You can ask for the intercession of the Saints: let's see how to do it and what the Bible says

The Catholic practice of invoking the intercession of saints presupposes that souls in heaven can know our inner thoughts. But for some Protestants this is a problem because it attributes to the saints a power that the Bible says belongs only to God. 2 Chronicles 6:30 reads as follows:

Then listen to your dwelling from heaven, and forgive and return to each one whose heart you know, according to all his ways (since you, only you, know the hearts of the children of men.

If the Bible says that only God knows the hearts of men, then the argument continues, then the invocation of the intercession of the saints would be a doctrine that contradicts the Bible.

Let's see how we can meet this challenge.

First, there is nothing contrary to reason in the idea that God can reveal his knowledge of the inner thoughts of men to those whose intellects he also created. Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas responded to the above challenge in his Summa Theologiae:

God alone of Himself knows the thoughts of the heart: still others know them, to the extent that they are revealed to them, either through their vision of the Word or by any other means (Suppl. 72: 1, ad 5).

Notice how Aquino articulates the difference between how God knows men's thoughts and how saints in heaven know men's thoughts. God alone knows "about himself" and the saints know "with their vision of the Word or by any other means".

That God knows "about himself" means that the knowledge that God has of the inner movements of the heart and mind of man belongs to him by nature. In other words, he has this knowledge by virtue of being God, the unprovoked Creator and supporter of all being, including the thoughts of men. Consequently, he must not receive it from a cause outside of himself. Only an infinite being can know the inner thoughts of men in this way.

But it is not a problem for God to reveal this knowledge to the saints in heaven (by any means) more than it is for him to reveal to mankind's knowledge of himself as the Trinity of people. Knowledge of God as a Trinity is something that God alone has by nature. Human beings, on the other hand, know God only as a Trinity because God wanted to reveal it to humanity. Our knowledge of the Trinity is caused. God's knowledge of himself as a Trinity is not caused.

Likewise, since God knows men's thoughts "of himself", God's knowledge of man's thoughts is not caused. But this does not mean that he could not reveal this knowledge to the saints in heaven, in which case their knowledge of the inner hearts of men would be caused. And since God would have caused this knowledge, we could still say that only God knows men's hearts - that is, he knows them unprovoked.

A Protestant might reply: “But what if every person on earth, in his own hearts, simultaneously prays to Mary or one of the saints? Wouldn't knowing those prayers require omniscience? And if so, it follows that God has failed to communicate this type of knowledge to a created intellect. "

Although the Church does not pretend that God normally gives the saints in heaven the ability to know the thoughts of every living person, it is not impossible for God to do so. Of course, knowing the thoughts of all men at the same time is something that goes beyond the natural powers of a created intellect. But this type of knowledge does not require full understanding of the divine essence, which is characteristic of omniscience. Knowing a finite number of thoughts is not the same as knowing all that can be known about the divine essence, and therefore knowing all the possible ways in which the divine essence can be imitated in the created order.

Since full understanding of the divine essence is not involved in knowing a finite number of thoughts at the same time, it is not necessary for the saints in heaven to be omniscient in order to simultaneously know the inner prayer requests of Christians on earth. From this it follows that God can communicate this type of knowledge to rational creatures. And according to Thomas Aquinas, God does so by giving a "light of created glory" which is "received in the created intellect" (ST I: 12: 7).

This "light of created glory" requires infinite power as infinite power is needed to create it and give it to the human or angelic intellect. But infinite power is not necessary for the human or angelic intellect to passively receive this light. As the apologist Tim Staples claims,

As long as what is received is not infinite by nature or does not require infinite power to understand or be able to act, it would not be beyond the ability to receive men or angels.

Since the light that God gives to the created intellect is created, it is not infinite by nature, nor does it require infinite power to understand or act. Therefore, it is not against reason to claim that God gives this "light of created glory" to a human or angelic intellect to simultaneously know a finite number of inner thoughts and respond to them.

A second way to meet the above challenge is to show evidence that God actually reveals his knowledge of men's inner thoughts to created intellects.

The story of the Old Testament in Daniel 2 involving Joseph and his interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream is an example. If God can reveal the knowledge of Nebuchadnezzar's dream to Daniel, then surely he can reveal to the saints in heaven the requests for inner prayer of Christians on earth.

Another example is the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. We are told that after selling his property Ananias, with the knowledge of his wife, gave only a portion of the proceeds to the apostles, which prompted Peter's response: " Ananias, why did Satan fill your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to retain part of the proceeds of the earth? "(V.3).

Although Ananias' sin of dishonesty had an external dimension (there was some proceeds that he retained), the sin itself was not subject to normal observation. Knowledge of this evil should be obtained in a way that transcends human nature.

Peter receives this knowledge by infusion. But it is not simply a matter of knowledge of the external act. It is knowledge of the internal movements in the heart of Ananias: “How did you invent this action in your heart? You did not lie to men but to God "(v.4; emphasis added).

Revelation 5: 8 serves as another example. John sees "twenty-four elders", together with the "four living creatures", prostrating "in front of the Lamb, each holding a harp and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints". If they are offering the prayers of Christians on earth, it is reasonable to deduce that they had knowledge of those prayers.

Although these prayers were not inner prayers but only verbal prayers, souls in heaven have no physical ears. So any knowledge of the prayers that God gives to the intellects created in heaven is the knowledge of the inner thoughts, which express the verbal prayers.

In light of the previous examples, we can see that both the Old and the New Testaments state that God actually communicates his knowledge of men's inner thoughts to created intellects, inner thoughts that also involve prayers.

The bottom line is that God's knowledge of men's inner thoughts is not the type of knowledge that belongs to omniscience alone. It can be communicated to created intellects and we have biblical evidence that God actually reveals this type of knowledge to created intellects.