By Praying has become a business, a profession, a trade. A minister is never happier than when praying in public. Most of them are exceedingly familiar with their God. Knowing that he knows everything, they tell him the needs of the nation and the desires of the people, they advise him what to do and when to do it. They appeal to his pride, asking him to do certain things for his own glory. They often pray for the impossible.
In the House of Representatives in Washington I once heard a chaplain pray for what he must have known was impossible. Without a change of countenance, without a smile, with a face solemn as a sepulchre, he said: “I pray thee, O God, to give Congress wisdom.”
It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring.
—Robert Green Ingersoll, “Which Way” (1884)
I always found that aspect of prayer troubling — if God knows everything, if he is wisdom itself, if he has a plan… why in the world would you try and mess it up? Why would he care what you think he should do? What possibly could you have to contribute?
Most theists want it both ways: a God who is omnipotent and omniscient and transcendent, yet who is genuinely interested in their thoughts about how to run the universe. If God is perfect and holy and just and love, wouldn’t he do the right thing no matter what? Why would we need to plead with him to do what is right and good?
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37 Comments
I was always bothered by the way public prayers are like sermons in the second person. Instead of “God is powerful”, say, “You are powerful”. Instead of “People, your money is God’s money, now give it back”, say, “God, as we take this offering, help us to remember that our money is really your money.” etc… every sermon could be delivered as an hour long prayer like this (and some prayers seemed to take that long by those who felt the need to make a statement).
Another property of prayers used to offend a friend of my mother before she died of lung cancer. She was really bothered when Pastors who instead of praying, “Lord, please heal Bev,” would say, “Lord, if it be your will, please heal Bev.” (especially nearer the end when the outlook was bleaker). As if to be careful not to ask for what they knew they wouldn’t get.
God knows it all and is good, but yet I must let him know what I need. Crazy. Most theists lack a considerable bulk of culture and knowledge and thus won’t sit down to think in depth about the issue. I actually believe that they don’t even care. They live their lives with both evidently self exclusive possibilities.
I may be pretty heterodox in this regard, but I have never found the belief in an apophatic, ominscient, omnipotent God incompatible with a belief in the power of prayer. I am not the sort of theist who believes in a God that ‘blesses’ people over others, and I emphatically hold up the old wisdom that ‘God helps those who help themselves’. For me prayer is a spiritual tool, and an exercise meant to benefit and serve the prayer not enact our will upon God.
When I pray to God in the hospital to help my father recover from his sickness I am not expecting literal results or asking God to make me a partner in creation. I am giving all my worry and attachment to worldly events up to God and asking for the strength to find His will in whatever happens. I am communicating with God and building a deeper relationship with Him, learning to find power in my powerlessness, and thus find my own ways to help my father. Literal results may or may not happen, I am an agnostic about that sort of theism, and an ignostic. That is not the sort of prayer I am interested in, and it’s efficacy is immaterial to me.
God Bless,
Gerald
Right on Daniel! This is something I have always wondered about as well. To me, this also plays into the concept of free will vs. predestination. If the big guy knows what going to happen, then he knows the fate of every human on this earth, ergo he has a plan for whether or not we sprain our ankle, get married, or go to hell. If this is true, then prayer is a useless endeavor. I always thought it was boring anyway.
‘God knows it all and is good, but yet I must let him know what I need. Crazy. Most theists lack a considerable bulk of culture and knowledge and thus won’t sit down to think in depth about the issue. I actually believe that they don’t even care. They live their lives with both evidently self exclusive possibilities.’
This offends me for two reasons. First, I am a theist and I believe I am pretty intelligent and well-informed. Secondly, I was raised an atheist and most of my family still is, and none of them need to be associated with people who make bigoted closed-minded comments.
When atheists make comments like this I am baffled. As an embattled minority atheists should be more interested in plurality, acceptance and open-minded discussion than anyone. When you feel like the theist establishment is attacking your beliefs (which they do) think about how a comment like this sounds. Why not take an approach that encourages unity rather than just being the atheist parallel to Fundamentalists and the Christian right?
