Don: The world in which we live and must function is governed by natural laws. In a general sense, natural laws control our environment. They have to do with causes—gravity, for instance; and their effects—falling apples, for instance. They can be predicted, and therefore they can be managed, Newtonian laws determines how physics work; economic laws dictate how the economy functions; social laws dictate how society functions.
Laws answer the question: “Why? Why are things the way they are?” It is a question whose asking seems to be at the core of our nature. Understanding why something is the way it is and works the way it does enables us to change it or harness it to our supposed benefit.
This was essentially the argument of Job’s wife and friends: That there was a cause for the effects (the retribution) Job was experiencing, and it was within his power to influence that cause and thereby change the effects. In principle, Job did not disagree with that argument, but he disagreed about the cause: They said he must be doing bad things—that was the cause of his suffering; he protested that in fact he was being good and pious. He told them he could prove his goodness and win his case in a court of law.
We see the same issue in Jonah, who thinks that natural law dictates that evil (a cause) should be destroyed by god, and when that effect is not forthcoming he gets angry with god. He said he would rather die than live in a world where evil is not predictably punished.
In our discussion of Jonah last week, David said he thought the story made no sense. Perhaps that’s the point of the story! It made no sense to Jonah, either. God tried to convince him that his ways were not our ways, but to no avail. Jonah, like many of his successor prophets and preachers, would rather preach hellfire and damnation than mercy and grace even though they have clearly heard god’s own word that he is indeed all about mercy and grace. They choose, rather, to ignore god’s word.
Our will, our thinking, is that cause and effect must be definable, reproducible, and predictable. Children often ask “Why?” the sky is blue, etc. We are children of god, constantly seeking to know why, constantly seeking cause and effect; but in the kingdom of heaven, natural laws don’t exist. In the kingdom of heaven, people are raised against gravity; the blind can see; the deaf can hear; the first is last; and so on. As Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount, natural laws have no predictive power in the kingdom of heaven. There is no eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, or life for a life. There is no retribution, no punishment. In the kingdom, there is only love, mercy, and grace. This is a realm, and these are properties, beyond the reach of the question: “Why?” Perhaps prayer is designed to take us into that realm beyond the “Why?”
In Job’s confessional prayer, we see the difference between hearing about god and seeing god. It’s the difference between hindsight, which explains everything in retrospect, and insight, which requires no explanation. Insight is an awareness. Job has an image of god, and how god is supposed to operate, in his mind. But the Second Commandment prohibits the making of idols and replicas of god and the prohibition is perhaps not just about physical idols but about conceptual idols where we conceive images of god we suppose accurately portray him and his modus operandi.
This is also the fundamental problem of Jonah, a supposed prophet of god who makes it clear he would rather die if god did not conform to his image of him. Like Jonah, we say god is “like this” or “like that” so that we can explain “Why.” Then along came Jesus, who told us that the picture of god we had been taught to believe was wrong. In other words, Jesus came to show what god is like which often was very different from the view of God portrayed in the Old Testament. So the Old Testament served to help Jesus show what god is not.
We pray to align the cause with the effects we see around us. But god said clearly in Isaiah that his ways are not our ways, his thought is not our thought. He is beyond laws of cause and effect. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” is so hard to pray because it leads to that unfathomable realm: The realm of faith. The purpose of continuous prayer is to find out whether and how to reach that realm.
When we open the box of humankind, we find ourselves hardwired to the will of god, through the inner light. I John 1:9, Ecclesiastes, and other scriptures all talk about this. Free will is the ability to choose to sever the wire. Jonah exercised it, and although god kept putting him right, Jonah’s stubbornness was such that right to the end, he chose against the true god of mercy and grace right in favor of a cause-effect god.
There are many things in life—they are a sort of viral infection, corruptions to the code that god planted in us—that interfere with our hardwiring, that caused Jonah, and us, to reject grace, or to hoard it. 1 Peter 4:10 points out that we are stewards of god’s grace. James 5:16 says that “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” The “much” that is accomplished lies in taking us beyond the realm of cause and effect and fear, and into the realm of understanding and enlightenment and faith. Prayer re-boots our spiritual computer; it rekindles the inner light.
David: I agree that prayer of the right kind leads to faith, and as we seem all to have agreed, there is only one such prayer: “Thy kingdom come, they will be done.” This is the very heart of the Lord’s Prayer, in my opinion. And it has the beauty of simplicity. Don’s remarks about cause and effect led me to equate it with the notion of reason and the realm of science. We seek scientific rational explanation—reason—for everything. But god’s will is beyond reason, beyond science—much like the story of Jonah!
The one hope I have is that science is apparently capable of taking us into realms that lie beyond reason. I am thinking especially of quantum physics, where things are not what they seem, where 0=1, a change to one particle can co-instantaneously affect its twin at the far side of the universe, and where god, much to Einstein’s dismay, appears to play dice.
Of course, the reason we got to quantum physics from Newtonian and relativistic physics was because we kept asking “Why?” to questions they could not answer, so I am not sure that it is wrong to ask why. It might not provide the ultimate answer, but at least it peels back another layer of the onion and provides fresh insights. Even so, we have to be prepared for the possibility that one day our questions will be met by the voice of a frustrated parent bellowing “BECAUSE!”
