Exploring the Depths of Christian Prayer

Question: What does the practice of prayer teach us about God?

Sonderegger (2015) describes Christian prayer as that which “brings us within the veil, to the holy mercy seat, to Christ’s own Person” (p. 292). This statement suggests that the act of prayer is capable of making the inner world of the God possible for us. Furthermore, Sonderegger (2015) states that “prayer is the participation in the Incarnate Word, under the conditions of sin and of grace” (p. 292) and that “prayer takes place within the molten Life of Divine Power” (p. 289). Such averments to the nature of prayer and its meaning and role in the theological life have been made throughout the breadth of Christian theology, although theologians in the reformist tradition may have differed on certain aspects of prayer from the earlier theologians (Barth, 2002). The reformers, as Barth (2002) points out, were faced with the question as to how it was possible for one to have an encounter with God and the answer to this question was that one must first pray. Calvin has argued that we pray through the mouth of Jesus Christ and that in some important ways the prayer is already made before it is formulated by us (Barth, 2002, p. 14). In other words, the prayer is uttered in the person of Christ and is constantly repeated. Luther argues that unless we pray we cannot know that we are in the presence of God (Barth, 2002, p. 15). The Heidelberg Catechism notes that prayer is the act of giving thanks to God (Barth, 2002, p. 16).

Based on this brief introduction, it may be summarised that the act of prayer has been considered to be an essential part of experience of God in the Christian theology or doctrine. The question is what does prayer teach us about God? Apart from some important and central concepts involved in Christian prayer and the importance of Christian prayer in theology and experience of God, the essay probes whether the use of prayer by theologian has the effect of taking the theologian outside the scope of critique surrounding his doctrine and theory. The emphasis is on what the practice of prayer teaches us about God. I argue that the practice of prayer teaches us two things about God. First, prayer teaches us that God is distinct from us mortals which is why we pray to God knowing the distinction between creatures and God. Second, prayer teaches us that God is accessible to us through the power of prayer and we can thus participate in God.

One of the essential mottos of Christian tradition is found in the maxim lex orandi, lex credenda (the law of what is prayed is the law of what is believed) or lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi (the law of what is prayed is what is believed is the law of what is lived) (De Clerck, 1994). This maxim seeks to align liturgy with theology so that prayer and belief are seen to be integral to each other. The Prosper of Aquitaine is generally thought to have been instrumental in highlighting the integral relationship between prayer and belief (De Clerck, 1994). The Catechism of the Catholic Church also reiterates the significance of lex orandi, lex credenda when it states that the faith of the Church precedes the faith of the believer who is invited to adhere to it and that the law of prayer is the law of faith whereas “Liturgy is a constitutive element of the holy and living Tradition” (Paul II, 1994). Thus, it may be said that prayer is an essential element of the experience of God as is conceptualised in lex orandi, lex credenda. Proceeding from this, it can be stated that Christian theology itself places a significant emphasis on the power of prayer to guide belief and the power of belief to guide prayer. Prayer and belief are interlinked. It has been argued that if it is true that the “whole Trinity is in the gospel of our salvation, it is also true that all theology lies hidden in the prayer which is our chief answer to the gospel” (Forsyth, 2002, p. 51). Indeed, Forsyth (2002) goes so far as to say that the problem with theology has been that it has been “denuded of prayer and prepared in a vacuum” (p. 51). In other words, the argument is that there is no reaching understanding about God and his inner life without prayer of the theologian.

The question is how far is the act of prayer revealing about God and the inner life of God. Some argue that prayer can be doctrinally disclosive; Coakley (2013) even regards prayer as a precondition for theological thinking, by arguing that unless one is resolutely engaged “in the practices of prayer, contemplation, and worship, then there are certain sorts of philosophical insight that are unlikely, if not impossible, to become available” (p. 16). In other words, one has to be involved in a prayer of a deep kind, in order to achieve deep knowledge about God and the inner life of God (Coakley, 2013). Furthermore, a theologian who is involved in such deep and contemplative waiting on the divine (through prayer) can reach into the otherwise inaccessible territory of the inner life of God. Coakely (2013) therefore argues that prayer allows ‘distinctive ways of knowing’, and leads to the development of rationality about God and the inner life of the God which is otherwise near impossible to achieve. By saying that there are distinctive ways of knowing about God, what is being emphasised on is the unique power of prayer to offer a way to experience the inner life of God.