God Bless,
Gerald
Gerald,
Since your god is omniscient, wouldn’t his plan also include whether or not he gives you the strength to move on from your father’s unfortunate fate? You and I both know that some people handle grief well, while others go so far as to commit suicide. I guess his plan doesn’t include giving the latter any solace. If he does have a plan (which he must if he’s omniscient), who are you to question it and ask him to change his mind?
‘Since your god is omniscient, wouldn’t his plan also include whether or not he gives you the strength to move on from your father’s unfortunate fate? You and I both know that some people handle grief well, while others go so far as to commit suicide. I guess his plan doesn’t include giving the latter any solace. If he does have a plan (which he must if he’s omniscient), who are you to question it and ask him to change his mind?’
But it is not about making Him change His plans. I believe we can have personal communion with God and when We make ourselves open to Him we receive His grace. Prayer is not about asking Him for the grace, the asking is just a tool, the outward appearance of an exercise in which we open ourselves.
Gerald,
Hmm… I have a few thoughts. Perhaps god is omnipresent and omnipotent, but can see the whole picture–not just the perceived ‘bad’ things. Prayer, in many cases, is used for individual purposes to secure an individual’s ego. But, perhaps it leads to the realization that there is something more powerful than any individual, that has its own purpose and agenda. Through prayer, we can let go of our own ambitions and desires to succumb to to will of the whole, rather than meet the demands of our ego.
Prayer for me, is about letting go and being directed by something greater.
Gerald -
It sound like you’re just one step away from the “I don’t pray, I meditate,” crowd.
“But, perhaps it leads to the realization that there is something more powerful than any individual, that has its own purpose and agenda. Through prayer, we can let go of our own ambitions and desires to succumb to to will of the whole, rather than meet the demands of our ego.
Prayer for me, is about letting go and being directed by something greater.”
Exactly! And our mortal and limited perspectives blur our idea of bad vs good, so to pray based on those is silly and unrealistic.
“It sound like you’re just one step away from the “I don’t pray, I meditate,” crowd.”
But I do pray, and I find myself almost incapable of meditating! I pray in the way the scripture of my religion ordain and take the attitude towards it that I find reasonable and in agreement with the spirit of the prayers Baha’u'llah has left for me. Prayer in conversation with God, and the words are only a tool for the conversation, not the conversation itself. Prayer is a tool by which I nudge my soul towards communion with the soul of God, there are many other such tools.
God Bless,
Gerald
I read so many anti-theist comments based on suppositions and outright ignorance. There’s nothing wrong with ignorance if one doesn’t persist in it. If you have a Bible, you might be interested in reading some passages about prayer that teach
1. We don’t know how to pray as we should…the Spirit intercedes for us (Romans 8:26,27).
2. When we pray we have confidence that God hears us and gives us what we need (1 John 5:14,15).
3. Prayer can change God’s mind (Deuteronomy 9 and many other passages).
4. We need to persevere in prayer (Luke 18).
5. Prayer can accomplish much (James 5:16).
6. Yes, he knows what we need before we ask it, but He wants to hear from us just the same (Matthew 6:7,8 ff).
Prayer keeps us in contact with the God who loves us. It is as much for our spiritual welfare as anything else. There is so much more to be learned…but this is a start.
I’d forgotten this section of an old favorite until recently:
“The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn,” Chapter 3:
“Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and
prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn’t so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn’t any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn’t make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn’t make it out no way.”
And this:
“Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body’s mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow’s Providence, but if Miss Watson’s got him there warn’t no help for him any more.”
It seems that we’re still stuck between the widow and Miss Watson.
Dwight -
“3. Prayer can change God’s mind (Deuteronomy 9 and many other passages).”
Many sections of the Pentateuch depict people interacting with God as with a monarch: negotiating with God (Abraham outside of Sodom and Gomorrah), chastising God (Moses reminding him of his promise to the patriarchs on Mt. Sinai), even essentially suing and bringing Him to court (Job.)
My impression, though, is that most Christians regard that as something from a bygone age. These weren’t prayers so much as direct conversations between God and a human being. It now seems quaint and mythic, like a God who comes down and “walk[s] in the garden in the cool of the day.”
I’m not sure you can draw from this to help shape a modern view of prayer.
