The questions posed in my last entry might suggest that that I’m putting little stock in the efficacy of prayer. In other words, that I’m doubting that God wants or needs us to be his partners in his unfolding will. The Lewis words I quoted seem to head that direction as well. But Jesus would lead us another way. Lewis goes on to say:
Petitionary prayer is, nonetheless, both allowed and commanded to us: “Give us our daily bread.” And not doubt it raises a theoretical problem. Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate. He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers and butchers; or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to co-operate in the execution of His will. “God,” said Pascal, “instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.”
Lewis goes on to suggest that it is no stranger to think that our prayers have some causal effect in God’s unfolding will than any of our other actions. What is to separate my feeding a hungry woman a piece of bread and my praying that hunger shall vanish from the earth? Does not God welcome us in both circumstances as his partner? I suppose it bespeaks the mysterious relationship between the sovereign God and his free-agent creatures.
What do you think?
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