demitrio@husc9.harvard.edu (suzanne demitrio) (01/22/91)
A question that I have been thinking about: If God exists outside time and doesn't have to act chronologically, can we pray for people who lived in the past? What does it mean to do so? Although divine grace sometimes manifestly affects history (i.e. the conversion of the Emperor Constantine), there's no reason that I can see why God can't act in ways that are historically indifferent, or at least imperceptible to anyone other than the person he's acting on. I think that it's possible, say, to pray that Adolph Hitler be given the grace to realize and repent his sins on his deathbed without one's having to worry about time paradoxes. Even if such an event would subtly affect history (and thus affect whether I exist and whether I am praying for Hitler), God, standing outside the time- continuum, can simultaneously "see" me choosing to pray and Hitler receiving grace. Anyhow, for reasons to be explained below, I don't think that God actually considers prayers as requests, but rather that I should pray for Hitler's salvation because it's good and right for *me* to do so. As you can see, this idea is still somewhat confuddled: Comments? Some ideas on prayer: If God is imminent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, then He knows our needs, and plans what's best for us, without the aid of information or persuasion received through prayer. It seems contradictory to me to believe that by praying we can or should influence God's actions, since by definition He is already doing what is best. But I believe that prayer is a good thing, and that prayers are answered. I think that this is because the business of prayer is more a matter of getting *oneself* to desire and understand that best thing which God would have done anyway. In other words, all of prayer is essentially saying, as sincerely as possible, "Thy will be done." "Hearing" an answer to prayer is thus a vindication that one prayed for the right thing, or asked the right question. I don't think one can morally pray for specific outcomes to events (i.e. "Please keep Jack alive," "Please keep the Visigoths from invading."). For one thing, praying for such things, and then seeing one's prayers go unanswered, might lead one to the preposterous conclusion that God was unjust. So what can/should one properly pray for? I have a few ideas on this, which fit neatly into a close reading of the Lord's Prayer (I actually came up with the ideas first and just spontaneously realized that they essentially paraphrase the Our Father -- isn't it lovely how reason reinforces faith?). Forgive my pretensiousness here -- I DON'T mean what follows as anything like a definitive reading -- just as a personal meditation. [Also please forgive my inconsistent capitalization of pronouns relating to God: I study medieval Church history, and the capitalization centers in my brain have gotten so addled by the lack of a coherent policy among the editors and translators of the stuff I read that whether I type "He" or "he" has become largely a matter of chance. When conscious of it, I use "He".] > Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name prayer for the greater glory of God: praising God as a way of confessing that we choose Him and put Him above everything else (of course, He doesn't *need* our praise; we, if honest, need to praise Him). > Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. prayer as acceptance of God's will: asking Him to do what He would have done anyway, so that we choose to obey Him without the limitation of asking what obedience entails, or of qualifying it through specific requests. > Give us this day our daily bread, prayer as the realization that everything we have comes from God, and that we live, even on a simple, physical level, entirely through His grace. > And forgive us our trespasses, prayer as contrition for sin > As we forgive those who trespass against us. praying for others as a manifestation of our forgiveness of, and goodwill toward, other people (???). Are we to identify with others by desiring their salvation? This is the only line in the prayer where the subject of the verb is not God. I'm not sure what to do with it. > And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. prayer for help in avoiding sin. I'd include praying for wisdom or self- knowledge (so as to act morally) under this line too, but that may be stretching things a bit. What else is there? Comments? --- Suzanne Demitrio (I'm a medievalist and a practicing Roman Catholic, recently returned >From agnostic apostasy -- which is to say that I'm still figuring things out.) [I think the most persuasive answer to the question of why God should need our prayers in order to do something is this: Of course he does not. Rather prayer is a gift to us. It is his way of allowing us to participate in his actions. Though of course I also agree with your comments about the importance of its effects on us. --clh]