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Discerning the Catholic view...  The question that we ponder this week is often asked at various times in our lives. But probably the most common circumstance is in times when God appears absent, when the world seems to be against us, and nothing we do can extricate us from this "vale of tears". Often amidst our struggle we will ask ourselves, "Is God listening to me? Does he, she or it even care? Why does God not grant my request for help?" The trite response is usually that "God gives you what you need and not what you want!" And there maybe some truth in that, but it also raises the fundamental issue of God's role in the world... God's Relationship with the World: Two Competing Views.
The topic of God's relationship with the world was raised in discussions on this forum back in August last year when we debated the problem of evil. In the course of that discussion we arrived at a number of conundrums. If we truly believe that God designed and continues to maintain the cosmos, and that God is all-knowing and all-loving, should we not also believe that God has pre-ordained the provision of everything we might need throughout the whole of our lives? Is it therefore necessary to even pray prayers of petition? God already knows our needs and has made allowance for them from "the beginning". Should we not simply trust in God's providence and spend our time of prayer in contemplation and thanksgiving rather than in petition and entreaty. At the heart of this problem lays an even more radical issue — what is God like? What can we know of God? How do we know God? Can knowledge of God be attained by pure reason (Natural Theology), or are we dependent upon revelation? This is a classic problem in Thomist theology. Thomas Aquinas believed that there was no fundamental disagreement between Greek Philosophy (especially Aristotle) and Christian Theology (derived from Revelation). Following Aristotelian notions of deity, Aquinas mused that according to philosophy God was the "Unmoved Mover" who neither knows nor cares about the world, which seems to be contradicted by biblical revelation that presents us with a "Father" God who is intimately concerned with creation. For Aquinas this was no contradiction because God as the Maker of the world is its "ultimate cause", and thus knows the effects of divine creation. Since God knows everything within the divine being, God knows the whole of creation; every cause and its effect derives from the "First Cause" (God) and is therefore an emanation of the divine will. Not all medieval scholars agreed with this piece of logic. The Franciscans in particular (e.g., Bonaventura, Bacon and Grosseteste) argued that knowledge of God could never be gained through rational enquiry; God was utterly transcendent and "other" than human experience. Our knowledge of God could only be equivocal, hazy and analogous. God can only be "experienced" when one withdraws from the world and seeks the "reflections" and the "shadows" of God in material things. At the heart of this view is a fundamental recognition that God is not part of this world and can never be found by simple observation. We are dependent solely upon revelation to know anything at all about God. This view would be expressed again by Protestant theologians in the twentieth century, especially Karl Barth. Barth saw the Bible as a "strange new world", which spoke of the "otherness" of God. Barth argued that God cannot be grasped by any single set of human concepts. In his view, we are totally dependent upon the divine word found in scripture — thus Christianity is a matter of revelation, not of religious aspirations. Any point of contact between God, who is wholly other, and us lies solely in God's word. So this then is our problem: Does God answer our prayers? Is God a part of our world and therefore concerned with it? Or is God totally "other" and our only point of contact is via the revealed Word? Need we pray prayers of petition, or should we just meditate on the Bible? The "Catholic" View Traditionally, the Church has favoured the Thomist view that marries Aristotelian philosophical concepts of God as all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving with images that emerge from the Scriptures — i.e., God as "father", "lover", "overlord" and "monarch". Down through the ages the pendulum has swung between one or the other to a greater degree. Up until Vatican II a lot of stress was laid on the "Scholastic" approach of Aquinas. However, Benedict's last encyclical and his more recent pronouncements in Germany seem to be signalling a paradigm change (begun at Vatican II), with a swing back to more biblical notions of God who loves the world with "eros" (sexual or erotic love), and who should not be seen as a judge with a balance sheet.