Coakley (2013) is not making a new argument when she reiterates the point of the disclosive effect of prayer; for example, this argument can also be seen in the mantra stated by Evagrius in De oratione when he says that the true theologian is the one who prays truly (Harmless & Fitzgerald, 2001). Such disclosive effects of prayer are also interpreted by Evagrius on the basis of the testament when he stated that monks yearning to see the face of the Father become equal to angels through true prayer as is stated in Luke 20:36 (Harmless & Fitzgerald, 2001). Thus, they argue that prayer offers a distinctive way of experiencing God.

An important question is whether prayer helps in the way of learning about God or does it impede such learning. Furthermore, a question may be raised as to whether theologians should even pray. Balthasar is known for ‘kneeling theology’, or a way of doing theology on knees (Oakes & Moss, 2004). Balthasar argued that the theologian is mandated to do theology on his knees (or in the act of prayer). Ratzinger also notes the following:

“Theology is based upon a new beginning in thought which is not the product of our own reflection but has its origin in the encounter with a Word which always precedes us. We call the act of accepting this new beginning “conversion.” Because there is no theology without faith, there can be no theology without conversion” (Ratzinger, 1986, p. 26).

The basis of kneeling theology is that a theologist cannot proceed to develop a new thought about God because all knowledge and thought about God precedes our creation; thus, a theologian must pray in order to develop an understanding of this knowledge. This argument may be said to take away from the intellectual exercise that is involved in theology. Indeed, this is one of the arguments presented by Kilby (2012) in her critique of Balthasar where she writes that as compared to rationalist neo-scholastics who “developed arguments to demonstrate truths about God that can be known by reason alone”, Balthasar starts his theology from the point of aesthetics, and questions of beauty (Kilby, 2012). Balthasar places significance on the fundamental theology which is related to questions of credibility without considering the question of credibility as being apart from actual content of faith (Kilby, 2012). In doing so, Kilby (2012) argues that Balthasar does manage to heal the divide between theology and spirituality, by placing emphasis on ‘seeing the form’. However, there are also some dangers to this approach as Kilby (2002) notes; these dangers are posed by the placing of the aesthetic experience at the centre of theological endeavour, thus blurring the lines between doctrine and prayer, or intellectual endeavour and faith.

Proceeding from the above, a question arises as to whether a theologian ought to pray with the purpose of developing knowledge about God. Balthasar’s approach would demonstrate that theologian ought to pray with the purpose of developing knowledge about God; he would not think that prayer impedes learning about God. A counter argument may be made that prayer impedes learning about God because the theologian blurs the lines between liturgy and intellectual endeavours. In his essay, ‘Theology and Sanctity’, Balthasar says that the knowledge of God is never ‘separated from the attitude of prayer’ (Balthasar, 1989, p. 207). This suggests a position where prayer is seen to be essential to developing an understanding about God. However, there is also a possibility that prayer may instead of developing a better understanding of God, do the very opposite because of the possibility of suspension of judgement. While Balthasar prioritises prayer, Kilby (2012) argues that this view suggests that through prayer Balthasar gets a privileged access to a ‘perspective beyond what seems possible’ and a ‘God’s eye view’ of matters that are related to theology (Kilby, 2012, p. 13).

The objection to the above position on theology (as Kilby points out), is that a theologian can claim to know more about God only on the basis of prayer and the theologian knows more about related areas, such as, the scope of salvation and about the canonised dead (Kilby, 2012). There is an elitist viewpoint here that Kilby (2012) takes exception to in that the theologian seeks to ‘overreach’ what is theologically possible by taking the route of prayer and that the prayer protects such claims of overreach from proper scrutiny (Kilby, 2012). Kilby’s specific objection is that “Balthasar, it would seem, is proposing to do his theology in part on the basis of information not available to us, and information whose nature and value we cannot independently judge” (Kilby, 2012, p. 157). There is therefore a danger of taking the theologian’s claims of his being able to access something that we cannot because of prayer while at the same time not being able to intellectually question such claims. In other words, a theologian may be able to claim knowledge of God and inner life of God without having to undertake a doctrinal approach to explaining what he knows and how he knows it. To put it another way, a greater interlink between theology and prayer by the theologian leaves little space to probe, question and disagree with the claims of the theologian. This is the danger of using prayer within the context of theology as Kilby (2012) explains. It is on this ground that an objection to kneeling theology can be taken so that it can be argued that it is not appropriate to shield the theologian from critique surrounding their doctrine which is the proper function of theological discourse.