Prayer is just asking Santa for presents. People rationalize it in many ways, but there it is.
I hear people mention omniscience and omnipotence often, apparently they don’t know that those two properties are mutually exclusive. No god can have both properties, its that simple. Its not a matter of theology, its a simple contradiction in the definitions of the words. Nothing can be both, ever. Not that I expect to convince a believer with reason, but perhaps its possible to crack the wall of willful ignorance now and then… enough for people to free themselves.
Aor,
Other than the fact that you assume no believer is interested in rationality, why do you say omniscience and omnipotence are incompatible, I am confused. Can I not do something and be conscious of my doing it and ability to do it all at once?
Quoting from Iron Chariots Wiki:
“The omnipotence and omniscience paradox can be summed up as “Does God know what he’s going to do tomorrow? If so, could he do something else?” If God knows what will happen, and does something else, he’s not omniscient. If he knows and can’t change it, he’s not omnipotent.”
This is an irrefutable and inescapable problem for anyone who believes that their god is both omniscient and omnipotent. Philosophers and apologeticists have had thousands of years to find a way around this paradox, and failed. Few theists seem to care, its easier to ignore than deal with it.
And its not that I assume no believer is interested in rationality, I said people rationalize it in many ways. People, some people at least, have the ability to turn off their rational thought when it comes to religious topics. They avoid applying skeptical and rational thought to faith issues. They must, after all.. since faith and reason tend to disagree.
I don’t see it as a paradox. It sounds like a fabulous bonus to being omniscient and omnipotent. If it knows what will happen and changes it, that doesn’t make it not omniscient.
I think the difficulty comes from semantics, the fact that we are using human-created language to try and describe something that cannot be described accurately in our language, and so we can only give it human form, thereby creating limitations for it. The limitations aren’t with the universal energy or nature of god, the limitations are with our own mortality, in not having the ability to describe God in clear terms. So we use words like “omnipotent” and “omniscient”, but these still don’t quite cut it. There is still an “I can’t know” quality to what we think we can know and describe.
We don’t have the terms for it, or the ability to comprehend it fully. We can only comprehend it sort of partly, and our logical brains create religions and faiths to explain the parts that don’t connect.
I avoid the word “pray” because it reminds me of people begging for stuff (maybe false idols?) or things they think should be. Instead of saying “I pray to God”, because God forbid I might be confused with a Christian. If I have to put words to it, and I so dislike jargon, I suppose I commune with the energy of the universe. In fact, one of the things I hate most about Christianity, and some other organized religions, is the stinking jargon. I have mixed feelings about semantics.
I don’t care if people pray, or when or where or how they do it. But don’t act like it makes you somehow better or special. Don’t tell me you know a better way because you read a 2000 year old history book, and then proceed to judge and criticize people who keep their mind open.
Some things can’t be defined, and I don’t think we, as a culture and as individuals, benefit by defining every little thing. Some things just *are*. The human tendency to put everything in a defining little box, to segregate it so that it can be classified and understood makes it difficult to let things just *be*.
In the old days (20, 30 years ago), an atheist was simply defined as someone who didn’t believe in God. It seems like more and more I hear it used in context of someone who doesn’t believe in the Christian God? Or as more of a scientist/skeptic? It’s a loaded word, anyway. It’s kind of like saying “Hitler”.
: )
Atheists=hitler?
only in the minds of the people behind Expelled, I think…
False Idols are only false to people who don’t believe in them.
Sorry Diane, but just because you don’t see it as a paradox doesn’t change the fact that it IS a paradox and has been so for thousands of years since some bright greek fellow first asked it. The language issue falls flat with me as well. There is a clear and unavoidable contradiction between the definitions of those two words, which has implications. Words are used to describe gods. If we cannot trust those words, then why use any words at all? If we cannot say ‘god is omnipotent’ then we also cannot say ‘god exists’, for ‘to exist’ may not have any meaning. You see, its a spiral into ignorance. Philosophical juggling, with no true connection to reality.
We must trust rational thought to be superior to irrational thought, in any and all situations. Belief in the supernatural just doesn’t cut it.
Actually, Aor, Apophatic theists have dealt with that question, as has any theist who believes in a God free from outside attributes and thus not slave to time.
