C. K. Mahoney - The Philosophy of Prayer

7/28/2019 C. K. Mahoney - The Philosophy of Prayer

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BV 210 .M29 1922Mahoney, Carl K.The philosophy of prayer


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BY THE SAME AUTHORSOCIAL EVOLUTION AND THE DEVELOP-MENT OF RELIGION


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The Philosophyof Prayer

C. K. MAHONEY

THE ABINGDON PRESSNEW YORK CINCINNATI


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Copyright, 1922, byC. K. MAHONEY

Printed in the United States of America


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To MY CONGREGATION,LOYAL AND BELOVED,

ATFIRST METHODIST CHURCH,TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA


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CONTENTSChapteb I. Introduction PAGE

Superficiality and emotionalismThe lack of scientificmethodThe need of the ordinary manPrayer theessence of religionThe naturalness of prayerTheimportance of a scientific study of prayer 13

PART IPRAYER AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL FACT

Chapter II. The Meaning of PrayerDefinition and definitions Subconscious PrayerPrayer and sacrificeThe two ideas of sacrificeMagic and prayerPrayer and mysticism 25Chapter III. Prater in its Highest Development

The "Lord's Prayer" as a modelThe social nature ofprayerThe Fatherhood of GodPrayer and praisePetitions for material needsThe moral element inprayerHumility 50Chapter IV. The Subjective Effects of Prater

The value of prayer recognized by an atheistThe soulunifying effect of prayerA generator of faithdynamic of religious laborA transformer of life andcharacter 66

PART IIPRAYER AS A COSMIC FACT

Chapter V. Prater and the World OrderEvery man's need of a philosophyThe problems of

prayerThe world groundMechanismTeleologyOrganic causationPrayer and lawThe laws ofprayer 79


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8 CONTENTSChapter VI. The God of Prater FAQB

The tragedy of the loss of GodCauses of this conditionHistoric conceptions of God and their influenceDeismPantheismAbsolutismModern PhilosophyThe kind of God the world needsEvolutionaryphilosophy discovers GodThe idea of God not out-wornThe God of the BiblePersonalityPrayerlifted into a cosmic significance 96

Selected Bibliography 121Index 123


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PREFACEPhilosophy undertakes to explain the

facts of existence. Those facts are thefacts of experience, in the widest sense ofthe term, and the facts of necessary infer-ence deduced from the premises furnishedby experience. Prayer is a real fact ofhuman life. It ought to have a philosophy.It is the effort of the following pages toenter a little way into that philosophy..The author recognizes the handicap ofcomparative loneliness in this field of study.He also recognizes the limitations of his owncontribution. If it should do no more thanprove an incentive to some abler writer todo better, it has been worth while. Thesubject is in sore need of critical study.

Terre Haute, Indiana,January, 1922.


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INTRODUCTION


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CHAPTER IINTRODUCTION

Superficiality and EmotionalismA RECENT writer on the subject of prayer

has deplored the superficiaUty and over-abundance of emotionahsm on the part ofmost books of a devotional character. Ac-cording to this author, there is a manifestlack of intellectual thoroughness and a closeapproach to sentimentality in many of thebooks written about prayer and the devo-tional life. One might pertly ask this writerwhether he expects to rescue this depart-ment of religious literature from the mireinto which he says it has fallen; but onecannot get away from the conviction thatthe man is telling the truth, no matter whathe may have done or not done for the sub-ject of prayer. There has been a pronenessto take things for granted, to go on assump-tions without backing up those assumptionswith proof or reasonable argument.

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14 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERLack of Scientific Method

This class of writings, with few excep-tions, is singularly lacking in scientificmethod. The approach to its themes is notthe intellectual approach. It is more thepoetic method of drifting into things by wayof meditation. It may be contended thatthe cold-blooded scrutiny of scientificmethod or the apparently colorless treat-ment of philosophical reasoning is out ofplace in a consideration of the subject ofprayer. Prayer is a matter of the heart. Itlies in the realm of feeling, of mysticism, ofintuition. But just so long as such an atti-tude is taken just so long must the generalthought of prayer remain vague and con-fused. What is the reason for this assump-tion? May not prayer submit to analysisand still retain its mysticism, its emotionalcontent, its intuitional aspect, if these canbe shown to be in accord with reality? Ourdevotional attitude will lose nothing infervency or in sincerity by clarifying themeaning of prayer. Anything that can throwlight on matters of spiritual life is of serviceto religion. Anything that will help us to abetter understanding of what we are doing,


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INTRODUCTION 15or may do, or should do, when we pray,will make our worship more worthy, morerational, and more profound. We shouldnot be afraid of the question mark inmatters of sacred concern. The man wasquite right who said that the man whoinvented the question mark was inspiredof God, inasmuch as the question is thehook by which we reach upward and pullourselves upward to realms of higher truthand reach outward and pull ourselves fromour narrow and circumscribed position intowider areas of knowledge. When we havemade every possible inquiry about prayerand have learned about it all we may,there will still be left an immeasurablevastness of mystery and profundity.The Need of the Ordinary ManThe poetic soul may be satisfied to go on

exercising his emotions and, by impulse orinspiration, climb continually into higherrealms of experience and vision. But thehard-headed, everyday citizen must have areason for the faith that is within him. Heis practical in his needs and his uses ofthings. He must know something of the


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16 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERwhyness and wherefore. Prayer has beenlost out of the Ufe of many a matter-of-factman or woman because it has failed to re-main among the substantial realities. Thematter-of-fact man is daily face to face witha world of laws and principles and thingsthat are rationally connected. He has lostprayer out of his line of cause and eflFect.He has ceased to include it among the essen-tial realities. Before prayer can ever becomea vital and real thing for him, he must get itback into his universe of necessities^ Hemust find a place for it in a rational worldorder. He must come to a clearer under-standing of its nature and place of impor-tance. He must get some sort of a philoso-phy of prayer. Oh, I know that in times ofstress and in moments of emergency he willpray naturally and instinctively, but I amspeaking of prayer becoming a part of hisprogram of life practice.Prayer the Essence of Religion

Prayer is the very heart of religion.Prayer is the essence of worship. Religionincludes belief and practice and principleand institution, but all these draw their


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INTRODUCTION 17vitality from worship. A religion withoutworship is not a religion at all. R. R. Mar-rett says in his article on prayer in theEnqjclopwdiakBritannica that prayer is "acharacteristic feature of the higher religions,and we might say that Christianity orMohammedanism, ritually viewed, is in itsinmost essence a service of prayer." Hefurther says, ''At all stages of rehgious de-velopment, and more especially in the casesof more primitive forms of cult, prayeroccurs together with and shades off intoother varieties of observance that bearobvious marks of belonging to the samefamily." This is another way of saying thatthe other practices of primitive religion par-take of the nature of prayer. ProfessorGeorge A. Coe, in his Psychology of Religion,^says concerning prayer, "A history andpsychology of prayer would almost be ahistory and psychology of religion." Dr.George Galloway says in his Philosophy ofReligion,^ "Prayer is one of those religiousacts which are practiced wherever religionexists." Professor William James says that

* University of Chicago Press, publishers.2 Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers.


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18 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERprayer in its widest sense is the soul andessence of religion. By its "widest sense" hesays that he means every kind of inwardcommunion or conversation with the powerregarded as divine, and he also says that thegenuineness of religion is indissolubly boundup with the question whether the prayerfulconsciousness be or be not deceitful. Dr.Edward Scribner Ames is about the onlydissenter from the general view of the ex-treme importance of prayer to religion thatI have discovered among the thinkers ineither the field of the psychology of religionor the philosophy of religion. He claims thatprayer occupied a secondary and relativelysubordinate place in primitive religion andthat in more advanced religions prayer stilloccupies a relatively secondary and subor-dinate place. {Psychology of Religious Expe-rience^ "Prayer.") But he reaches theseconclusions by greatly narrowing his defini-tion of prayer, and, even on that basis, hisconclusions do not seem to be warrantedeither by facts or strength of argument.The Naturalness of Prayer

Prayer is a natural and universal thing.


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INTRODUCTION 19In spite of the reasons why we should prayor should not pray, the fact remains that wedo pray. And, as Professor James has said,"The reason why we do pray is that we can-not help praying." "The culture of prayer,"says Dr. Fosdick, "therefore, is not import-ing an alien, but is training a native citizenof the soul."^ Prayer was a matter of themost primitive worship. Men in all ages andin all lands, since the beginning of religion,have been engaged in the practice of prayer.Man has never outgrown it and never willoutgrow it. Prayer belongs to all religions,primitive or advanced.