As a result of this changing landscape it is difficult to pin down exactly what the "Catholic" view of God is. Basically, like Aquinas, we would stress divine providence and our prayer-life would be focused primarily on thanksgiving and contemplation. Natural theology plays an important role in Catholic thinking about God, as well as Catholic moral theology (Natural Law). Nevertheless, there is a very strong tradition in Catholic thought that God can and does enter into creation granting prayer requests and performing miracles. Such events are, of course, seen as extraordinary — as the canonisation process demonstrates (whereby strict conditions govern decisions concerning claims for miracles). Still, prayers of petition and entreaty form an important, albeit lesser, aspect of Catholic prayer-life — one needs only note the "Prayers of the Faithful", which form part of the Eucharist ("Thanksgiving"). There is in the modern Church, therefore, something of Barth's view as well. Long before Barth, Catholic theologians offered a similar opinion that the Bible is a "strange new world" that speaks of the "otherness" of God, and Christianity is a matter of revelation not of religious aspirations. Put succinctly, God is not a part of this world; God is totally "other". This, of course, doesn't preclude the divine being making contact with us; but it does rule out any idea of us being able to "reach" or "touch" the mind of God by our own efforts. Moreover, the written "Word" in the Bible is but one aspect of God's self-communication and self-giving. This is where the person of Jesus and the mission of the Church come in! Jesus: The Sacrament of God In Catholic theology, especially since Vatican II, Jesus the Christ has come to be seen as "the primordial sacrament of encounter with God" — i.e., the pinnacle of God's self-communication with the world, the ultimate corporeal expression, or "image", of God's love and compassion. In Jesus' life, teachings, death and resurrection the transcendent God made the divine nature immanent to us. After the Ascension, the Spirit of Jesus remained within the Church which, as the "sacrament of Jesus", continues to make visible God's presence in, or rather God's availability to, the world. If we would ask, what is God like, the Catholic answer is to say, "Look to the mission of Jesus and, by extension, that of the Christian Church". This is not to say that there is no salvation outside the Church; one is not called to be Church to work out one's own salvation. Nor is membership of the Church necessary in order to find God. One does not encounter God, nor can one hope to influence God, by being "religious". Indeed, I would even argue that Christianity is not a "religion" per se — using here the definition of the sociologists like Emile Durkheim, Rene Girard or Peter Berger who see religion as a means by which society erects a collective identity, and maintains order and social cohesion. The Church is about mission; its call is to continue the work of Jesus as the voice of the voiceless, the champion of the marginalised, the conscience of society, the ever-present reminder that there is a God who holds humankind responsible for its actions. In this scheme, God does not necessarily require our prayers or our worship — but we do! Prayer, reflection, meditation, liturgical celebrations, and yes even prayers of petition and entreaty help to centre us personally and bring us together as a community to make Jesus (God) present in the world by our gathering. The Church and, therefore, Jesus are only made visible when we gather as a community either in prayer or in social action. Jesus is made visible when we gather as Christians, sharing our faith and ourselves in a real "communion" of the faithful. This is what Paul meant when he spoke of the "body of Christ". Final Reflection: Does God Answer Our Prayers? At this point we may be in a position to attempt an answer to our initial question — does God answer our prayers? But given the weight of theology that I have asked you to bear so far, I am going to answer this question by way of a simple parable that is derived from the Jewish Mishnah.
When the rains came, they came in heavy and the local river flooded, killing all the livestock. The rabbi again prayed, "Heavenly Father, my people are suffering so much, save us from this flood!" But, again, no help from God seemed forthcoming. So the rabbi lobbied the government authorities to provide financial assistance to replenish the herds lost in the deluge. Finally, in the wake of the flood, infection and disease ran through the inhabitants of the village. The rabbi prayed once more, "Now surely God you will help us!" But the diseases ran their course. So the rabbi marshalled and organised the able bodied in the village to care for the sick. Months later reflecting on the tragedies of the past year, the rabbi turned to God and accused the deity, "Why did you not answer the prayers of my poor villagers? Why did you not send help to them when we were beset by drought, floods and pestilence?" After many hours of anguished entreaty, a quiet voice answered the rabbi in the depths of his heart, "Of course I sent help; I sent you!" Photo Credits:
What are your thoughts on this essay? Ian Elmer can be contacted at: Ian Elmer <ianelmer@catholica.com.au> Please Note: You need to remove the "NOSPAM" words at the beginning of the email address before sending the email" ©2007 Ian Elmer |
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A
small village in Rural Russia was beset by drought one year and all the
crops failed. The village rabbi prayed to the heavens, "Why don't
you do something about this dreadful drought?" But the heavens
remained silent. So the rabbi organised a charity food drive with the
neighbouring villages to feed his people.
Ian
Elmer is a lecturer in New Testament at ACU National (formally Australian
Catholic University). He is also a member of the Centre for Early Christian
Studies, and was recently admitted into ACBA (Australian Catholic Biblical
Association). His research specialities are Paul and First-Century Christianity.
He is the author of published articles in the Australian Ejournal of Theology
and in Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church (a publication of the
Centre for Early Christian Studies). He has recently submitted his doctoral
thesis, entitled Paul, Jerusalem and the Judaisers: The Galatian Crisis
in its Broader Historical Context.