I don’t think ignoring rational thought counts as dealing with a question. No amount of supernatural blabbering will ever remove the simple and clear contradiction between those words.
Apophatic theists, if I recall correctly, believe that nothing can be said about deities. If they believe they can say nothing about their deity, then they are fools if they say its a deity, because that would contradict their position that nothing can be said about deities. If words cannot be used, if the concepts from inside our universe do not apply outside, then they cannot legitimately even use the word ‘deity’ or ‘god’ or ‘belief’, because the topic of conversation is beyond words.
Its sophistry.
Ah, but Aor, what are words. Words are tools not realities. An apophatic theist may use words to describe God for their own personal use but would never delude themselves in thinking those words were anything more than tools they personally choose to use. Most theists I know who practice aphophatic theism also consider themselves agnostic theists, myself included.
Agnostic theists? You don’t sense a contradiction between someone who claims they cannot know and someone who claims to know something? I think you have a mistaken definition in there somewhere. Its all just philosophical mumbo jumbo, and when you put it up against rational thought it starts to fall to pieces.
@Gerald (+Diane):
> “Words are tools not realities.”
Very true, but words have to be used in some agreed-upon frame of reference, otherwise they serve no purpose. Gerald, I think that you are mixing a lot of definitions to the point of breaking. The words loose their meaning.
Consider this possibility: It may be that no tool is perfect, but it may also be that you are using the tools incorrectly.
When believers insist upon attributing their deity with absolute powers, paradoxes will enevitably arise (omniscience vs omnipotence, omnibenevolence vs existence of evil, all-loving God who is also genocidal, omniscient God who changes his mind, etc). Dismissing the paradoxes with “we don’t have the necessary divine insight to resolve them” is logically disingenuous. A more reasonable explanation would seem to be that your presuppositions are simply wrong. When presuppositions lead to unsolvable paradoxes it is because they don’t reflect reality.
@Aor:
I played with the omniscience-omnipotence paradox. On the surface, one can resolve it. Except not really.
Let’s say that God knows all consequences of his actions in excruciating detail before he acts. You could then say that he is both omniscient and omnipotent. He can change his mind and still know everything.
However, the paradox bites its own tail: if he knows the future in every detail he would also know what he himself decides to do in the future. Which means that God has no free will and is thus not omnipotent. We’re back to the original problem.
As a Catholic, I prayed for years that God would end world hunger. Eventually the prayers stopped. Hunger didn’t.
Pray in one hand and $#17 in the other and see which fills up first.
It’s as useful as an inflatable dartboard.
However, it seems to produce economic benefits to the shamans …
”Agnostic theists? You don’t sense a contradiction between someone who claims they cannot know and someone who claims to know something? I think you have a mistaken definition in there somewhere. Its all just philosophical mumbo jumbo, and when you put it up against rational thought it starts to fall to pieces.”
No, I never claimed I knew anything. Theist means I believe in God, and agnostic theism is a well established form of theism. An atheist and a theist both approach the question via knowledge. A strong agnostic believes the question cannot be answered, no one can know whether or not there is a God. I am a strong agnostic. I can however believe there is a God. Belief and knowledge are different things.
So you are in doubt, yet have a belief that contradicts that doubt.
I’m not impressed by that kind of doublethink.
Its a logical fallacy.
From the wikipedia talk page on this subject:
“If the agnostic theist still wishes to believe, he must ascribe attributes of some sort to the belief. However, they would then be claiming some knowledge of their deity and are therefore no longer agnostics but are theists instead.”
In other words, if your belief in god refers to any aspect of god.. including ‘exists’ or ‘is’ or refers to that god by sex, or name, or insists on capitalizing the general term ‘god’ into the christian term ‘God’, then you are making claims about your god, which makes you no longer agnostic in any way, and you are merely a misguided theist.
“Theist means I believe in God, and agnostic theism is a well established form of theism”
I’ve always heard it referred to as “pious agnosticism.”