An argument may also be made that there is no role played by prayer in the study of God. However, there is long standing tradition of prayer in Christian spirituality, due to which there is a counter argument to be made about the potential of prayer to aid human beings in the learning about God. More specifically, for theologians, prayer can be important as prayer brings the theologian into a relationship with God. In the final section of this essay, the two aspects about God that are revealed to us through prayer are discussed.

God is without cause and in the act of prayer, those who pray to God are praying to a God who is without cause. In other words, to pray to God is to pray to someone who is uncreated and therefore, distinct from us (Sokolowski, 1982). Furthermore, we also learn that we are praying to someone who has created us and whom we still need but who does not need us (Sokolowski, 1982). It can be said that prayer leads to the understanding of a foundational truth that God is the creator, distinct from us, and in whose likeness we are created and whom we need (Davison, 2019). This argument is also made in theological context by Augustine, who wrote in the City of God that God teaches us the difference between himself and the created thing because it is foundational to know who made the created thing, how it was, and why it was made (Augustine, 1984). Augustine answers that we learn that God created all created things through his word and for the good (Augustine, 1984). Because God is the creator, prayer teaches us to turn to God and to consider a prayerful enactment of our creatureliness before God (Augustine, 1984).

Proceeding from the above point, prayer plays a specific role in helping us understand our creatureliness and in helping us experience the distinctness of God. Augustine had written that there is a resemblance between us and the divine Trinity that is seen by us in the fact of our existence (Augustine, 1984). It should be said that God is not visible to us and whether we do resemble God in some way or not is not something that we can know for a fact; the act of prayer helps us to experience such resemblance between us and the God because this sense is heightened with prayer when we also introspect on our creation and end, which brings us closer to feeling a resemblance to God (Augustine, 1984). Prayer not only makes us sensible of the fact that we are created by God, but also makes us sensible of God’s own self-sufficiency, because we are not necessary to God while God is necessary to the very truth of our existence and our end. In this context, Augustine notes that God is our creator and the creator of our natures, even though he is not responsible for the defects of the nature (Augustine, 1984).

Furthermore, the distinction between God and us as mortals is also highlighted in prayer specifically in the Christian doctrine, where the prayer is to ‘Our Father who art in heaven’. The reiteration of the fact that God is in a place that is not the same as where we are is specifically reflective of this distinction. At the same time, when we pray to God in heaven, we are also mindful of the sense of God’s activeness on earth (Przywara, 2014). The act of prayer shows to us that God being in heaven does not make God so separate from us so that our prayer does not reach us.

dimension of prayer that deserves to be considered (Blowers, 2012). Prayer itself is in the nature of performance and the performance is centred around the doctrine which directs how it is done. Furthermore, the performance of prayer is based on the idea that it will lead to gain of what is called as ‘special grace’ (Calvin, 1965). At the same time, prayer remains mystical and mysterious which we seek to explore through theology. Augustine notes that the extent to which God exists is ‘in some other manner, utterly remote from anything we experience or could imagine’ and although we try to access God through prayer, its performance reemphasises on the mystery of God because performance of prayer is in symbols some of which are not understandable to us in a clear sense. Theologically, the mystery of God and prayer is sought to be explained. Theology reveals and explains the mystery of prayer.

It has been suggested that there is “the shaping effect of theology”, specifically in the impact that Christian teaching on God may have on prayers offered by the faithful (Greer, 1992, p. 2). Prayer induces reflection especially on the subject of our participation in God (McFarland, 2014). The issue is also that we may have the potential of sinning because of free will, which was given to us by God. In the act of prayer, one also asks God to help them resist the act of sinning (Augustine, 1984). Therefore, prayer teaches us that we can look to God to keep us from sinning by the power of His Grace that we feel and experience in the act of prayer.

To conclude this essay, it is not appropriate to consider prayer as integral to theology in the sense that prayer is foundational to accessing and experiencing God because this may be an impediment to intellectual endeavours for demonstrating the knowledge about God. Linking prayer to doctrine can involve its own dangers, not the least that it takes an elitist viewpoint to how prayer can make God accessible to theologians in a distinct way from others. Another danger is that theologians who take a kneeling theology approach may claim that their experience of God and knowledge of the same is beyond probing and questioning. However, it can be said that prayer has an important role in theology, and does help to reveal two important things about God: God being distinct from mortals, and God being accessible through participation.

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Bibliography

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