Chapter VIII: The Reasonableness of Prayer

ACCORDING to Sir J. G. Frazer, some consolation and even some hope and encouragement may be drawn from the melancholy record of human error and folly which he has given to the world in the Golden Bough. He thinks that, on the whole, in the history of mankind among the highest minds, there has been an upward movement from magic through religion to science.

In the stage of magic man imagines that he can manipulate the forces of nature and make them subservient to his own ends by means of magic and spells. When he finds out his mistake he goes to the opposite extreme and throws himself humbly on the mercy of certain great and invisible beings who, he thinks, dwell behind the veil of natural phenomena. Magic is thus superseded by religion, which explains the phenomena of nature as being regulated by the will, passion, or caprice of spiritual beings like man in kind, but vastly superior to him in power. Religion assumes that natural phenomena are not regulated by immutable laws, but that to some extent they are variable and irregular. This is not borne out by observation. Wherever investigation can be applied we find every detail governed by a rigid uniformity, and we are justified in concluding that the same rigid uniformity rules throughout nature. Hence the keener minds pressing onwards towards a solution of the mysteries of the universe come to reject the religious explanation in favour of an inflexible regularity. It is thus that religion is displaced by science: instead of praying for rain, science teaches man to supply himself with a storage of water which can be used as it is needed.

Sir J. G. Frazer makes it quite clear that by religion he understands all forms of religion, the highest as well as the lowest. For him Catholicism and Christianity belong to the same category as the idolatry of Central Africa. He does not offer us any bright or consoling hope. His universe is governed by inexorable regularity and uniformity. All that happens is inevitably determined by pre-existing conditions. The universe is one vast machine. Man himself is a part in it, and all his activity of mind and body alike is determined and limited by antecedent conditions. There is regularity and uniformity everywhere. There is no room in such a universe for design and free will. Minds may be oppressed with anxious fears and hearts may be crushed with sorrow, but there is no one who can pity or help in heaven or on earth. What was inevitable has happened, and it will happen again; there is no remedy to be found anywhere.

That is not a conclusion of hope and encouragement; it is a gospel of despair. But it is not even consistent with itself. The advantage of it, according to Sir J. G. Frazer, is that taught by science we can anticipate the future, and make provision against disaster by adopting suitable means beforehand. If a drought is foreseen we can provide for it by storing up a supply of water. In other words, we have the faculty to design and the free will to adopt remedies for future evils. If this be so, everything that happens is not inevitably determined by antecedent conditions. We can save ourselves if we choose to do so. If we do not choose to save ourselves, things will take their course to our disadvantage. We can choose to store the water or not, as we like. In other words, and the conclusion is most important, all that happens is not the product of inexorable necessity and uniformity. Design and freedom have a place in the life of man, matter and force are not the only things in the universe—there is mind and spirit as well. And if there is mind and spirit and freedom in man, there is in the universe and beyond it a mind and spirit who freely created man and the universe. “Understand, ye senseless among the people, and you fools, be wise at last. He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? Or, he that formed the eye, doth he not consider ?” The argument is so simple, and yet so profound. It is not contradicted by science; it is peremptorily demanded by science, as the late Lord Kelvin said and wrote. It is only denied by the determinists of science; the Psalmist called them by a shorter name.

The terms in which Sir J. G. Frazer describes religion in general are applicable only to the religion of rather low and degraded savages. The Christian religion does indeed teach that God dwells in and behind the veil of nature, but it denies that God regulates the phenomena of nature by passion or caprice. By his will he created nature and, being a wise God of law and order, he made nature subject to natural law. God sustains nature and concurs with its activity according to the laws which he has given it. The Christian does not admit that God, having once made the universe, retires into a dignified repose and thenceforth leaves his creation to itself. Such an idea is unworthy of the All-Father. Nor, on the other hand, does the Christian believe that God is constantly interfering with the laws of nature. That idea would be repugnant to his wisdom.

The Christian position, in this as in so many other questions, lies between two false extremes. God, the Creator and Ruler of the universe, is not debarred from the house that he has built for us; he is always there and always active, but he is not always manifesting his presence and activity, he does not meddle; if he does occasionally interfere openly, it is always for a good and adequate cause. We know that we are in his presence, we are sure that he loves us, we are convinced that he can and is willing to help us. He not only permits us to think of him, love him, and speak to him; he has imposed on us a strict command to do so. That is one ground of prayer, and another is our absolute need of him. He has promised to hear our prayers and he keeps his promise.

The way in which God answers our prayers will depend partly on the nature of the object for which we pray, partly on his own good pleasure. If we ask for grace to overcome some vicious habit, he will enlighten our minds so that we see more clearly the baseness of the habit into which we have fallen, the sad plight to which it has reduced us, and the danger of continuing in it. When we see clearly the necessity of overcoming our bad habit, God will give strength to our wills so that we form a fixed determination to overcome it. There is always something to do for ourselves with God’s help. He made us without our co-operation, but he will not save us without our co-operation. If we pray for rain or other physical blessings, in all probability God will answer our prayers if it seems good to him by guiding the forces of nature. The driver of a motor-car who sees an obstacle in the way quietly brings other forces into play and his car avoids the obstacle which would have wrecked it and killed the driver if he had not intervened. The driver does not suspend the laws of nature, he only brings new laws into play. God can do with his universe what the driver does with his car.

There is, however, an important difference in the two cases. The driver acts on the spur of the moment, when he sees the obstacle. God is omniscient as well as all-powerful. He has seen every detail of the whole course of history from all eternity. He has decreed what he would do in answer to the prayers which he foresaw from all eternity. So that when the time comes, and when he answers the prayers for rain, the answer is part of the order which God has arranged and decreed from all eternity. There is no passion, no caprice here, there is the all-wise and beneficent guidance of divine Providence.

God is not a prisoner in his own universe. He reserves to himself a certain freedom of action, when it seems good to him. He who raised the dead to life, who gave sight to the blind, who by a word or touch healed the sick, and calmed the winds and the waves, still on occasion and for good reasons works similar wonders in answer to prayer. The lives of the saints, the events which happen at Lourdes and elsewhere, show abundantly that “the hand of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save; neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear.” But these miracles do not disturb the orderly course of the universe, they do not upset the calculations of science and make them uncertain; they only give food for reflection, even to scientists if they will accept it.