gotten into good old God-given common sense.
I think from the outset everyone has taken it for granted the saints are alive, however that said, we really can speak of them being dead. They are with Christ and alive spiritually, but physcially we can say they are dead as a doornail. Paul talks about death and dying in Philipians 1:20 and 21. In verse 23 he says "I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better." Departing emphsises distance. Lazarus, a personal friend of Jesus' was declared dead. Sarah was declared dead in the old testament.. it's obvious we can speak of the saints as being dead as well as alive. Now are the prohibitions to contacting the dead in reference to the physical or the spiritual? The context would surely indicate that physical death is meant here, in it's plainest meaning.
To be with Christ signifies he would not be dead. This is something I am unmovable on, the Saints are not dead.
Using that logic, couldn't we say that technically, Jesus Christ did not die for our sins? Or maybe the deathless state of the saints you're referring to is only possibly by the total death of our Lord & Saviour? What I want here is to find a place of rest and peace with my fellow Christians, united in the Blessed and Beloved.
We do not die as persons for the soul cannot die, but the body does die. Since we human beings can only contact other human beings via the bodily senses, it just seems obvious that human contact ceases after death, at least until the resurrection.
Not true. Once again your thinking temporal not Spiritual. Does God the Father have a human body? The Holy Spirit? Do Angels when it is clear that they too can hear. You don't need human ears to hear or human eyes to see. The Spirit can see and hear much better and are more well off, when we go to God we do not go to sleep, lose our senses that would be absurd and if that was the case God nor Angels could hear or see. Christ told many they had eyes but can't really see and ears but can't hear. There is more to senses than just physical
We are not GOD, nor the angels. Bodies are an inherent part of our very nature as human beings! God made us that way from the start, knowing He was to become Incarnate. This is His eternal plan in His Word (Ephesians chapter 1). I don't know about you, but I've never contacted anyone without using my hands, mouth, eyes, or body in some way. To assume that we can just chat with the spirits of physically-dead human beings is to deny our very nature and the Incarnation, in my opinion. This is why it's such a serious subject! We'll be able to see and talk to the saints some day. Be patient!
Even though we are going down a rabbit-hole a bit, it's still an important topic. What happens after death, and do the canonized saints "go" to a different place than the rest of the saints (all Christians) are called "saints" in the NT. Maybe we need a new thread? But it begs the question: If saints in "heaven" are able to be as spiritual beings and if they can see, hear, etc and not limited to this corporeal body then why even have the resurrection at all?
Revelation 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me: "Write, 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth': Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them."