Since prayer is so important for religion,and a prayer life is so surely involved in theexercise of religion, and since a philosophyconcerning the most important facts and re-lations of life is inevitable, it is diflScult tounderstand why thinkers in the field ofreligion have not gone into the subject morethoroughly and critically. If there is onesingle needed service outstanding for reli-gious reflection to perform, it is the properorientation of prayer. Next in importance

^ Taken from The Meaning of Prayer, p. 17, by H. E.Fosdick. Association Press, New York.


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20 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERl^ to Si discovery of God is to get on a plane of

fellowship and communion with him. Whenman comes upon the fact of the existence ofa higher order of reality than that imme-diately apparent in the matter-of-fact worldabout him, he does two things. He seeks todefine and explain that new order of realityand he seeks to bring himself into livingrelation with it. The former is philosophyand the latter is religion. The most directapproach to an established relationship withthat higher order of reality is by the methodof prayer. It lies at the very basis of thereligious attitude. When we deal withprayer, its meaning, its history, its laws, itscorrelary assumptions, we are in the realmof the fundamentals.

Professor Jevons has shown how impor-tant it is for the missionary to be preparedto deal with the subject of prayer. He willfind the heathen addicted to the habit ofprayer. It is his business to teach them towhom to pray, how to pray, and what topray for. He will not find them all sim-pletons. He must show a knowledge of thisdeepest thing in religion that will commandtheir respect. "The applied science of reli-


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INTRODUCTION 21gion should equip him in this respect. Itshould be able to take the facts and truthsestablished by the science of religion andapply them to the purposes of the mission-ary. But it is a striking example of the youthand immaturity of the science of religionthat no attempt has yet been made by it tocollect the facts, much less to coordinateand state them scientifically."^The Importance of a Scientific Study

OF PrayerIf this equipment is important for the

missionary, it is also important for thepreacher and pastor on the home field.Preachers complain of the lack of prayer inthe homes of their people. In many cases,even while they are complaining of others,they are not extremely prayerful them-selves. They have not realized the impor-tance of prayer and the possibilities ofprayer and have not been prepared to givetheir people instruction in the important andprofound things that belong to the subject.

1 Reprinted, by permission of the Macmillan Company,from Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion, p. 140,by F. B. Jevons, copyright, 1908, by the Macmillan Company.


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22 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERMany prayers before the congregation areformal and perfunctory. They fail to exciteinterest, to find a hearing, to lead the con-gregation into the spirit of worship. If aproportionate amount of time in relation tothe time given to the preparation of thesermon were given to the preparation of theprayer, it would be a different matter. Thepeople ought to be given instruction inprayer. The disciples of our Lord felt theneed of it. The Christian Church has notoutgrown this need. But that which hasbeen so obviously essential to the devotionallife has been taken so much for granted andregarded as so simple and familiar that ithas become a neglected subject for study.Dr. Fosdick says: 'Tf there is any elementin human life to whose inestimable value wehave abundant testimony, it is prayer; andto leave misunderstood and untrained apower capable of such high uses is a spiritualtragedy."^

1 Meaning of Prayer, p. 17. Association Press, New York.


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PART IPRAYER AS A PSYCHOLOGICALFACT


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CHAPTER IITHE MEANING OF PRAYER

Definition and DefinitionsRecently I came upon the statement

that prayer could not be defined. Then thewriter of that statement proceeded to defineprayer, and did it very well, did it so wellthat there was little room for doubt in thematter. The fashion of stating grandilo-quently that a thing is too big for definitionis a fault that has crept into the thought ofmany men who are really clear thinkers. Itis a sort of confession of humility in thepresence of great truths, but often in rela-tion to the discussion which follows it isscarcely more than a rhetorical flourish.When it is followed up by a definition of thething declared to be indefinable, it is clearlyan absurdity. Dr. Olin A. Curtis used to saythat entirely too much is made of the mys-teries of the Bible. He indicated thatmysteries are often found when no mysterywas intended. The Scripture is a revelation.It was not written for inspiring awe but for

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26 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERrevealing truth. This does not mean thatthe Bible is sun-clear, or that it is a book forsimpletons, or that the task of interpreta-tion is a light and superficial task that any-one, however inexpert he may be, mayundertake with the confidence that he maysuccessfully unfold all its truth or may inno sense misunderstand its meaning. Itdoes mean that the Bible is an intelligiblebook, and that the whole of it was given forunderstanding rather than for confusing andstaggering the mind with mystery.To define a thing does not mean to ex-haust its meaning. It means to so state itsessentials and so differentiate it from otherthings that it may be clearly recognized.Definition is a matter of distinction. Withthe meaning of definition held clearly inmind, it will be difficult to assert that any-thing is too big for definition. In fact, it isnot the vast and profound thing that is sodifficult of definition but the comparativelysimple and familiar thing.On the other hand, I do not wish to beunderstood as taking the ground that prayeris a simple and obvious thing. One of thereasons given by Professor Tylor for the


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 27fact that no more attention has been paid byscholars in the study of rehgion to the sub-ject of prayer is that "so simple and familiaris the nature of prayer that its study doesnot demand the detail of fact and argumentwhich must be given to rites in comparisonpractically insignificant" (Primitive Cul-ture, 11, 364). Professor Jevons very per-tinently remarks in a criticism of this pas-sage that familiar things are often assumedto be simple when a more thorough exam-ination of them will reveal that they are notso simple, after all.^ It is well to avoid anysort of extreme or extravagant statement inany connection.

In defining a thing it is necessary to becareful that all of it shall be included, thatno essential shall be left out, and thatnothing shall be included which does notbelong. Professor James is wise and correctwhen he insists on considering prayer in thewidest sense. No other consideration is fairand right.

Dr. R. R. Marrett in his article on prayerin the Encyclopcedia Britannica defines

^ Introduction to Study of Comparative Religion. MacmillanCo., New York.


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28 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERprayer as "a term used generally for anyhumble petition, but more technically inreligion, for that mode of addressing adivine or sacred power in which there pre-dominates the mood and intention of rev-erent entreaty." Dr. Charles L. Slatterydefines prayer as talking with the Unseen,whether the Unseen be conceived of as apersonal God or as a vague something out-side of oneself.^ Professor James definesprayer as "every kind of inward communionor conversation with the power recognizedas divine."^

All these definitions are good, and in ageneral way rather clearly state for any ofus what we mean by prayer, wherever wefind the practice and with all its variousphases and modifications. The definition ofDr. Marrett, scholarly and thorough as it is,may convey an overemphasis of the idea ofpetition and entreaty. I think that prayeris primarily an expression of desire and Ibelieve with Professor Hoffding that, in thelowest form in which it may manifest itself.

1 Why Men Pray, p. 5. Macmillan Company, New York.2 Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 464. Longmans, Green& Co., New York.


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 29"religion appears under the guise of desire";but an overemphasis of the idea of entreatymay obscure the ideas of communion andcontemplation, worship and resignation, asfound in the higher exercises of prayer. Thewhole matter is evidently perfectly clear inthe mind of the author, but it might not beso to the mind of one who had not thoughtthe subject through quite so thoroughly.And one of the sources of value of our defini-tions is the use that other people can makeof them.

Dr. Slattery's definition seems to say thatlanguage expression is necessary to prayer.If his definition should be accepted, hewould have to furnish a definition of talkingas used in this connection. Otherwise, it istoo narrow. There are prayers in whichthere is no language expression, not evenword images. The desires are inarticulateand simply mean a sort of yearning after theDivine Presence. It is evident from whatDr. Slattery further says on the subject ofprayer that he would not limit it to lan-guage expression, but we do not gather thisfrom his definition taken by itself.The definition by Professor James com-


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30 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERpletely covers the case. It is neither toowide nor too narrow. Prayer is any sort ofinner communion or conversation with thePower regarded as divine. The first part ofthe definition covers every kind of prayerattitude from the most primitive to themost advanced and from the simplest out-flow of rehgious desire to the most elaborateform of prayer expression. If it should beobjected that the latter part of this defini-tion assumes an attitude entirely too intel-lectual for primitive prayer, the answer maybe given that, while the objective of theprayers of primitive man did not have thecontent of what the more advanced religiousconsciousness labeled "divinity," it had allthe potentialities of the higher conceptionand stood in the same relation to his prim-itive mind that the idea of divinity holds forthe religious thinker.

Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick says thatprayer may be considered as dominant de-sire. Professor Coe amends that statementby saying that prayer may be a way ofsecuring domination over desire. "It starts,"he says, "as the assertion of any desire; itends as the organization of one's own desires


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 31into a system of desires recognized asysuperior and then made one's own."^ ButDr. Fosdick is not contradicted and nothingis added to the original content of his state-ment. It is simply expressed in greater de-tail. Prayer is still a matter of dominantdesire, for the desire to conform to the willof God finally dominates all other desires.Subconscious Prayer

Dr. Slattery expresses a belief in the expe-rience of subconscious prayer.^ He uses theanalogies of the circulation of the blood andthe process of breathing to illustrate hismeaning, showing that they were done un-consciously, or subconsciously, long beforethey were discovered. Harvey discoveredthe circulation of the blood in 1616, but allthe years before that the heart had beensending the blood through the arteries. Weare not aware of our breathing until there issome obstruction or exertion, like climbinga hill. But the breathing goes on whetherwe are conscious of it or not. As anotherillustration he used the case of the use of

* Psychology of Religion. University of Chicago Press.2 Why Men Pray, p. 6. Maemillan Co., New York.


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32 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERhot oil for the treatment of wounds in theFranco-Prussian War. When the medicalauthorities gave out the opinion that therewas no healing eflScacy in oil, the practicewas stopped. The death rate became soappalling that Pasteur was led to investigatethe matter and found that the heat ratherthan the oil was the thing that had aided inthe healing of wounds by killing the germsof infection. Thus the older medical practicehad been right in its method without under-standing what it was doing.

So, he argues, men may pray from theinner depths of their being without realizingthat they are praying. Complaint of theweather, of pain or sorrow must be com-plaint to someone outside ourselves, fate ornature, whatever or whoever is in control ofthe universe and to which or to whomhumanity is subject. It is complaining tothe Unseen. And, on the other hand, menare engaging in unconscious prayer whenthey become exultant. He says that WaltWhitman was subconsciously praying whenhe spoke of "caressing life." And subcon-scious prayer is seen in the general reverencethat men now have for the laws of nature.


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 33What is on the surface a gross materiaHsmis underneath a way of outlet for spirituallonging. He says that the deepest aspect of"subconscious prayer" is when one says,"I ought" or "I ought not," whether itapplies to acts of the past or future. Whenapplied to past acts this feeling of oughtnessis a subconscious prayer of repentance.When applied to the future it is an acknowl-edgment or confession to the Unseen of therealization of duty. So, according to Dr.Slattery, Kant's Categorical Imperative isa matter of subconscious prayer.

This line of thought is extremely interest-ing. Its chief value lies in showing thenaturalness of prayer. When Dr. Slatterytakes up prayer under another head andtreats it as instinctive, he is really sayingthe same thing over again, or, rather, he iscompleting the thought concerning sub-conscious prayer. Of course that which isgoing on within the inner being is going tocome out inevitably in a clearer and morerecognizable manifestation of itself. It isscarcely necessary to say that to have moraland spiritual value prayer must rise into therealm of consciousness, but it is a great


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34 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERreenforcement to a cosmic view of religionto realize that prayer has its foundation inthe fundamental structure of Ufe itself andis not an accretion from without.Prayer and Sacrifice

Prayer and sacrifice have gone togetherin religion from the most primitive times.If the prayers of primitive peoples have notbeen preserved along with the rites ofsacrifice, it is because of the greater difficultyin their preservation. They most certainlyexisted. Religious worship may be said tohave internal and external aspects. Prayeris the internal aspect, or worship of themind. Sacrifice is the external aspect, orworship of action. Sacrifice has very aptlybeen called prayer in the form of deeds.Prayer and sacrifice have all along had thesame general motives and the same sort ofobjectives. They have the same generalcharacter. When prayer is expressed at allit is expressed in language. Sacrifice is theexpression of the same thing in action. Theunderlying idea in each case is that ofdominant desire. Prayer may be un-expressed. It may be a matter of inner


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 35thought and feehng. As such it can bestudied only in our own experience. It isnot a matter for general or historic study.The Two Ideas of Sacrifice

Sacrifice has been found to have twomotives. The original religious attitude wasdoubtless one of fear and the supernaturalpowers were not regarded as friendly. There-fore the primitive worshiper sought to ap-pease his god. The device which he fell uponfor doing this was the offering up of some-thing that would please his god and turnaway his anger. The gods were regarded astaking peculiar pleasure in the sacrifice oflife and oftentimes it has been regarded asnecessary to offer human sacrifices to ap-pease the gods. The other motive has beenthe desire to come into communion with thegod, to share his power, to partake of hisnature. The sacrifice which was pleasing tohim was regarded as containing manna, asort of supernatural potency because of thesacredness of the sacrificial animal and be-cause of its identification with the god inthe rites of sacrifice. The desire to please thegods and to enter into communion with


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36 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERthem has not always been unselfish. Theprimitive worshiper sought to use his godto his own advantage, and the modernworshiper has not entirely lost the idea.In the more advanced religions these

motives of sacrifice have found expression inother directions. The desire to please Godfinds expression in a life of service rather^ than in the ceremonial rites of sacrifice.Saint Paul furnishes us with the language ofthe transition: 'T beseech you therefore,brethren, by the mercies of God, that yepresent your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,acceptable unto God, which is your reason-able service." The transition is seen in boththe conception of God and the idea of sac-rifice. The desire to come into communionwith God finds its complete satisfaction forthose who are deeply spiritual in prayer andmeditation.

It would not be wise in this discussion topass over the sacrifice of Christ on the crosswithout giving it some consideration. Andit is significant that the whole scheme ofhuman redemption as found in the Christianreligion is grounded in these age-long mo-tives in religious life and practice. The


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 37Christian doctrine of reconciliation runsparallel with the ancient idea of appeasingGod in sacrifice. There has been throughoutthe history of religion a recognition of atension between the human and the divine.In philosophy there has been the recognitionof this tension between man and his environ-ment. In science man's life, and all life, hasbeen regarded as a process of adaptation toenvironment. It is very significant that allthree phases of study should make essen-tially the same discovery. Now, Christianitybrings forward the doctrine of the reconcilia-tion in which the tension between thehuman and the divine is shown to be man'ssin and rebellion against God's moral gov-ernment. Harmony can be effected onlythrough a satisfaction for sin that gives fullhonor and recognition to the sanctity of themoral law, thus providing a way of forgive-ness for man, and a plan of redemption thatis able to bring man back into harmonywith God's moral government. Christ'ssacrifice of himself on the cross, which isalso God's sacrifice of his Son, accomplishedthe first part of the requirement. The workof his kingdom in the world to win man to


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38 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERrighteousness and to God is destined toaccomplish the second part. The harmoni-ous conclusion of rehgion, philosophy, andscience concerning the existing tension be-tween man and his world is indicative of thefact that sin is a cosmic fact and redemptiona cosmic need in the evolution of life.The other idea of sacrifice is also dis-covered in the sacrifice of Christ, the idea ofunion with divinity. Christ in his sacrificeas a Divine Being identifies himself with thehuman race, uniting in his person the humanand the divine, and bringing God into directconnection with man. Thus we find in theChristian doctrine of the incarnation thefulfillment, in the strictest sense of the term,of the idea of the primitive man, that insacrifice he brings himself into union withhis god.Magic and PrayerMuch has been written on the relation

between magic and religion. The connectionseems to be found in the relation betweenmagic and prayer. Magic is more diflScult todefine than prayer. The use of the term hasbeen more uncertain and confused. But cer-


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 39tain main ideas are clear and these happento be the ideas that relate magic to prayer.Magic is like prayer in that it is the ex-

pression of desire. It is unlike prayer in itsmethod. Dr. Galloway states the difference.The idea of magic is control, while the ideaof prayer is dependence.

