I feel like I may be repeating myself but … I was at first confused by the return question. But then it struck me that this is one more way in which we should not allow mechanistic naturalist thinking limit the breadth or expression of our humanity. In earlier times I might have found humor in the kind of humor that characterizes prayer by the physical description of what that looks like from the outside: ‘thinking things to myself’. But I can’t condone that any more.
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(103) They Say It Does Them Good
There are some who would argue for prayer, not on the ground of any possible answer to be looked for, but because of the good to be gained in the spiritual attitude of the mind in praying. There are those even who, not believing in any ear to hear, any heart to answer, will yet pray. They say it does them good; they pray to nothing at all, but they get spiritual benefit.
I will not contradict their testimony. So needful is prayer to the soul that the mere attitude of it may encourage a good mood. Verily to pray to that which is not, is in logic a folly; yet the good that, they say, comes of it, may rebuke the worse folly of their unbelief, for it indicates that prayer is natural, and how could it be natural if inconsistent with the very mode of our being? Theirs is a better way than that of those who, believing there is a God, but not believing that he will give any answer to their prayers, yet pray to him; that is more foolish and more immoral than praying to the No-god. Whatever the God be to whom they pray, their prayer is a mockery of him, of themselves, of the truth.
From MacDonald’s sermon: “Man’s Difficulty Concerning Prayer”
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I struggle with this portion a bit–but maybe I’m not understanding. MacDonald felt that some who only kept praying for show (praise of others) were more shallow, and shrunken, than those who frankly did not believe; maybe that’s what he’s thinking. On the other hand, if we pray because we are told to do that, saying “I believe; help my unbelief,” like the child who follows his father’s request, out of love, even though he is not able to see the reason–that would be something MacDonald would, I think, praise.
Yesterday, my 15 year old son (who has lots of good questions about God) and I discussed the futility of making the main reason for what we do things, simply our short term desires. We discussed that if we put (presuming God wants us to do the right thing by others) God at the top, on the throne so to speak, it’s much better than if we reason from immediate pleasure of putting ourselves on the throne–even if God doesn’t exist, we know that the pleasure of the moment with ourselves as the object is pretty fleeting. So, acting as though God exists, even if He doesn’t, is a good goal (as one of the Huxleys observed). You don’t have to believe He exists to benefit from a different perspective. It’s sort an abstract human idea.
This is not to say that atheism precludes the idea–far from it. Denis Lamoureux wrote of God as, in some ways, being the ultimate “good,” or ideal–even if He were not an individual. So, it might be another word for acting altruistically, like the Stoics.
*On re reading my note, I realize that it could come across critically–but that’s not what I’m intending. Please feel free to contact me and I’ll change it, if so!
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I’m far from sure about this too - but I do have a reaction that comes from my own current filters of thought (and so therefore is highly suspect - I may be seeing in MacDonald what I want to find there.)
My initial thought about that is that MacDonald was critiquing those whose impression is that God is so “hard” and “high” above us; so removed from us as to render unthinkable that our trifling prayers would be heard, much less heeded, that their view is more “wrath-centric” (to borrow a word I saw used around here) than it is a view of a loving, attentive, and indeed responsive Father. MacDonald (I think) has in other places expressed more disapproval for this mean view of God than for atheism itself. I.e. better to believe in no God than in what could be described as a demonic God.
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Thanks–I see–that seems to make more sense as well.
And yet–I think MacDonald seems to be ambivalent when he deals with these groups. In some ways, he’s compassionate–realizing that they are suffering; in others, he is concerned they’re the apostles who would prevent the little children coming to Jesus.
It seems that our impression of God as evil (calling evil good) can come from a desire for safety. We intepret what we see in the universe, and if God is all powerful–either He did it from love for us, or it happened because of His inability to stop it–so we choose that He’s all powerful instead. We can range from blaming ourselves or Adam (someone told me a few months ago that Covid and all pain came because of Adam’s sin). By believing He is all powerful, we can at least postulate the ability to appease God. It’s the idea of an abused child, that it’s somehow their fault.
Yet, I hesitate to agree with Macdonald’s indignation–if we counter their impression, aren’t we blaming them for their natural response? Aren’t we showing an image of a wrathful God to them, too? It’s coming to them with understanding and acceptance that will get them to see that our impression at least has a vision of a God who is more like Jesus.
And we still come back to the question of theodicy-- How do we deal with the problem of evil, as evolutionary creationists? It’s not an easy one.
Thanks.
Yes - that is what I see him getting “hot” about too (and indeed mirroring what he views as the loving Father’s indignation).
Is this what you’re referring to when you later write:
Yes - I suppose so. It’s a good observation, and bears reflection. Assuming I read you correctly, I would make a distinction between the wrath of a loving parent toward their own child (who perhaps has just done something, that if let go on, would threaten to separate that Parent from others of their children. No good parent will show favoritism among their kids. They still love the naughty one even though they are having to deal with the behavior. There is a difference (I think) between that kind of wrath, and the wrath they may feel against a complete outsider (total stranger) who is threatening their loved ones. That latter case has no boundary of love to circumscribe or govern it - or at least not for most of us most of the time. It takes a very mature, steadfast Christian indeed to step up completely into Christ’s recognition that for God, there is no outsider to God’s family. We are all children of God, even if we can only live into that in our most steadfast moments, if we ever even reach such moments at all in this life.
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Or perhaps simply to what we do not (possibly cannot) know what. Whatever it is that steps back that all else may become what or who it will but which cares to relate to that which it has made room for so that it could fulfill its capacity for relationally. And we by making room in our interiority to wonder about the other beyond ourselves gain every bit as much. God, if there be one, benefits as much as we do by the connection.
