Don: There is still a tension between the concepts of prayer and free will. If I successfully pray for help for someone else and that person does not want help, then I have violated that person’s free will. In scripture, we see god doing this all the time. Three personal prayers from the Old Testament might shed some light.
The first is Jacob’s prayer, in which Jacob essentially prayed for freedom from his fear of his twin brother Esau, whom Jacob had wronged and who appeared to be threatening revenge. It can be found in Genesis 32:9-12:
Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’ I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children. For You said, ‘I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered.’”
In case the prayer did not work, he divided his family into two and he sent gifts to Esau. In verses 24-9, god responds to the prayer by sending wresting with him, in the guise of a man:
Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.
His request for a blessing was Jacob’s recognition that he was dealing with god. The change of name is important. We will return to it later.
The second prayer is Hannah’s prayer. Hannah was barren, fruitless, unable to conceive. Such a condition was commonly viewed as being spiritually related. Her husband took a second wife, who not only successfully conceived but also heaped scorn on Hannah. As we know from Jesus’ special compassion for widows, being a childless widow was almost a fate worse than death in that society at that time, so Hannah had good reason to be afraid. She prayed that if god gave her a son, she would give the child back to god after he was weaned. She was willing to give up the thing she most desired as a condition for getting it. It makes one wonder: Is the only righteous thing we can do with our free will to give it up?
The third prayer is King Solomon’s prayer, which he prayed following the tumultuous and bloody start to his reign. He prayed with the benefit of having already been told that god would do anything for him. 1 Kings 3:6-9:
Then Solomon said, “You have shown great lovingkindness to Your servant David my father, according as he walked before You in truth and righteousness and uprightness of heart toward You; and You have reserved for him this great lovingkindness, that You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. Your servant is in the midst of Your people which You have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted. So give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?”
Solomon’s prayer is humble and frank, but it asks for the very thing that got Adam and Eve thrown out of the Garden of Eden: The ability to discern between good and evil. It is evidence that the prerogative for good and evil is god’s, yet god is pleased by Solomon’s request and grants it (verses 10-14):
It was pleasing in the sight of the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. God said to him, “Because you have asked this thing and have not asked for yourself long life, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself discernment to understand justice, behold, I have done according to your words. Behold, I have given you a wise and discerning heart, so that there has been no one like you before you, nor shall one like you arise after you. I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the kings like you all your days. If you walk in My ways, keeping My statutes and commandments, as your father David walked, then I will prolong your days.”
The wisdom with which god endowed Solomon is demonstrated in the next passage, when Solomon ordered that a baby be cut in two to satisfy two claimants to its maternity, knowing that the real mother would instantly abandon her claim in order to save her baby’s life.
The three personal prayers essentially represent a surrender of free will on the parts of Jacob, Hannah, and Solomon respectively in return for freedom from fear, freedom from want, and freedom from ignorance. They are noble prayers in comparison for prayers to “Please help me find a parking space, or my lost keys, or please let my football team win,” and yet they also are in close apposition to the concept of free will and the notion that prayer entails some loss of free will.
Some people hold that god does not (they believe) answer prayer precisely because it would violate our free will. Does prayer fundamentally support or undermine our free will, even if we pray for ourselves rather than for someone else? From Genesis to Revelation, there is example after example of god’s readiness to intervene in the world. On the other hand, scripture makes scant reference to god’s unwillingness to tamper with our free will. On the contrary. Jonah tried his darnedest to exercise his free will, but god would not let him.
Be that as it may, is giving up one’s free will (for example, by praying “Thy will be done”) the righteous thing to do?
Harry: We tend to pray for our own benefit, like Solomon and Jacob and Hannah. We don’t necessarily expect a response. But we pray anyway, because it serves a purpose: It leads us to examine ourselves and our behavior and our motivations.
David: First, it seems to me that Jacob’s and Hannah’s prayers involve a quid pro quo: “God, if you will free me from fear and want I will give up my identity and my only child.” That taints the prayers, in my view. Second, I thought we were agreed that god would not deliver such responses as these. He would not dispense magic, especially not in return for a bribe. So I continue to have difficulty with these Old Testament stories. I fear they do more to obfuscate than to enlighten.
Harry: It is certainly difficult to understand why god would encourage Solomon in his pursuit of the knowledge of good and evil after what he (god) did to Adam and Eve. I tend to agree that the OT in general is problematic, though there are bits I like. I agree that prayer is a force for good and (though he is not visible) that god is involved.