After the study of the various theoriesconcerning prayer and magic, I have beenable to reach some conclusions of my own.Dr. Eraser, the anthropologist, holds thewell-known theory that magic and prayerare so utterly dissimilar that they nevercould mix, and that the failure of magic asa method of attainment of desired ends gaverise to prayer. Dr. Marrett holds that theremay be a transition from magic to prayerand back again. Since both belong to thesphere of the supernatural, and "because ittends to be conceived as an affair betweenwills, magic, though distinct, has somethingin common with religion, so that interpene-tration and transfusion are possible betweenthem." Professor Jevons finds that thesupreme difference between religion andmagic is that the former is social in its aimsand the latter anti-social. He argues that

i^


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40 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERthere has been all the while a yawningchasm of irreconcilable difference betweenthe two. There is another theory that magicis the outgrowth of religious decadence.My own conclusions are about as follows:Prayer and magic are alike in that they bothrecognize the supernatural and that theyare matters of desire. They proceed bydifferent methods toward the attainment ofthese desires. Magic employs spell, hocus-pocus, incantation, and any possible methodof controlling the supernatural. It aims atbringing the supernatural under the controlof the individual working the spell. Prayer,as a rule, involves a higher conception ofthe supernatural order and recognizes itssuperiority over human affairs. The methodis, therefore, the method of petition and thefinal result the coalition of wills, either bythe granting of the petition or the bringingof the will of the petitioner into submissionto the will of the superior power to whompetition is made. Prayer and magic haveboth been used by the same persons for theattainment of desired ends, and there hasbeen a shift from one to the other. Therehas been no observed decadence of magic


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 41and recognition of its failure on the part ofprimitive peoples such as has been assumedby Dr. Frazer. Religion has not grown outof magic, for its origin is quite as ancient asthat of magic. Magic is not a result of thefailure and decadence of religion, for religionwas found among primitive peoples, andidentified by prayer, and was certainly notdecadent in that period of human life. Yetwe must admit that when religion does be-come decadent and corrupt, it tends to runover into superstition and its practices intomagic. The formulae of prayer are magicalelements in prayer. When they are not usedfor the sake of definiteness and order, butare regarded as essential and efficacious,they partake of the nature of the magicspell. Repetitions, such as the use of theprayer wheel in India or the reiteration ofthe name of Allah in the prayers of Moham-medans, are examples of magical tendenciesin prayer. And the feeling on the part ofChristians that prayer is not quite rightunless it closes with "Amen" preceded byother regular formulae is a leaning in thedirection of magic. But on the whole, theevolutionary tendency of prayer has been


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42 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERupward toward spirituality and a place ofhonor while magic has among enlightenedpeoples been relegated to the realm oflegerdemain, where it is recognized as athing of trickery and deceit and interestingonly for the skill of the deception.Prayer and MysticismMysticism is a name for a variety of

psychological experiences. Like magic, it isdifficult to define, because the term has beenso widely and so vaguely used. It also lieswithout the realm of common experiencesand its content is in the very nature of thecase without standards of comparison. Imaintain that it is perfectly possible, bycalling in the whole list of types of expe-rience that it has been used to cover, insome such way as William James definesreligion, to define it beyond question orquibble. However, such a definition is un-necessary for the present purpose. All thatwe need to know of mysticism here is agroup of sufficient facts to trace its contactswith prayer.

I am aware that I am entering a realmthat is held in greater or less suspicion.


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 43Nevertheless, mysticism is one of the phe-nomenal facts of religious history. All thegreat religions have itChristianity, Bud-dhism, Mohammedanism, Brahmanism.Christianity, ancient and modern. Catholicand Protestant, has a long line and a greatvariety of mystics. Saint Paul is giving usthe circumstances of a mystical experiencein the first part of the twelfth chapter ofSecond Corinthians. Saint Francis was amystic. Luther had mystical experiences.John Wesley and Oliver Cromwell have beencalled practical mystics. The writings ofreligious mystics are voluminous and muchhas been written about it. It forms an im-portant part of the psychology of religion.But not only is mysticism found in reli-

gion. It is also found in poetry. Tennysonwas a self-confessed mystic. Wordsworthwas a mystic in his communion with nature.So was Walt WTiitman. In fact, it may besaid that the mystical turn of mind is essen-tial to the poetic temperament. And mys-ticism may be found among scientists whohave experiences of direct communion withnature.Mysticism is the attempt to get into


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44 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERdirect relation with fundamental reality bymeans of intuition. It professes to use aprocess of knowledge-getting that is beyondthe process of intellection. Things must befelt in this realm rather than conceived.Intellection would be impossible, becausethere are no standards of comparison, andthinking is a process of comparison. Theorder of consciousness belonging to mysti-cism has been called cosmic consciousness. Ithas also been referred to as a superconscious-ness, an interesting word when placed overagainst the usual term of "subconscious-ness." This is the realm of inspiration.When one is lifted out of himself, so to speak,and apprehends truth by means of illumina-tion, gets hold of it directly without logicalprocess, he is said to be inspired. And themental state is a mystical state. In this statethe mind is regarded as passive and recep-tive. Persons who have had mystical statesof consciousness are emphatic in pronounc-ing them indescribable, and usually areunder strong convictions produced by thetruth that they believe they have appre-hended in their mystical experience.

Before passing upon the authority of such


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 45consciousness as this, it will be well to notecertain of its governing conditions. In thefirst place, these mystical states are clearlyinfluenced by previous thinking and belief.A Mohammedan never has been known toreceive Christian revelations in a mysticalexperience. A Protestant does not have asense of the presence of the Virgin Mary.A Buddhist will always get reenforcementfor Buddhistic thoughts. Professor Jamesnotes that the tendency of mystical con-sciousness is dominantly in the direction ofmonism or pantheism. But I venture to saythat this is due to the influence of dominantphilosophical opinions which the subjectshad either espoused or absorbed. If phi-losophy in their past experience had been thephilosophy of Professor James, a decidedpluralistic tendency might have been ob-served in mystical experience. These expe-riences were also dependent upon thementality of the subject. His strength ofmind would be a measure of their profun-dity. And behind them there is often evidenta pathological condition. This does notdiscredit them, but it opens them to suspi-cion and critical testing.


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46 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERBut great and valuable truth has come

through mystical experience, especially byinspiration. A few rationalists may have thestubbornness to deny this but not many.Men have had discovery in sudden flashesout of the depths of their being. Sometimesit has gradually dawned upon them like thecoming of the morning, when the sun sud-denly lifts himself over the horizon in theclimax of the dawn. Both poetry andprophecy have been fruitful in this way.Frank W. Boreham in his essay on "A

Woman's Reason" gets into something thatis very profound. We arrive at conclusionsand then find reasons for supporting thoseconclusions. We come to feel that thingsare so and find our reasons afterward. Oftenour conclusions are unassailable, though wehave reached them by faulty logical proc-esses or none at all. We just feel that theyare true. We cannot tell why. All this isclosely akin to mysticism if it is not mys-ticism itself.As to the authority of specific experiences,we may take Professor James' statementthat these experiences are authoritative forthose who have them in so far as they


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THE MEANING OF PRAYER 47produce conviction, but the one who doesnot have them is under no obHgation toaccept their conclusions without question orcriticism. But they certainly preclude ra-tionalism from taking the whole field oftruth seeking.The reader may have been wondering

what all this has to do with the meaning ofprayer. We have gone a little wide from thepath of direct dealing with the subject, butit has been rather necessary for laying ourfoundations. It will be remembered thatprayer was defined in the outset as any sortof communion or conversation with thePower regarded as divine. Direct contactwith this divine Power must be, therefore,in the very nature of the case of mysticalexperience. A sense of union with theDivine is mystic communion, and it is in-cluded in the very definition of prayer. Thecommunion aspect of prayer is mystical.And religious inspiration is often arrived atas the result of prayer. Prayer is the meansof inner illumination and discovery of reli-gious truth. Prayer is not only conditionedby faith but it generates faith. Prayer,therefore, in its profoundest sense and in its


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48 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERhighest development is a mystical expe-rience. Not only so, but prayer is usuallythe generating cause of the religious mysti-cal experience as a whole. Jesus on theMount of the Transfiguration by means ofprayer reached a condition of spiritualexaltation and illumination which trans-figured the whole aspect of his person andcommunicated itself to his attendant dis-ciples. Moses, after a long period of com-munion with God, came down from themount with his face shining and with a newmessage for Israel. The state of mind in themystical experience has been regarded aspassive and receptive. But it is not sopassive and receptive as it seems. Thewithdrawal of consciousness from mundanethings and its concentration on the divineis a thing of strenuous eflFort. That effort isprayer.Here is a realm of profound significance

and unlimited spiritual possibility. We needto approach it cautiously and carefully andto test its experiences as far as we can bycomparison and adjustment. We need touse our intellect for what it was intended, asafety device for the living of our mental


