PRAYER

Prayer, in the strict sense of asking God for favors, would seem to be a nonsensical activity. After all, if God is the all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful entity we claim him to be, the idea that we can change God's mind seems contradictory, if not outright childish. Nonetheless, down through history, humans, even those who are not otherwise religious, have almost universally engaged in such prayer, at least in moments of crisis. As the old war-time saying had it, "there are no atheists in foxholes." So how explain it, or how defend the practice?

Theologians, in particular, have long wrestled with the issue. Thomas Aquinas, who assumed that God always wants what is best for us, taught that what prayer really does is to dispose us to accept God's will. In other words, instead of changing God's mind, we end up changing our own. So if we are so crass as to ask God to give us a Cadillac, real prayer will probably change us enough to be perfectly happy with anything that runs reliably on four wheels -- or else to see the benefit of walking instead.

But take something much more serious, like life or health. Does prayer do any good? Recent medical research says most definitely, "Yes". Mind and body are intimately connected. A prayerful mind soon becomes a peaceful one, while an anxious mind only makes matters worse. Stress produces not only hypertension (high blood pressure) but a host of other physical problems, as well as disposing the body for invasion by pathogens of all sorts.

But of course, the above examples are a "natural" explanation of the power of prayer. They hardly involve a miracles. So we still have to face the question, can prayer reverse the course of nature, can it literally "move mountains"? One answer is, of course, that if God is God, and so wills it, the mountain will be moved. (Supposedly St. Nicholas of Myra, the fourth century bishop who became "Santa Claus", actually did pull off that kind of miracle -- but that is only a legend.) The other answer is that such mountain-moving is only a metaphor for tough cases, like changing human minds, starting with our own. Still, if the so-called "laws of nature", at least according to quantum theory, are more like statistical averages (like what goes up usually, well over 99% of the time, comes down) rather than absolute rules, who knows what influence mind might have over matter as well?

All in all, however, I personally think St. Augustine had the best approach. He saw prayer as primarily an expression of our desire for God. Likening the human heart to a sack or container, Augustine saw prayer as a kind of exercise by which we slowly stretch the walls of this container, increasing its capacity to receive God's power or grace. But this divine influence first of all changes our minds so that we ourselves can become instruments of God's will. And if this is true, then these theologians are only echoing Jesus, who told us that "those who ask shall receive" ... not just "good things" but even more, according to St. Luke's rendition of this saying, they shall receive "the Holy Spirit". And if that is the case, then it is not just ourselves who pray, but as Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, it is God's Spirit that prays within us. At that point, who can place limits on what can happen?

R.W. Kropf
May, 2001

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File:prayer.htm 11/21/2001