Catholicism and Persuading God

Originally posted by bbarr
Perhaps praying to a saint to make things clear is necessary.

Wheeeeeeeee! Catch you on the next loop around.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Oh, so morality is relative?

No, I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that it would be morally worse to allow someone who is not a saint, to be venerated as one and thus emulated.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Then I guess it's my turn to ask you -- which terms don't you understand?

Is performing a posthumous miracle a necessary condition for sainthood?

The term "performing" - i.e. who is the subject of the verb in question. bbarr got my objection right.

Is the performance of a posthumous miracle a necessary condition for sainthood? It is a necessary condition for canonisation (i.e. being declared a saint by the Church).

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Yes, that's a fine way to put it. I'd add that it will also always be an open question whether the intermediary did his job at all, or just blew it off and chilled out in heaven.

Conrau has already admitted that observing the miracle bears no information that would allow the observer to distinguish a saint from a non-saint. So, the practical issu ...[text shortened]... s at all if they cannot be relied upon, even in theory, to distinguish saints from non-saints.

I don't know what Conrau has been arguing, but I've never argued that miracles were a sufficient condition for determining that X is a saint (it would have to be a sufficient condition to distinguish saints from non-saints).

EDIT: I see that Conrau hasn't either. Where did you get that one from, Doctor?

Originally posted by kirksey957
I was under the impression that all who died in the faith were saints.

In the broader sense of 'saints' as simply 'folk who made it to heaven' -- yes.

Originally posted by Conrau K
Clearly I disagree. I think that such a criterion places an undue restriction on God, as I have already explained.

I don't think so. We agree that there are other necessary conditions (besides the miracle) that need to be satisfied.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Well, what are the decision criteria for rejecting other causes of the miracle? For example, on what conditions would you reject the possible cause that God healed out of benevolence to ease the victim's suffering?

I don't see how the cause you've provided is mutually exclusive with intercession. Events do have multiple causes.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I don't see how the cause you've provided is mutually exclusive with intercession. Events do have multiple causes.

You must just be too stupid to follow my arguments, which have preemptively addressed all of your points.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
You must just be too stupid to follow my arguments, which have preemptively addressed all of your points.

Alternatively, you've simply not made a counter-argument to the point raised. I find that a more credible hypothesis than a universal affirmation of having "preemptively addressed all of [my] points".

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I don't think so. We agree that there are other necessary conditions (besides the miracle) that need to be satisfied.

In context, my issue was with the assertion that since Q petitions X (who is not a saint - as in not in heaven), God cannot perform the miracle. I thought such a restriction unnecessary.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
From the Catholicism and Posthumous Miracles thread:

[quote]
If you are praying to P for healing you are asking P to talk to God on your behalf. You are believing that P is already in heaven and not in purgatory, and thus is able to converse with God. It is not unlike my going to ark13 and asking him to talk to his father about some matter that c ...[text shortened]... ve that such a God would not heal your cancer unless he was persuaded to by a deceased person?

It isnt God. 🙂.

Game, set & match.. good bye.