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CHAPTER IIIPRAYER IN ITS HIGHEST DEVELOP^MENTThe Lord's Prayer as a ModelIn our study of prayer we have sought to

arrive at its meaning by a consideration ofits general character, its beginnings and itsinterconnection with kindred phases of hu-man development. By putting these thingstogether we get what may be called asynthetic view of prayer. Our understand-ing of prayer will be enlarged if we approachthe subject from another angle. That is totake for analysis a prayer example whichwill serve as an illustration of prayer in itshighest and most complete development.This example is the "Lord's Prayer." Itcommends itself to this kind of treatment,because it was given to the disciples as amodel prayer, as a prayer containing andexemplifying the essentials of prayer.Anything like a halfway thorough con-

sideration of this great prayer in comparisonwith other prayers will serve to show that it

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HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT 51is the outstanding example of prayer devel-opment. Nothing in the history of rehgionhas in any way measured up to its complete-ness, in principle and in profound meaning.I may go further and say that it can neverbe surpassed. This is a dangerous thing tosay of any attainment; but its truth will beso apparent, after a study of the prayer,that it will not even be called in question.Jesus has given us the last word in prayerexpression. There is no going beyond it inmeaning or motive or mood. It shines forthin the splendor of self-evident perfection.No conception of God or of life can ever gobeyond what it contains. And with all itscompleteness and perfection, it has sim-plicity. Its meaning is the utmost in pro-fundity and at the same time easy tounderstand. An analysis of this prayer willbe the most profitable study that is possible.The Social Nature of PrayerThe first word of the Lord's Prayer is

significant, the plural of the first person ofthe possessive pronoun. The plural of thefirst person is used throughout the prayer.It is a recognition of the fact that prayer is


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52 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERa social matter. It had been so for a longwhile. The practices of the Jewish religionhad determined it so. The religious con-sciousness of the Jews was a social conscious-ness, so strongly so that the individual wasalmost lost sight of. It was a nationalreligion. It had a doctrine of salvation, butthat salvation was the salvation of a people.

Jesus brought into religious thinking withno uncertain emphasis the worth of theindividual, but he did not minimize thesocial side of religion. He established thefact that the individual is inseparable fromhis relations with his neighbors, and hewidened the meaning of neighborliness untilit swept aside all cleavages and distinctionsand included all humanity. Jesus wasputting the idea of brotherhood into hismodel prayer. He desired that his disciples,in that most sacred and significant act ofreligion, the direct approach to the presenceof God, should carry with them an acknowl-edgment of their community of interest.There is in the word a beautiful idea of

unselfishness which seeks to merge the per-sonal and individual concerns with theconcerns of the group. It is laying the


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HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT 53foundation for peace and harmony andbrotherly love among his followers and lay-ing it out of the foundation stones of reli-gious life and practice. After all, the greatsocial need of the present time is the needof unselfishness. It is selfish greed, selfishambition, selfish nearsightedness that standmost in the way of the attainment of thegreatest general good. The only hope ofrelief from social discord is for humanity tolearn to think and pray in the plural.And this is a far cry from the blandish-ments of the primitive worshiper that hemay move his god to the granting of per-sonal and material claims. It is a far cryfrom some of the prayers of the psalmist.It is a far cry from the spirit of the present.The spirit of this little word at the openingof this great prayer is the spirit of Christianperfection. Its implication of brotherhoodand cooperation, of love and unselfishness,is the ultimate in Christian attainment. Itis the acme of all religion.The Fatherhood of God"Our Father." Every word of this great

prayer is pregnant with meaning, but none


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54 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYER ^more so than the word "Father." The wordindicates an assumption of friendHness onthe part of the Deity. This assumption issomething that had to be acquired in theprocess of rehgious evolution. Primitiveman did not have it. George Santayana saysthat fear created the gods. That is one ofthe conclusions of an atheist, rather hastyand overdrawn; but we must recognize inthe primitive religious consciousness, in sofar as we have opportunity to observe it, thedominancy of the emotion of fear. It was along while until man came to discover thefriendliness of God, and it required longerto stumble on the realization that theSupreme Being was a loving Father. Thisnotion revolutionized the whole meaning ofprayer. The assumption of the Lord'sPrayer is that God is solicitous on our be-half. We are led to take it for granted thatGod cares for us and we make our approachon that assumption. That assumption wasnot developed in a day. It represents a longcourse of religious evolution and a develop-ment of the idea of God from the verycrudest notions of the supernatural to thesublime moral ideal of the Christian doctrine


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PIIGHEST DEVELOPMENT 55of the divine. Some of the outstandingpersonaHties in the development of rehgionamong the Hebrews had glimmerings of thisconception of God. Abraham, Moses, thepsalmists and the prophets were uplifted bymoments of inspiration when they almostappropriated by faith this fundamentalteaching of Jesus concerning God. But thefear motive in prayer was slow to let go andthe assumption was only half made. ButChristian prayer is, in the words of Dr.Fosdick, "the personal appropriation of thefaith that God cares for each of us."The word "Father" also carries the ideaof the essential oneness of humanity anddivinity. The supernatural is not an orderwholly incommensurable with the naturalorder. It is the extension of the naturalorder into the realm of higher realities.Humanity is the offspring of divinity. Jesushad these ideas in mind as he made theprayer, and he meant for his followers to gethold of them as soon as they were able tobear them. God is to be regarded as thesource of all life and the Author of all being.Nothing can go beyond this in religiousconception.


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56 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERHeaven, as the abiding place of divinity,

is to be regarded, not so much as a place ofabode above the earth, but more as a stateor condition of spiritual elevation. Theheavenly order is the realm of spiritualsuperiority. The "kingdom of heaven" is tocome upon the earth as a more exaltedcondition of righteousness and religious lifethan it has ever yet been possible for manto reaUze. Heaven denotes spiritual lofti-ness and supremacy. Jesus never intendedto take God out of the world and put himabove the stars. It is the literalistic ten-dency of Occidental interpretation that hasdone that.Prayer and Praise"Thy name be hallowed, thy kingdom

come, thy will be done on earth as it is inheaven." This model prayer of the Masterdoes not begin immediately after addressingthe Deity with a petition. It carries theideas of high courtesy and good mannersinto the practice of prayer. It is anothertestimony to the fact that Jesus was agentleman. This prayer begins with praise,and praise is the essential meaning of wor-


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HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT 57ship. I think it may be contended safelythat prayer in its eariiest forms and condi-tions was not worship. It had not reachedthe plane of worship. It could not beworship until it carried the note of praise.It could not carry the note of praise untilthe one making prayer could lose sight ofselfish interests long enough for praise, anduntil he had acquired an exalted conceptionof the supernatural that would provokepraise. It is only in an accommodated sensethat we can speak of the prayers of prim-itive people, and even many modern prayers,as worship. Worship is not present in aprayer until there is a genuine feeling ofreverence and adoration for the powerregarded as divine. It may be that fearpasses into awe and awe into reverence, butworship is not present without reverence.

Praise, to be genuine, must be emotional.There must be an outflow of feeling in thedirection of the one praised. The languageof praise is always the language of feeling.The fervency of prayer is largely in thepraise element. Petitions may be earnestand intense, but they lack the overbubblingoutflow of praise. They are often forced out


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58 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERunder the pressure of circumstances or underthe stress of mtense desire. Praise is anoverflow of the cup of feehng.

Praise exalts the worshiper as well as theworshiped. The contemplation of highvalues, the centering of attention upon sub-lime objects of consideration, the lifting ofthought and feeling into these high andexalted moods is soul-elevating. Praise isthe noblest aspect of prayer. Prayer thathas been too practical and utilitarian in itsnature has suflFered a distinct loss in highquality.

It will be remembered that in the dis-cussion of magic as related to prayer, magicwas said to move the supernatural by amethod of control while prayer proceededon the basis of dependence to make request,and also that prayer assumes supremacy ofthe supernatural while magic does not. Inthe voice of praise we hear a clear acknowl-edgment of divine supremacy.

It may be contended that in the Lord'sPrayer what we have been treating as praiseis really a petition, a petition for the realiza-tion of high spiritual values. It is entirelytrue that this sentence is cast in the form


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HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT 59of a petition, but the spirit is that of praise

adoration, exaltation, glorification. Thereis a submission, but it is not a forced orreluctant submission. It is an exultant con-fession of divine supremacy.Petitions for Material Needs"Give us this day our daily bread." Our

religion is not to be divorced from ourphysical life, the life of material needs. Ourmaterial needs are real needs, and God is asreally the source of our physical life and thesource of supply for our material needs ashe is the source of our spiritual life and thesource of supply for our spiritual needs. Ourphysical life is sacredly bound up with ourspiritual life. There is no way of separatingthem and there is no antagonism betweenthem. They simply need to be rightlyrelated.This phase of Christ's model prayer is an

acknowledgment of God's ownership of theworld and all its fullness. It is also theacknowledgment of the Christian's depen-dence on God for the things of ordinary life.According to Christian teaching, there is nophase of our life that is not sacred. In the


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60 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERoriginal Christian consciousness there wasHttle idea of the separation of the sacredand the secular. The religious consciousnessis to be carried into all the details of thedaily life. It is thus with Orientals to-dayand always in all religions. It is only theOccidental who can think of divorcing hiseveryday life from his religion. That is per-haps the reason that religion is so vital withthe Oriental that, where he is uninfluencedby Western civilization, he is never withoutit. There are no nonreligious persons in thegreat Orient.

