Is it objectively possible to idolize the saints? Can they turn you away from God?

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I post here in the philosophy forums, because I want to know what you other philosophers are saying about this. Note this is mainly for Catholic apologists.

I’ll post what I said in another thread in these forums:
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me:
I feel it’s objectively impossible to idolize the saints in a sinful way. Their lives on earth will naturally turn you to God, and, as active participants in heaven, the saints just wouldn’t allow sinful idolatry. They have been given the right to be venerated. It’s the things and people that aren’t considered holy, that could lead to idolatry and sin.

For example, if you meditate upon Our Blessed Mother, St. Peter, St. Ambrose, or St. Joan of Arc, since their lives were oriented towards God, your spiritual growth will be oriented towards God as well. If you meditate upon say, Michael Jackson, the same way you would a saint, since his life wasn’t oriented towards God, your spiritual growth will fall wayward as well.

The only thing that could hinder the veneration of saints is your personal viewpoint. The actual prayer to the saints isn’t intrinsically evil. The devil cannot inspire sin from that reality. What the devil could do, is at least, obscure the beautiful reality from your vision, and at worst, turn you completely away from it.
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Thoughts? I can already start to see cracks in my argument, I think. I mean, people have had erroneous views about Jesus, which caused them to turn away from the Church.

Are there any examples of when saint veneration has gone awry?

Anyway, would like to hear more informed opinions!
 
Like anything, reverence for the saints can be an obstacle to true faith if this reverence is improperly placed. For example, if prayer to the BVM or some other saint were intended as a “miracle cure” of some ailment.

There is something called “Santería”, which looks like worship of the saints. It’s really African animism or paganism under the disguise of veneration of the saints. It was used by African slaves who wanted to preserve their worship of their gods, yet could not worship them openly.

Dunno if that’s related to your question. :confused:

But those are the only ways I could see saints being a diversion from the one, true God.
 
Much people does not know well about the saints’ virtues so they are not linked to God like you have thought. They use to see saints as very noble men that have an autonomus virtue and so they have power to be heard… that is I thought in my first catholic period… but I don’t know how frequent is this…

The saints become so a parallel entity with respecting God, just like Mary many times.

But like you have said it is a pedagogic problem, not a doctrinary one that of the Saints.
 
I think that it would be possible to say that no amount of honoring the saints for that which makes them saints can turn you from God - if you honor someone purely for their service to Someone Else you are in fact saying that the Someone Else is so important that serving Him is the most valuable thing anyone else could do.

The problem comes when you look at saints outside of their context as servants of God, or start developing superstitions and the like.
 
I would add that some of the writings of the saints can be harmful if one were to promote them as if they possessed the same weight as Public Revelation.

I’d cite some examples but it’s late and I’ve got office work tomorrow so perhaps next time. However, I’m sure there are others who can cite them as well.
 
I started another very similar thread yesterday…

Can one worship a thing without knowing it?

In that thread, I am positing that what Jesus warned against in Mt 6:24 about false worship or trying to serve two masters, can potentially be a problem for us as well…without knowing it…
The Jews that Jesus was speaking about certainly would not have thought that they had replaced God with mammon - that they had minimized God or that they had “turned away from God” (some were probably quite studious in following the law), and wet somehow they had allowed something else to replace God in their hearts…

The Church is careful to teach right honor for the saints.
However, this does not prevent the possibility of a person developing a “wrong honor” for a saint…I’m not saying that this is prevalent at all, simply that it is possible and that we should be on our guard against it.

I’ll be interested in the (name removed by moderator)uts here as well.

Peace
James
 
I have read a few of the Saints writings,very inspirational. I do not pray to the Saints tho, I prayer to the Father Son and Holy Ghost.

I think anything or anyone can become an idol, like my fabric stash!!

which I’m trying to give to away since I no longer sew, but oh its like every yard is so precious to me, oh and the thought of it, but I have to do it, as it will rot while someone may make good use of it.🙂
 
Veneration of the saints can be counterproductive if such veneration distracts from veneration of God. Generally, however, this will not happen, because if you venerate a saint, you can’t help but venerate what the saint venerated … God. 👍 Usually the saint we venerate is a model of the saintliness we admire and strive to achieve in ourselves.

Public or private veneration of George Washington, for example, does not detract from our veneration of the Constitution, which Washington surely venerated as much as anyone else.
 
Sort of. There is a religion called “Santeria” which was created by African slaves. When the African slaves were brought by the Spanish to Latin America, they were supposed to convert to Catholicism. So they wanted to find a way to still practice their religion so they prayed to African gods and goddesses in front of statues of Catholic saints. The Spaniards found out about their religion when they were paying too much attention to the saints and not to Christ.
 
:bible1:
Jesus
said to him: Thou shalt love the
**Lord thy God **
with thy whole heart,
❤️
and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.
- Matthew 22:37

+Anytime a person allows . . . someone . . . or something . . . to displace our . . . Wonderful Lord . . . Jesus . . . the Blessed Christ . . . in their heart . . . whether it is a saint or whomever or whatever . . . they have lost their **first love **which should be God . . . and endangered the welfare of their soul . . . on the other hand . . . true veneration of a Saint in the Lord . . . will always garner their help to love God more . . . in order to walk more closely with the Lord their Saviour . . .

