Wednesday, April 1

I Pray to the God in Whom I Believe

Prayer of Petition has always presented peculiar problems to the theologians because of the confluence of seemingly contradictory elements resulting in paradoxical situations. Moreover, to the ordinary believer, the question of unanswered prayers presents a problem that turns off many people from prayer altogether. Emily Dickinson’s cry, “Of course - I Prayed - And did God Care?” echoes the sentiments of millions whose orisons have gone unanswered.

But there is more. Given that God is absolutely powerful, absolutely knowing, absolutely good, absolutely provident, what can prayer effect, if anything at all? How can we influence the will of God by our petitions? If we could, would this not make us more powerful than God? And if we did not, what is the use of praying? Is not God’s providence to be fulfilled regardless of our intentions and impetrations?

St. Thomas Aquinas answers that we petition only to obtain from God what God has arranged or planned to happen on condition that we pray. Alonso Rodríguez, a Spanish master of the spiritual life, agrees, writing that “What God, in His divine providence and disposition has determined from all eternity to give to us, He gives in time through the instrumentality of prayer.”

But we are free, and God, in His providence, must take into account (through His absolute knowledge) that we may or may not pray for the things he has designed to be obtained by prayer, or that we may pray for their opposite, or not pray at all. But providence must be fulfilled regardless and, as Fosdick explains, often in total disregard of our prayers. So prayer always implies the proviso, “If God has planned for this to be.”

God’s mind is not changed, nor are His plans, yet prayer is efficacious when it observes the condition of abiding by the absolute will of God. God, says Fosdick, “does not remake His world for the asking, not because He cannot, but because He must not.”

But the confluence of the necessity of providence, of human freedom of choice, and of human desires and aspirations remains paradoxical regardless of the many theological efforts to explain it - and there have been many, and very elaborate ones, through the centuries.

Recently I heard a gentleman confess on TV that a particular event that was being discussed was “a miracle.” Why so? He answered fervently, “Because I believe in the power of prayer.”

Which means that he believes in a God whose almighty power is at the service of every human request; that is, a God who is not almighty, since He is subject to the power of prayer, a God who is not all-merciful, since He is partial to some, not others; a God who is like a magician, ready to perform an astonishing trick on demand. Saying “I believe in the power of prayer” with great conviction is not a sign of piety, as the gentleman thought, but of a pitiful if petulant ignorance.

I believe in a kind and loving God, a fair and just God, an all-powerful God, an all-knowing God, a provident God, and an unfathomable God. To this God I pray, “Your will be done on earth as in heaven.”

Ignacio L. Götz