This acknowledgment of dependence uponGod for the daily necessities of existence andthe expression of daily trust in God in noway imply that the burden of providence isto be entirely shifted to God's shoulders. Itassumes daily toil and personal effort at theattainment of ends. And I call attention tothe modesty of the appeal. It does not askfor luxury. It does not pour out a requestfor every possible object of heart's desire.All that it asks for is that as a result of thesweat of our brow we may be granted ourdaily bread. There is no suggestion herethat it is wrong for us to have more than


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HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT 61this. The divine bounty is a wondrousthing. God is not only *'able to doabundantly above all that we ask or think,"but he is willing to do this, and graciouslydoes it. However, we are not to presume inprayer upon the goodness of God. Thislimitation on prayer sounds the death knellof all magic in the practices of the Christianreligion.

The Moral Element in Prayer"Forgive our trespasses as we forgive

them that trespass against us. And lead us '^y^ ^not into temptation, but deliver us fromevil." These are expressions that set Chris-tian prayer transcendently above the prayerof all other religions. These expressions con-tain the noblest element in prayer and inreligion as a whole. That is the moral ele-ment. It appears in the prayers of otherreligions, but not with such clearness andloftiness of ideal.There has been a debate as to whether

religion preceded morality or morality pre-ceded religion. In truth, both sides of thedebate have been captured by the fallacyof "either or." The facts of evidence seem


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62 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERto show that rehgion and morahty haveexisted together from the beginning. Theyare distinctions in one consciousness andhfe. The divine has always been regardedas connected with the fundamental socialinterests of the group and the idea of God,or of the supernatural on any plane, hasbeen associated with the idea of moralobligation. Religion has enforced moralityand morality has strengthened religion. Re-ligion on its practical side, its ethical side,is the highest development of morality. Itis the inclusion of both God and man inmoral ideals and relations. There has neverbeen a real antithesis between religion andmorality. Religion on its speculative sideand in its ceremonials may be nonmoral.Sometimes it may be immoral. But theideas of religion and morality have neverbeen quite separated in human conscious-ness. Morality has been most powerful andeffective when it has been undergirded withreligious belief. Religion is noblest, purest,and highest in intellectual conceptions, mostvaluable and helpful, when it carries withinits system of belief a highly developedethics.


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HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT 63Jesus taught the blessedness of hungering

and thirsting after righteousness. Hunger-ing and thirsting after righteousness is themoral element in prayer. Hunger and thirstare figures of desire, and prayer is a matterof dominant desire. Therefore Jesus makesthe prayer for the forgiveness of sins andpreservation from temptation the emphaticnote in his model prayer. The big idea ofthe Christian religion is redemption, orsalvation from sin. The prayer^ of theChristian are naturally to be burdened withthis matter of supreme concern.It will be noted that the petition for theforgiveness of sins is characterized by thesame modesty that was observed in thepetition for the supply of daily materialneeds. Also the connection of our socialrelationships with our relationship to Godis carried forward. Forgiveness is petitionedon the basis of our own forgiveness of others.We have no moral right to ask for forgive-ness beyond that which we are willing toaccord.

This petition given in this manner indi-cates that God is on the same moral planewith humanity. God is not superior to his


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64 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERown moral principles governing conduct.Bishop Francis J. McConnell speaks truth-fully when he says that "if God is to claimthe loving self-surrender of men's wills, hecan base his claims only on the ground thathis mighty powers are used under a bondof responsibility." The Christian religionmakes the relation between the human andthe divine an ethical relation which putshumanity in the same moral world withGod.HumilityA characteristic that is evident through-out this model prayer, but especially evidentat its close, is the attitude of humility thatit assumes and teaches. Humility is anattitude toward God. Meekness is a cor-responding attitude toward man. Humilityconfesses man's inferiority and dependence.It also acknowledges the glory, greatnessand power of God. It bows the worshiperto the divine will. This attitude at theclose of the prayer means the surrender ofall authority in a final way to God. Itmeans a final leaving of all things in thehands of divine wisdom and power.


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HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT 65This represents the complete overturning

of the primitive prayer attitude. Theprayers of man first aimed at moving thewill of God in the direction of a desired end.The evolution of prayer has brought him tothe effort of placing his own will in line withthe divine will and his own destiny and thatof others in the hands of God. When thefollower of Jesus really gets hold of hisMaster's teaching concerning prayer, thatwill be his prayer motive and attitude.


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CHAPTER IVTHE SUBJECTIVE EFFECTS OFPRAYER

The Value op Prayer Recognized byAN Atheist

Professor George Santayana, the ma-terialistic philosopher of Harvard, althoughan atheist, believes that prayer has value.For him God has no existential reality butis simply a set of values. For that matter,no part of religion has for him more thana subjective reality. Prayer is just asoliloquy, but as a soliloquy it has value.It has a poetic value. It serves the soul inthe adjustment to the conditions of life andin making existence endurable. Prayer asan exercise is useful for its subjective effects.Now, it must be admitted that the averageman will have little interest in such aspiritual dilettantism as this. If prayer isonly a soliloquy, God only a set of values,and religious ideas purely subjective, andreligious practice is valuable only as a vaguepoetic symbolism, he will have none of it.

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SUBJECTIVE EFFECTS 67He would rather turn with brutal franknessto pessimism and final despair or to thecynical epicureanism which says, "Eat,drink, and be merry, for tomorrow ye die."But if he can believe sincerely in the realexistence of religious objects and objectives,if he can believe that the things of religionhave a reality of their own outside of andbeyond his own thinking, he may be broughtto the exercise of prayer, and may come torealize that in the matter of analysis prayermay have subjective effects that are distinctfrom objective effects and just as real. Abelief in the reality of the objective factsof religion is necessary to give his prayersincerity; but, once that prayer is uttered,his belief in the solid reality of God and thespiritual world does not shut his eyes to thepurely subjective effects of prayer in hisown life and to their value. It is our purposein this chapter to discuss the subjectiveeffects of sincere prayer, based on a faithin the substantial reality of God and otherreligious objects.The Soul-Unifying Effect of PrayerMuch of the writing of Professor James


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68 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERon matters of religious experience has beenbased on the theory of a divided self. By adivided self he means the inner conflict ofthe soul. It is a conflict of desires, ofmotives, of beliefs, of emotions, of convic-tions on the battlefield of the human heart.Saint Paul bears testimony to the fact ofsuch an internal state of conflict. He speaksof it as a war between his members, and saysthat when he would do good, evil is presentwith him. The soul seeks relief from thisconflict. One very effective means of endingthe struggle and resolving the conflict isprayer.

Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, in thatwonderful little book, The Meaning ofPrayer,^ has a chapter entitled "Prayer as aBattlefield." In this chapter he deals withprayer as an inner struggle of souls in work-ing out problems of duty and settling ques-tions of destiny. Jesus prays through to thesettlement of the conflict in the temptationexperience at the opening of his ministry; atthe mount of the transfiguration, beforemaking the final journey to Jerusalem; and,

* Taken from The Meaning oj Prayer, by H. E. Fosdick.Association Press, New York.


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SUBJECTIVE EFFECTS 69finally, in the garden of Gethsemane. Paulprayed through to victory in the strugglewith the flesh, and "the biographies ofpraying men show us that their strugglesfor right desire were fought out on thebattlefield of prayer." "The decisive battlesof the world," says Dr. Fosdick, "are hid-den, and all outward conflicts are but theecho and reverberation of that more realand inward war." "Prayer is a fight for thepower to see and the courage to do the willof God."The doctrine of modern biology is that all

life is a process of adaptation to environ-ment. Psychology has taken over thisassumption. The inner struggles of men, aswell as the outer struggles, are efforts at thisadaptation. Now, adaptation may come intwo ways. It may come through a surrenderto conditions and the following of the line ofleast resistance. This will lead to weaknessand finally to extinction. Or adjustmentmay come through the mastery of condi-tions and the adaptation of environment tothe triumph of spiritual forces. Prayerpursues the method of conquering condi-tions and conforming environment.