:bible1: 1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith **he that holdeth the seven stars in his **right hand, **who **walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;

2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: 3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for **my name’s sake **hast laboured, and hast not fainted. 4 Nevertheless **I **have somewhat against thee, because thou hast LEFT thy first love ❤️ . 5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou REPENT.​

. . . all for Jesus+
. . . thank You Sweet Spirit of our Holy God+
. . . thank You Blessed Virgin Mary+
. . . thank you Blessed Holy Mother Church+​
 
The Saints are our friends. We can develop devotions to a particular Saint or Saints, but we are NOT to worship them. This is the key. They are in Heaven and since they are holy, we ask them to help us by asking them to pray for us. As long as you understand this concept, you will not fall into idolizing anything other than God, our Creator.

We are to only worship God.
 
To use the vernacular of the peasantry…

Worship means viewing the subject as a god with the power of a god.

The saints don’t qualify. In praying to them, however, it’s easy to fall into the error of talking to them as if they themselves were responsible for miracles. This is close to idolatry.

We must always see them as intercessionists. They are “middle men and middle women” between us and God.

Then, say Protestants, why not pray directly to God?

We do, but being emotional humans we get an extra kick out of talking to Saints to whom we can relate in some way. Thus, Joan of Arc is patron saint of soldiers. Military people might pray to her for intercessionay help.
 
empther said:
To use the vernacular of the peasantry…

Worship means viewing the subject as a god with the power of a god.
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IDK. Personally, I believe the saints are as powerful as God wills them to be. It’s possible some are even as powerful as God. That’s up to Him.

But I make the distinction is existence. That is, would any of the saints exist without God? Would God stop existing without any or all of the saints? The answer to both questions is “no”, and gives part of what defines God from the saints: God necessarily exists of Himself; the saints do not. Even if the saints can create whole universes, if God stopped existing even for a second, they and their universes would all be gone. Kaput.
The saints don’t qualify. In praying to them, however, it’s easy to fall into the error of talking to them as if they themselves were responsible for miracles. This is close to idolatry.

We must always see them as intercessionists. They are “middle men and middle women” between us and God.
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Exactly. We are not the middle men between men and salvation; we are the middle men between men and God, who is the bridge to salvation. 😉
Then, say Protestants, why not pray directly to God?

We do, but being emotional humans we get an extra kick out of talking to Saints to whom we can relate in some way. Thus, Joan of Arc is patron saint of soldiers. Military people might pray to her for intercessory help.
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There you go. Not only that, some people’s prayers have been shown to be more effective in certain circumstances. For example, St. Philomena, although we know absolutely nothing about her life, has been shown to be effective in prayers for children and infants, priests, children of Mary, virgins, and sterile cases. Therefore - among others - we turn to St. Philomena for help in one of these areas because she has been shown to be efficacious in these sorts of prayers.
 
Well, perhaps almost as powerful. They cannot challenge Him, and He can wipe them out in the blink of an eye. But otherwise, I don’t see what would be wrong with a Saint even being able to create his own universe in Heaven, so long as he uses it to give glory to God and not to himself.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Veneration of the saints can be counterproductive if such veneration distracts from veneration of God. Generally, however, this will not happen, because if you venerate a saint, you can’t help but venerate what the saint venerated … God. 👍 Usually the saint we venerate is a model of the saintliness we admire and strive to achieve in ourselves.

Public or private veneration of George Washington, for example, does not detract from our veneration of the Constitution, which Washington surely venerated as much as anyone else.
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I just want to clarify something. We do not venerate God, we adore God. Adoration is due to God alone. Veneration is due to the saints, and specifically, hyper veneration is due to the Blessed mother. Or in Latin, dulia is due to the saints, hyperdulia is due to St. Mary, and latria is due to God. To say that we venerate God and the saints is to imply that the saints and God are on equal footing, which is idolatry.
 
Yeah, its possible. But why would you want to?

There are some groups out there with fringe theology, but who are very popular nonetheless, who also elevate Mary to diety.

Co-redemptrix is not an “official” teaching of the Church even though was a belief held by Pope John Paul II personally.

But it should be considered anathema to elevate anyone as equal to God who is not God himself. Salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone. Period. Even with divinization…
 
Liquid47 said:
I post here in the philosophy forums, because I want to know what you other philosophers are saying about this. Note this is mainly for Catholic apologists.

I’ll post what I said in another thread in these forums:

Thoughts? I can already start to see cracks in my argument, I think. I mean, people have had erroneous views about Jesus, which caused them to turn away from the Church.

Are there any examples of when saint veneration has gone awry?

Anyway, would like to hear more informed opinions!
Click to expand...
Is it possible to idolize the saints?

Of course, it is possible.

Satan is fast at work playing deception on us, with respect to every thought and motion toward God.

His deception toward us can succeed, including convincing us to believe in the merits of venerating the saints, instead of God.

This is why we must continue to wear the whole armor of God, daily.

Can the saints turn us away from God?

Our veneration of them could, but not the saints, themselves. 🙂

👍
 
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