Does God Pray? – Katherine Sonderegger

Last week Katherine Sonderegger came in to deliver a paper to the Analytic Theology Seminary. She put forth the provocative question: Does God Pray? Here are my notes from her talk.

Introduction

• Does God pray?
  • Answer to this question (exploration of God in prayer) has potential to answer a lot of Trinitarian and Christological questions.
• Can the Triune God pray?
  • Instinct – We pray, God does not.

The Traditional Account

• Prayer (tradition says) is a form of lack
  • Human creatures need to pray, their prayer is need.
  • This would make it seem as though God could not pray, b/c God does not lack whatsoever
  • (In one sense prayer can never be answered, our lack – b/c of creaturelyness – will always be)
• Prayer seeks the unseen (think of it as simply asking)
  • Distinctive part of prayer: seeking out of the unseen
    • What distinguishes prayer from other forms of asking is who it is directed to, prayer stands alone
    • Human act of asking is analogous to prayer
  • Prayer is relation to God, the unseen stands in the realm of eternity, God is the goal of creation
    • To have relation with such reality is to have the formal relation to prayer
  • God’s realation to the creature in prayer is “idea/notional,” ours to God is “real.”
• It seems we must affirm that prayer belongs to creatures, the Tradition has seemed to define it in such a way that places it in the domain of humanity
  • Places prayer in to the creator/creature distinction
  • Prayer simply marks out that distinct line b/w Creator & Creature

The “Alternative” Account

• Could it be said that the one almighty God could pray? We are brought to this question through Scripture.
• Is divine prayer an instance of “accommodation” i.e. of humanizing God, for our sake?
  • The bible does not simply refer, the word of blessing which is just God himself lies within this book.
  • Holy Scripture will convey and contain a teaching about God in human words and for human ears.
• Romans 8
  • Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words, Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God
  • This is the Spirit who prays with us and for us
  • Language – emphasizes mystery.
  • The characteristic description of the creaturely act here is ascribed to the Holy Spirit
  • Its eschatological
• What shall we make of this for the doctrine of prayer and for the doctrine of the Trinity?
• In Romans 8 – Paul has given us a glimpse of the economy
  • This entire section of the letter concerns those who are in Christ Jesus
  • Non condemnation rests on the Father giving the Son for us
  • Christ gives himself for
  • Its anchored in the divine sending and being sent to rescue and redeem
  • This just seems to be the pattern of the divine economy
  • Through Romans 8 – are verb forms which mirror this economy
• This illuminates how the sending of the Son and Spirit can be a new event in the life of God.
  • Thomas – we should not speak of processions and missions, rather they have eternal and temporal end.
  • According to Scriptural witness something has taken place in the life of God toward us
  • Seems to imply that God experiences something “new” which is only possible with us – God hands himself over to us, undergoes this new even with us.
    • Apart from creation God could not have these events for his very own
  • The temporal missions are the birth of the new for God himself
  • But the Tradition firmly asserts that God is eternal, perfect, complete, does not lack, become, does not undergo something new
• Consider Jesus at prayer (alongside passages of Spirit praying)
  • Quite striking is Jesus steady rhythm of being at prayer both privately and publically
• In Scripture – Spirit and Son are wrapped up in seemingly same characteristics of creaturely prayer
• How does this shed light on the inner life of the Trinity?
• Might we suggest that the divine processions are prayer?
  • Father “utters the word”
  • Father “breathes, spirates, expresses”
  • This reflects prayer