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70 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERBut this process in the spiritual world is

regulated by a supreme factor, the will ofGod, as understood by the religious person.The struggle of prayer is the process ofmaking the will of God supreme over allother motives. The soul of man does notsurrender to the will of God as a defeatedand conquered thing. The spiritual natureof man shares the triumph of the divine willover those inner forces that are evil andunsplritual. The submission of the religioussoul to the will of God is a triumphant sub-mission, the submission that recognizes it-self as the appropriation of power, the sur-render that sees itself as victory.The end of the struggle is peace. Men

have often spoken of prayer as restfulnessand quietude. Jeremy Taylor called it "thepeace of our spirit, the stillness of ourthoughts, the evenness of our recollection."Peace comes after conflict and calm afterstorm, but prayer is in the conflict andstorm as well as in the peace and calm. Thepeace and the calm are the achievementsof prayer.The struggle of prayer and the resultant

peace leave a permanent deposit in the soul


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SUBJECTIVE EFFECTS 71of patience and poise and sweetness of spirit.The oftener the experiences of prayer andthe more profound, the more refined andsteadier and more serene becomes the soulof the man of prayer.A Generator of Faith

Prayer is made on the basis of faith.Prayer without an underlying basis of faithis an absurdity. It can have no substanceand no sincerity. But this is not the end ofthe connection between faith and prayer.Prayer generates faith. It may seem acurious paradox that we make faith thebasis of our praying and also that we cometo believe in God all the more strongly be-cause we pray to him ; and that we come tohave faith in the realization of ends becausewe have made them the subjects of prayer.Yet such is the case. Experience has provedit. Men have often prayed through to asteadfast faith in God, when they scarcelybelieved in him at all when first they beganpraying. Prayer discovers God to men. Wecome to know men by talking with them, byholding fellowship with them. We come toknow God in the same way. When men


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72 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERpray to the power they regard as divine, thepositing of the ideal of God in their mindstends to give the Divine Being a realitythat no amount of philosophizing could do,and certainly far more than inaction or in-diflference could do. Professor Coe says thata prerequisite of prayer is not so much faithas a particular direction of attention. Theunconvinced have often been overwhelmedby the exercise of attention toward thethings for which they have distrust or an-tipathy. So he says that in prayer faith isoften born or reborn. Many a man hasstarted into prayer troubled with uncer-tainty and burdened with doubt to emergefrom his prayer experience grounded incertainty and firmly settled in his convic-tions and beliefs. His prayer has begun asa struggle with doubt. It has ended withthe possession of a triumphant, confident,victorious faith.Whether or not it is certain that faith is

a prerequisite of effective prayer, it is cer-tain that prayer is essential to a living faith.No man can maintain a vital religious faithwithout a steady exercise of prayer. Faithwill die away without prayer in the same


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SUBJECTIVE EFFECTS 73way that an organ of the body will sufferatrophy without exercise.The power that can generate religious

faith and keep it alive in the heart of manis a thing of infinite service. We have men-tioned the fact that Professor Santayana,the atheist, has paid tribute to the value ofprayer as a subjective exercise. He claimsthat religion is good for mankind, though hecannot bring himself to believe in the exis-tential reality of the spiritual world. Butreligious faith gives life substance andstability and steadies the soul with consola-tion and assurance.A Dynamic of Religious Labor

Prayer produces action. We cannot praywith any real sincerity and earnestnesswithout getting hold of serious convictionsof duty. These convictions become the spurof endeavor. The prayer for the realizationof ends suggests action in the direction ofthe attainment of those ends. The con-templation of high values suggests efforttoward the realization of those values.Prayer has often been the origin of mission-ary zeal or moral passion for reforms or


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74 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERschemes for the organization of rehgiousforces. The zealots in any moral cause areusually men of prayer. Prayer produceswhat Carlyle called Oliver Cromwell, the"practical mystic." This is the man whogoes from the place of communion with hisGod into the world of action. Some men areable, or seem able, to give themselves inpassionless contemplation of the true andgood and beautiful, but they are the excep-tion. More often they break away from theircloistered place of prayer filled with thepassion for service and reform. SaintFrancis and Augustine, Savonarola andLuther are examples.And prayer brings fresh inspiration and

renewed strength for flagging energies andfaltering feet. The prophet discovered thatin the long ago and sang of his discovery:"They that wait on the Lord shall renewtheir strength; they shall mount up withwings as eagles; they shall run, and not beweary; and they shall walk and not faint."How often did the Great Galilsean go apartinto the quiet place, after virtue had goneout of him in ministry, and weary with theburden of the sin of the world, to find the


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SUBJECTIVE EFFECTS 75restoration of spent forces and the recupera-tion of weakened vitality in the exercise ofprayer! And he went from the place ofprayer and with new strength back to histask of service. In the facing of tryingordeals and the assumption of heavy re-sponsibilities the Master set the example ofpreparing himself by prayer.A Transformer of Life and CharacterA thing that was hinted at in another

connection deserves fuller consideration inthis connection. That is the character-making and life-transforming power ofprayer. One cannot hold in contemplationsublime interests and high spiritual idealswithout undergoing a sea-change into thelikeness of these things. That is doubtlessthe reason that Paul wrote that wonderfullyexpressive admonition to one of thechurches, "Finally, brethren, whatsoeverthings are true, whatsoever things arehonest, whatsoever things are just, whatso-ever things are pure, whatsoever things arelovely, whatsoever things are of good report;if there be any virtue, and if there be anypraise, think on these things." There is no


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76 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERmore effective method of idealization and ofthe subhmation of things lofty and spiritualthan the method of prayer. One cannotpray earnestly and sincerely for spiritualends without becoming spiritual. One can-not contemplate his own ideal of God with-out being lifted to a higher plane otcharacter and life by that very contempla-tion.These subjective benefits may arise from

the exercise of prayer whether God has areal existence or not. All that is necessaryfor the realization of these effects is a beliefin God on the part of the one who does thepraying. It is my conviction that this beliefis necessary to give prayer substance andsincerity. Later we shall take up the con-sideration of the existence of a God to whomprayer may be made and the character ofthat God. We have been paving the wayfor that discussion.


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PART IIPRAYER AS A COSMIC FACT


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CHAPTER VPRAYER AND THE WORLD ORDEREvery Man's Need of a PhilosophyProfessor Borden P. Bowne had a say-ing that "philosophy is not everybody's

business." That may be true when we thinkof the matter in terms of the general quali-fication for a study of the subject; buteverybody has a philosophy, just the same,however crude and loose jointed it may be.Also it is true that the dominant moods ofthought of any given time exert a profoundinfluence upon the whole life of that time,even upon the people who have little under-standing of these dominant opinions or anydirect interest in them. Not only must menhave a philosophy of religion, but the cur-rent and dominant philosophies, and evenoutworn philosophies of another day, willleave their mark upon their religious think-ing and religious life. Philosophy is there-fore not so far removed from the realm ofthe practical as is popularly supposed.

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80 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERThe Problems of PrayerThe problems of prayer are problems ofphilosophy. The questions that are raised

are beyond the subjects that have been con-sidered in making a study of prayer as apsychological fact. This study is a matterof philosophy in a certain sense, but only theouter court of philosophy, the way of ap-proach to the heart of the subject. Com-paratively no real problem or serious diffi-culty has presented itself. We have beenseeking to interpret the data of experience,and questions have arisen here and there;but, in comparison with the questions wehave been approaching, they are simple andeven superficial. They are within the wholescope of prayer philosophy, but, in a sense,introductory to the main questions. Themain questions are these: What kind of auniverse will have a place for prayer? Howcan there be a place for prayer in a universeof law.? What is God like? Has God anypower of response? If God is all-wise andknows better than we do what we ought tohave, and is lovingly willing to give useverything we need, why pray at all? If Godforeknows all things and has planned all


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PRAYER AND WORLD ORDER 81things according to his wisdom, how canprayer change anything? Can prayer beanything more than reverent submission orsurrender to the inevitable? Has prayer anyfurther meaning than a subjective meaningor any further eflFects than subjectiveeffects? These are the questions of difficultythat inevitably arise and the answers wegive to these questions will determine oursubsequent religious attitude.The World GroundThe main category of human thinking isthe category of cause. This is the main

question of philosophy. What is the natureof the cause of all things? The answer tothat question will have a great deal to dowith our notion of prayer as a means foraccomplishing results in the world outsideour own minds.The materialists hold that all causation is

mechanical. The universe consists of matterin motion. The sum total of all reality ismatter in motion. Causation is linear, theaction of part on part. Consciousness hasno efficiency. It is a sort of accompanimentto the process of reality, an unexplained and