Aor, I have admitted I do not KNOW anything about God. My theology centers around that and my rational mind tells me that it is IMPOSSIBLE to know whether God exists or not. I BELIEVE He does. I believe God exists because I feel so strongly that Baha’u'llah is more than human, I feel so strongly that He should be trusted to the letter, and I love Him so intensely that His life and works testify the existence of a God. But I admit that that is a subjective belief, not an objective knowledge. Any words I use to describe God are then subjective beliefs, not knowledge.
I just don’t happen to be a person who places objective knowledge on a pedestal above subjective belief. I prefer a pragmatic balance.
VorJack,
I like that! Pious agnosticism. If I were trying to define my beliefs in an exact way I would say I am an Agnostic apophatic panentheistic fideist with influences from natural theology and American Deism and and a metaphysical idealist. I like labels :p But pious agnostic is much more fun.
God Bless,
Gerald
I shouldn’t be doing this, but I value correctness…
God could know the consequences of all of his actions, but be able to choose between them, ie he chooses the action knowing the consequences of every choice that he makes, and thus opens up new choices, every option of which he understands intimately.
HOWEVER
in this case, the omniscient, omnipotent god could not have free will AND be perfect. Something has to give in the image of god most people have. If god has free will, he can choose any of the options his omnipotence and omniscience lay before him… but if he is perfect he can only select the best option, which isn’t free will.
Gerald, as long as you say ‘He’, you are making a claim about your god, which means you are not agnostic in any way shape or form. If you make any positive claim, like ‘god has this attribute of maleness’ then you lose the right to claim to be agnostic. Its that simple.
You may like the lable, but that does not make it correct.
Aor,
No, you insist that belief and knowledge are the same, and I do not agree. I do not KNOW if God exists, I believe He does. The label agnostic refers to knowledge, whereas theist and atheist refer to belief. When I use the word He it is out of force of habit, I do not believe God has maleness. And, when I use any word to describe God it is conditional to two things 1: I do not claim to KNOW this about God, I believe it. 2: I do not believe that this is objectively true about God, rather it is a word-tool I am using to explain an abstract concept.
I keep trying to explain that I believe in God and yet make no objective claims nor do I find objective claims about the existence or nature of God to be useful or intellectually honest.
God Bless,
Gerald
Wouldn’t things be simpler if you kept all of your beliefs, but attached a correct label instead of a false one? You could call yourself a theist, since you believe in a supernatural power. What does attaching the word ‘agnostic’ add to your belief system other than doubt?
Using your interpretation, the vast majority of ’soft theists’ would be agnostics. Any theist who accepted that it was impossible to truly know would become an agnostic theist. I find that utterly ridiculous.
@Gerald:
So the truthiness is what persuades you that a god exists?
To quote the Bard:
“That is, hot ice and wond’rous strange snow! How shall we find the concord of this discord?”
To say “I believe in god” makes you a theist. You just claim to be a theist who doesn’t know anything about the god you believe in. Which I suppose is fine. But to me it sounds like a wierd sort of inverse Pascalian wager.
Do you do anything about your belief in god? I mean, when I believed in god I had certain rituals I followed, I tried to think about the stuff he wanted me to do …
I hope I’m not coming across as too snarky, I’m genuinely interested in how that belief shapes your life.
If it makes no difference, then why bother holding that belief at all? If it does, then why not simply call yourself a theist?
Aor,
I don’t normally identify myself as an agnostic theist, or anthing else. I stick with the term Baha’i, Baha’u'llah is the important part of my beliefs, not philosophical jargon. I used the word agnostic to make a point, using an accept theological/ontological term.
Metro,
Yes, I suppose to some extent truthiness plays a role (I am sure Stephen Colbert would like to know that he is now a theologian :p)
Now, as for a weird inverse of the Pascalian wager maybe it is. I do sincerely believe in God, I just don’t see evidence that proof either way is possible nor am I intersted in it.
Yes, I am a member of the Baha’i Faith and I follow the Laws set down by Baha’u'llah. I pray a ritual prayer daily, I abstain from alcohol, etc.
It does make a difference, my worldview is shaped in large part by my theism, and normally I jsut call myself a Baha’i not any philosophical mumbo-jumbo, I used the phrase in the context of a conversation that led to it, not as a normal self-identification.
Sorry for any spelling mistakes, this was written quickly without spell-check.
God Bless,
Gerald