Mary and other absurd arguments

On the 2009/3/12 Dividing Line, James White makes one of the most absurd arguments I’ve heard. He poses the question, what if Mary brings unholy requests to God from people praying to her? So he poses the false dilemma that either Mary has perfect knowledge of God and omnicience or else she brings unholy requests to Jesus.

Firstly, one certainly doesn’t need exhaustive knowledge of God to distinguish good from evil requests. We must distinguish between requests that are simply not God’s will with requests that are intrinsically evil. Dr White conflates them and comes to false conclusions. Secondly, what if Mary brought a “bad” request to Jesus? Catholicism doesn’t claim that Jesus does everything Mary requests, no questions asked.

Dr White then goes on to say that “honoring your father and mother does not mean granting everything that they ask”. Straw man! Who ever said it did? The point is that Jesus is more inclined to do things if his mother asks. Remember the unrighteous judge who did what he was asked to do, because the woman bothered him about it day and night? Why do we pray at all, unless we think God may be willing to listen? Remember when Mary asked Jesus about the wine, and Jesus said “woman, what has that to do with me”, but then he did it anyway? Obviously there are things that God won’t do unless we ask enough and in the right way.

Dr White also criticises the Catholic apologist for asking why we would expect to find intercessions to Mary in particular in the bible. The point that Dr White misses is that Mary is at the end of the day, just one of the saints, and we wouldn’t expect her in particular to be singled out. He also misses the point that Mary may well have been still alive when the NT was complete which would of course mean there would be no reason to expect this to be in there.

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