Ada: I “bargain prayed” when I was younger, and God’s apparent non-response to my specific requests made me angry. But eventually I came to the realization that prayer is not for bargaining with the will of god.
David: It seems to me then that Ada did indeed receive an answer: God gave her enlightenment and grace. But in the cases of Jacob and Hannah, it is hard to see that they received grace. They got what they asked for, but they did not get what I would identify as grace. In Solomon’s case one might argue that wisdom is a kind of grace, and it’s a grace he shared. But the other two prayers were not answered in the way I understand Jesus to have meant. Grace is the reason to pray, grace is the result of prayer. So convoluted soap-opera stories that suggest otherwise have no explanatory power in my opinion.
Harry: I think they may have served a purpose, maybe God’s purpose, in their place and time. Maybe they serve a purpose today if they help some people communicate with god. I think there are many paths to god, some of which make sense to some of us while others make sense only to others.
Don: Is it possible that neither Jacob nor Hannah got what they wanted? Hannah wanted a son to look after her in her old age, but never got it, and Jacob was looking for reconciliation with his brother but he got a change of identity. The only way for him to get freedom from fear was this solution. Could it be that god knew that?
Jay: I find the OT stories valuable because they show us the evolution of concepts such as grace, love, and free will. I can apply their lessons in my own life. Our discussion of prayer has shown the evolution of the concept of free will from “god loves you so much he gave you free will” to its final, perfect form in the phrase: “Thy will be done” that Jesus taught us.
Michael: Solomon was already wise, because only the wise recognize how little they know. But clearly he struggled with his wisdom, as the rest of his story in scripture shows, so it is questionable how wise god made him!
Don: The prayers we are discussing are still quite different from the mundane prayers we often pray.
Harry: Praying for wisdom and freedom from fear and want is attractive because if it is granted, then we can start exercising our free will for the common good. When we don’t care what happens to us, it is extremely powerful and liberating.
Kiran: Prior to his prayer, Jacob’s physical strength was important to him. He needed it for physical protection. After the prayer, though, he became lame and helpless and vulnerable—completely dependent on god. He was forced to accept god’s will, he did not exercise his own.
Don: One cannot deny the evidence that god interferes with human decisions, and yet to say that god intervenes in history, either in general or in particular instances, does not deny that humans also have important decisions to make. So when we pray, for ourselves or our community, how does that implicate free will? And if god intervenes in history, what is the importance of the decisions humans make? What Jacob got in return for a blessing was disablement, when what he prized most was his physical fitness. Hannah got a son, but more than that, she got the opportunity to give back. So it seems that prayer might be about giving back, relinquishing, things we think we want.
Kiran: Jacob relinquished his reputation as well.
Harry: Jacob sent his family before him, knowing that they were likely to be slaughtered. He was not concerned, because he thought he could start again on his own. But as it turned out, he needed his family in his disablement.
David: Giving up free will is abandoning responsibility, as Jacob did. This is scripture: It is not supposed to be this convoluted. Jesus said it simply: Thy will be done. So why bother with these dubious stories?
Don: For those of us who have spent a life in religious discussion, these points of view are not foreign to a lot of thinking, and it is in seeing them in contrast to the teachings of Jesus that makes that teaching so powerful. So in my opinion it does have value to study these stories, to see the evolution.
David: I can see the value for our intellectual group. But this is scripture for the masses, and it is being hurled out of megachurches by the bucketful with completely different interpretations, or no interpretation—take them at face value—attached. It is dangerous material. I am deeply troubled by it.
Harry: If praying works as so many Christians think, fervently and in good conscience, it can be very toxic, as was demonstrated in recent weeks by the megapastor who is waging war on homosexuality as evil. He has attracted huge support through the social media, despite having been fired by the media that broadcast his sermons. His supporters probably take their cue from the surface meaning of these old stories. They have not spent time exploring them in depth.
Don: That is why these issues should not be dealt with at a superficial level. The temptation to understand at a superficial level is indeed dangerous. The stories of the Old Testament must be viewed in the light of, and in contrast to, the teaching of Jesus, who said that “If you have seen me, you have seen the father”—the clearest possible explanation of who god is. If that is not the overarching central lens through which one views the OT stories then it is easy to be misguided, to misunderstand. So it is valuable to continually refocus on the inherent truth of these stories through the lens of the mission and ministry of Jesus.
We will discuss the issue of prayer and free will more next week. The more I think about it, the more I see prayer as supplanting free will, both my free will if I am praying for myself and your free will if I am praying for you.
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