Harry: I recall once discussing with a friend a mutual acquaintance whom I thought of as a good man. My friend said, “Yes, except that he has not accepted Jesus as his lord and savior.” Our mutual acquaintance was, in my opinion, hardwired to god, but the label “Jesus” was not pasted on his god. We get into trouble when we try to put labels on god. So if a label for god is X and you don’t explicitly acknowledge X as god, then you cannot be hardwired to him—or so my friend’s logic went.
When Moses asked god “Who am I to say sent me?” god replied: “Say ‘I am’ sent you.” That is about as explicit a rejection of labeling as one can think of! A label is a definition of the entity to which it is affixed, but god cannot be defined. A label gives us the illusion that we know what lies beneath it, but in fact the only way to come anywhere close to understanding god is through asking: “Why?” I think god wants us to ask the question, in the same way we want our children to ask “Why?” when we tell them not to put their hands in the fire.
Jay: “Why?” is certainly fundamental to us. When Jesus healed the blind man (John 9) the disciples asked “Why?” but they were looking for cause and effect: Was it the blind man’s own fault or his parents’ fault that he was blind? The question I think Jesus was really looking for—the type of question we should be asking in prayer—is: “Please enlighten me about what you are doing. Please help me understand you and your will.” This is the interrogative form of the statement: “Thy will be done.” It has nothing to do with cause and effect.
Kiran: Two examples, one from the New Testament and one from the Old, perhaps help shed some light on how god disdains the cause-and-effect “Why?” question. First, John the Baptist was thrown into gaol for preparing the way for Jesus, but Jesus did nothing to get him out. He had fulfilled his purpose (god’s purpose) in life. Second, Noah preached about the coming flood, but lacking any evidence (no cause) people disbelieved him (without a cause, there could be no effect, they thought.)
Don: Those examples reflect god’s response to Jonah: “I can do what I want. I don’t have to deal with evil the way you think I should.” Jonah, despite instinctively knowing this in his heart, says: “Over my dead body!”
Michael: On the one hand, I am hardwired and on that basis I accept things as they come; but on the other, I am a scientist and I need to ask “Why?” even while knowing that this is a dangerous question insofar as it can destroy my faith in god!
Jay: The whole of human history—humanity itself—has been shaped by our asking “Why?” If we had not, through Adam and Eve, acquired the knowledge of good and evil, we would not have questioned things. Would not life and history and humanity have been much better if we had never asked “Why?” God tells us that we don’t need to worry about the “Why?,” that we are incapable of understanding the answers anyway, and that his grace is all we need.
David: Doesn’t this throw a spanner into the works of this class? Are we not here to ask “Why?”…
Don: Yes, this could be our last class! J
Jay: But seriously, what if this class stopped asking god “Why?” and instead asked “What are you doing? What is your will?” Could that turn our relationship with god on its head?
Don: In quantum mechanics, there is a suspension of cause and effect; a sort of random unpredictability that seems more reflective of the spiritual realm than the physical realm.
Ada: When asked “Do you know god?” my answer is that I am getting to know that he is unpredictable! When you think you have reached the end of the maze, he moves the cheese! The only way to make any sense of his unpredictability is through faith.
Don: After Elijah encountered god, in all his power and glory, on Mount Carmel, he went looking for god again and expected to find him through another show of pomp and power. But god had become just a still, small voice, which Elijah completely missed. So yes, he moves the cheese! He changes the label!
Kiran: Is it wrong to ask “Why?” or is it wrong to presume that god will answer the question in a way we can recognize as an answer?
Michael: We tend to expect answers based on our own understanding of the laws of nature.
Jay: Faith is the belief that whatever the answer is, it is god’s answer. We try to put god in a box, but he cannot be boxed. Prayer of the right kind is a way to build faith through communication with a seemingly random and unpredictable god.
David: The oriental way to pray is to ask for enlightenment, rather than asking “Why?” It is opening one’s mind to make it receptive to enlightenment. It is emptying one’s mind so that god can fill it with whatever god chooses to put in there. They do not seek answers to specific questions. In a state of enlightenment, all questions are answered—or, perhaps, no questions need ever be asked. It’s very quantum!
Harry: God gave us the ability to ask “Why?” of natural issues, but not of metaphysical issues, not about why bad things happen to good people. Or to me. Prayer is about finding god within us. It is not about changing our environment or circumstances—those are worldly issues we can question, but we must question science, not god, about them. He never answers those questions. For wisdom, we need to find that still, small voice inside us.
Don: Should prayer be essentially self-centered, personal? Is it possible to pray in a way that is personal but not self-centered? It seems easy to go beyond the realm of “Why?” if the question is about the universe, but if the question is about me, I tend to be in danger of looking for the magic answer.
David: The Lord’s Prayer is both personal and not personal. It asks for bread for us, not for me, though “us” of course includes me. And those requests are subordinated and rendered practically pointless by “Thy will be done.” It seems to me to be the perfect prayer. There’s nothing more to be said. If you have to say something, then say the Lord’s Prayer, otherwise, just shut up and listen!
Jay: There is much more danger in personal prayer than in the communal prayer represented by the Lord’s Prayer.
Don: Next week I will present my thoughts on this topic.
David: Then we eagerly anticipate The Answers next week! 🙂
Don: There’ll be no answers, only more questions. I’m like god in that regard. 😉
Jay: Yes… random and unpredictable! 🙂
Harry: Maybe that’s the point. God is vague on purpose, because it forces us to ask “Why?”, so search for answers.
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