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82 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERinexplicable appearance in the process. Ithas no more to do with the ongoing of theuniverse than the squeaking of wagonwheels or the rattle of those wheels on thepavement has to do with the propelling ofthe wagon. Consciousness is always aneffect and never a cause. It is an epiphenom-enon. It is a curious and troublesome factfor the mechanistic explanation of theuniverse. In linear causation the effect inturn becomes the cause of the next step inthe mechanical process, the connecting linkin the chain of causation. Here is an effectthat does not enter into the process, thoughit may seem to itself to do so. The epiphe-nomenon isan invention for the purpose ofex-plaining this overbubbling aspect of nature.It is a desperate expedient. The explanationhas never quite explained. The effort is tokeep the power of intelligence from havinga place in the processes of nature. Themoment intelligence becomes a causal forcethe mechanical explanation of things issmashed. Something else than matter inmotion has been admitted as a factor in theprocess and as a part of basic reality.


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PRAYER AND WORLD ORDER 83Mechanism

It is easily seen that the only place for aGod to act upon a mechanical process is atthe beginning, to set the process going. Godcould be conceived as starting the processin the same way that a mechanic wouldstart a clock and let it go until it should rundown. The thoroughgoing materialist wouldnot acknowledge such a causative powerover and above the material universe. Andif this causative power were anything dif-ferent from the factors in the mechanicalprocess making up the universe and itsmovementif it be thought of as intelli-gencehe could not admit it into his sysrtem. Therefore there is no chance for intel-ligence to bring about any changes in theongoing of the universe. Our desires and ourpurposes might seem to enter into thescheme of things, but it would be only aseeming. In a universe governed by me-chanical causation the efficacy of prayer orof any other effort of intelligence could benothing more than an illusion.TeleologyThe conception that is usually thought of


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84 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERas being in direct contrast with the concep-tion of the world as a mechanism governedby an indifferent mechanical impulse is theteleological conception, which regards theworld process as the working out of a pur-pose. The antithesis is not so completeas it seems to be, for a machine is normallyexplained in terms of purpose. The ma-terialist simply refuses to think of an ante-cedent cause back of the world of matter inmotion. But the emphasis of the teleologicalconception is on the future, the realizationof an end toward which all things are tend-ing, rather than an emphasis upon thesource from whence all things proceed.Modern philosophy has been greatly in-fluenced, even revolutionized, by the evolu-tionary hypothesis, which regards the worldprocess as a process of development. It is aperfectly natural corollary to regard thisprocess as a process of the realization ofvalues. This means that the world is pulledforward in the direction of the achievementof ends. It becomes a living world in theprocess of the realization of life's values.Intelligence and purpose cannot be left outof this sort of philosophy.


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PRAYER AND WORLD ORDER 85Things are more favorable to prayer in

this sort of world. But let us not proceedtoo rapidly and draw an unwarranted con-clusion. A world purpose, grounded in aCosmic Mind, does not guarantee us a ra-tional basis for the objective efficacy ofprayer. Such a purpose might shut theworld process against change just as effec-tively as the inexorable laws of mechanicalcausation. If the purpose is complete inevery respect, if the whole scheme has beenlaid out to the last detail, nothing we cando will change anything about it. Every-thing is predetermined. We must make ourprayers, however futile they may be, be-cause they are ground out as details of aworld plan. We must proceed further in ourthinking than mere teleology if we find aplace for the cosmic efficacy of the humanwill.The only kind of universe that will give

prayer or any other human eflPort a realmeaning for the realization of values is theuniverse that admits us as real factors intothe world process. This idea suggests an-other kind of causation, that which Pro-fessor Hobhouse calls organic causation.


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86 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERThe causal energy is generated within thecosmic process. Hobhouse regards the cos-mic process as the development of Mind.Professor Bowne stated the matter anotherway when he said that the world is funda-mentally personal and is about the businessof the development and realization of per-sonal life. He regards the world ground aspersonal and all the meanings of the uni-verse as centering in personal existences.Organic Causation

According to this view of causation, thepersonal being, such as you or I, with athinking mind may generate fresh energyand make original and unpredeterminedcontributions to the cosmic process. Per-sonal life has that power. It is not fasteneddown by the limits of mechanical necessity.This is the creative capacity. Bergson putsthe idea of life's creative function into hisphilosophy in Creative Evolution, withoutthe emphasis that Bowne puts on personal-ism. If creation is admitted anywhere, thenthe whole world process may be grounded inthe creative energy of a Supreme PersonalBeing,


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PRAYER AND WORLD ORDER 87Now, experience seems to show that we

do have causative force within us, that ourpersonal lives are fountains from which pro-ceed fresh streams of creative energy. Andthe tendency of modern philosophy is totake the testimony of experience veryseriously. The old dialectic method is dyinghard, but it is very surely giving way underthe influence of the evolutionary hypothesis.The supreme contribution of this doctrine isthe idea of life as the fundamental fact ofexistence. Making the world process theprocess of harmonizing living beings withenvironment, it puts life at the very heartof reality. In the tendency of evolutionarytheory to regard the cosmic process, in itshigher phases and more advanced develop-ment, as a process of realizing values, wefind the suggestion of intelligent purpose.It is leading us out of the dreary wastes ofstatic monism, while at the same time itbrings us to see that all things are held to-gether in the unity of a world process. Weshall not come to a larger knowledge of ourworld by adopting some guiding notions andseeking to make all things conform con-sistently with these notions. We shall,


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88 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERrather, take the world as we find it and byexperience, by reflection, by constant criti-cism of our own methods of procedure gainwhat knowledge we may of the world inwhich we find ourselves.The world which we see about us, as far

as we are able to form an opinion, is a worldthat has some things fixed and some thingschanging, a world that has some mechanismand some teleology, some necessity andsome freedom, some order and some confu-sion, some law and apparently some caprice.And experience gives us the testimony thatwe are in the world and have something todo with its ongoing. We have been able tomodify it, and it has modified us. No phi-losophy has been able successfully to refutethis testimony of our own consciousness.And any philosophy that starts out toignore it labels itself in the outset as un-satisfactory.

If we are personal factors in a world proc-ess, human effort and human desire have acosmic significance. We cannot do every-thing. Our desires are not omnipotent. Butwe are not mere helpless spectators watchingthe wheels of the world go round. This is


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PRAYER AND WORLD ORDER 89where a place for prayer may be found inphilosophy. In a personal world prayer mayconceivably be a cosmic factor.Prayer and LawThe opponents of religion have made an

miwarranted use of the scientific discoveryof the practically universal reign of law.Popular thinking has given way entirely toofar to some of the assumptions that havediscredited many of the precious tenets ofrehgious faith. Too much has been admittedof these assumptions. Nothing has beenmore chilling and deadening to the faith ofthe common man in the power of prayerthan this teaching of the reign of universallaw. It should not have had that effect atall.The modern man thinks of the vast out-reach of the universe about him, the vastmultitude of solar systems with theirmyriads of planets, the seemingly infinitedistances that stretch from star to star, andthinks of the whole as under the sway ofinexorable law. Then he asks, "WTiat is theuse to pray?" He feels lost with his littledesires in a vast indifferent universe. It is


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90 PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYERthe old question, "What is man, that thouart mindful of him?" The modern mantakes his microscope and studies the uni-verse of infinitesimals, and there he dis-covers still the reign of law. Cause andeffect have the same relations in that worldas in the world of big things. If he turns hismind inward upon itself, he finds the lawsof physiology and psychology and logicoperating there. The universe gives himeverywhere the impression that it is a per-fectly organized, perfectly working system.There seems to be no suggestion of thepossibility of the injection of personal desireinto this universe that operates with theprecision of a steam roller. He loses sight ofthe irregularities and the exceptions. Hismind becomes filled with universals. Thereis no encouragement for prayer. He cancontemplate and admire, but he finds nodirect response to his feelings or his desires.

Also he has in the background of histhinking the explanations of religion almostentirely in terms of miracle. The Bible hasstated religious experience in a natural waywithout question or explanation. It is nota scientific treatise, but a book of life. It was

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C. K. Mahoney - The Philosophy of Prayer