I’ve been pondering the paradox of prayer recently. For as churchless and non-religious as I am, the urge to pray still arises in me when I’m faced with a difficult situation. Laurel is going to have surgery next Wednesday. I want it to go well. The thought, “Perhaps a prayer for a successful operation is in order” arises. But then I ask myself, “Why do I want to pray?”
Considering this question leads me straight into paradox. I’m assuming that whatever being I pray to—let’s call this entity “God” for lack of a better name—can hear my spoken or silent thoughts. Otherwise, what is the point in praying? But if God can hear me when I’m praying, it certainly seems that God also should be able to hear me the rest of the time.
What I picture God “hearing” includes more than the words that I speak to myself in my head. It also includes my non-verbal emotions, intentions, and desires. Indeed, everything that is projected from the psyche of the being that I call “Me.” I presume that a God capable of changing the course of worldly events is capable of knowing all about the world in which those events occur. Which includes the inner world of me and Laurel.
So the God I’m praying to must already know what I’m praying for. Indeed, God must be more intimately acquainted with what I desire, and need, (the two clearly not being identical) than I am myself. For I can deceive myself, but I don’t believe that I can deceive an omniscient Supreme Being or Consciousness. Where, then, is the need for prayer if God already knows what I desire for myself and others?
Here’s another paradox: The God to whom I am praying has allowed to occur the situation that has stimulated my prayer. For example, God has permitted Laurel’s health condition to evolve to the point where she needs a hysterectomy. If God indeed is omnipotent, and, as I’m assuming, omniscient, then God has both the power and the wisdom to make happen whatever He/She/It wills.
Thus, I find myself praying to a God who has ignored my prayers (or Laurel’s prayers) up to now. For both of us fervently desire that Laurel be pain-free and healthy. Since God hasn’t intervened to make a hysterectomy unnecessary before, why should I think that God will spring into action and help us now?
It seems reasonable to assume that either God can or can’t control what happens in the cosmos (assuming, of course, that God exists). If God can, then what has happened, is happening, and will happen is all God’s will—by intention or default—not ours. Hence, there’s no reason to pray. If God can’t, then there also is no reason to pray. Either way, I come to the conclusion that there is no reason to pray.
Yet, most of us do, in one form or another. We want to feel that the Almighty hears us and cares about us. We want to have a Friend to carry us through tough times. In an extension to this post I’ll share a poem that one of Laurel’s relatives recently sent her which captures this spirit.
Paul Tillich also wrote about the paradox of prayer in a much more eloquent and profound fashion than I’m capable of. Tillich begins his short essay with a quotation from Paul:
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ROMANS 8:26-27.
He concludes that the “sighing too deep for words” may very well be the truest form of prayer. I agree. A silent sigh directed toward the Ultimate is well spoken; everything else that goes by the name of prayer ignores the mystery and paradox of God.
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