When I posted on atheist sites I sometimes did so under the monicker “whateverist”. Some took that to indicate an identification with cynical indifference but it was always about allegiance to what is more, whatever that should turn out to be.
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It absolutely should. God made us for himself – he is not woo that evolved from the material cosmos who communicates and wonderfully interacts with us whom he has marvelously evolved for no reason.
Thanks. Yes, I think that is what we are both talking about. Whereas I usually agree with MacDonald, I hesitate to go where he is so firm that he criticizes others–and usually he doesn’t do it harshly, recognizing that God is a parent who is much kinder than we are. I agree that it takes maturity (beyond me) to recognize that there is no true outsider–we are all needing some sort of correction, but God also knows where we’re coming from, so He knows how to do it like a parent.
Hence again the importance of our being childlike and existentially enjoying the moment (not that all moments are easy to enjoy). Piper, whom some eschew and understandably, gets is right though when he says the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him, and not just incidentally thanking our ‘adult’ Father for the things he has given us to enjoy. “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”
Yes. (I intentionally switched the order of those quotes. ; - )
And continuing reading… there are children explicitly again in your next reply. 
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It helps to have experience that God is a trustworthy Father, not to mention others’ factual testimonies that he is, in the Bible and through the centuries and including today. The latter is really the starting place since we cannot generate reciprocated bilateral interaction with God upon demand. Thankfulness and trust need to appear on the scene, and recognition of his sovereignty. One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp about eucharisteo starts hard with the death of her toddler sister in their farmyard when Ann was only five. Theodicy is difficult!
Skeptical theism should certainly be considered! (Hat tip to @heymike3.)
That doesn’t sound like the Jesus I read about in the Gospels, so I guess I’m not a very mature, steadfast Christian indeed (although sometimes my deeds might tend to affirm that).
Here’s another quote from “The Baron’s Apprenticeship”:
“He’ll be a great man someday!” she laughed, with a little quiver of the mouth
“He’s a good man now,” answered the smith. “As long as a son of mine can look every man in the face, I don’t care whether it be great or small he is.”
“But wouldn’t it be better still if he could look God in the face?”
“You’re right there, my pretty dove!” replied the old man; “only a body can’t say everything out in one breath. But you’re right, you are right!” he went on. “I remember well the time when I thought I had nothing to be ashamed of; but the time came when I was ashamed of; but the time came when I was ashamed of many things, and I’d done nothing worse in the meantime either! When a man first gets a peep inside himself, he sees things he didn’t look to see–and they stagger him a bit!”
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(104) Perfected Prayer
There are moods of such satisfaction in God that a man may feel as if nothing were left to pray for, as if he had but to wait with patience for what the Lord would work; there are moods of such hungering desire, that petition is crushed into an inarticulate crying; and there is a communion with God that asks for nothing, yet asks for everything. This last is the very essence of prayer, though not petition. It is possible for a man, not indeed to believe in God, but to believe that there is a God, and yet not desire to enter into communion with him; but he that prays and does not faint will come to recognize that to talk with God is more than to have all prayers granted–that it is the end of all prayer, granted or refused. And he who seeks the Father more than anything he can give, is likely to have what he asks, for he is not likely to ask amiss.
From MacDonald’s sermon: “Man’s Difficulty Concerning Prayer”
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Yeah - I really like the blacksmith. MacDonald packs a lot of great lines and profound thoughts into the mouths of his spiritually wizened characters in their humble (or so it is thought) circumstances.
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Thanks. This bears much meditation.
(105) Corrective Granting
Even such as ask amiss may sometimes have their prayers answered. The Father will never give the child a stone that asks for bread; but I am not sure that he will never give the child a stone that asks for a stone. If the Father say, ‘My child, that is a stone; it is no bread;’ and the child answer, ‘I am sure it is bread; I want it;’ may it not be well he should try his bread?
From MacDonald’s sermon: “Man’s Difficulty Concerning Prayer”
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(106) Why We Must Wait
…perhaps, indeed, the better the gift we pray for, the more time is necessary to its arrival. To give us the spiritual gift we desire, God may have to begin far back in our spirit, in regions unknown to us, and do much work that we can be aware of only in the results; for our consciousness is to the extent of our being but as the flame of the volcano to the world-gulf whence it issues: in the gulf of our unknown being God works behind our consciousness. With his holy influence, with his own presence, the one thing for which most earnestly we cry, he may be approaching our consciousness from behind, coming forward through regions of our darkness into our light, long before we begin to be aware that he is answering our request–has answered it, and is visiting his child.
From MacDonald’s sermon: “Man’s Difficulty Concerning Prayer”
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Thanks. I am grateful for these insights on prayer–I guess I had had a bit of chronologic snobbery, not realizing how much people in the 19th century (and earlier) wondered why we even pray. He’s certainly surpassed me in his musings about reasons.
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A comparable thing actually happened to me: my short excursion to med school (at the age of 43… I always have to throw that in ; - ). I thought I wanted it, I was given multiple providential confirmations in my going (things that just don’t happen normally… not entirely unlike Maggie’s and Rich Stearns’), I crashed (a difficult providence), but then another series of things (‘co-instants’) confirmed my leaving and which rescued me. (One of those co-instants was also a very helpful and surprising providence to a young Christian couple as well as myself.) The timings and placings of several were not much short of startling, if any. So I am glad and thankful I was given the stone I wanted.
(I certainly did not ask for kidney cancer, but I’m glad and thankful I was ‘given’ it as most regulars here know: my nephrectomy.)
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