Issue 33

Prayer and the Intellect

by Martin Tunnicliffe

 

It is well known that, when you are considering the subject of prayer, the intellect plays a subordinate part in our spiritual development and awareness of God. At the same time, we are bidden in the first commandment to love God with our minds as well as with the rest of ourselves, and God has given us our brain and intelligence to do so. The exercise of religion, in any of its aspects, including prayer, depends as much on the use of our reasoning powers as it does on our faith and our faithfulness.

 

Even if, as we freely admit, God is unknowable in His essence, and we allow that our philosophical and theological problems may not be capable of reaching final solutions this side of eternity, this is no excuse for not using our best intellectual endeavours continually to grapple with the hard questions posed by theologians, philosophers and others, and to find ways of allowing these to become as much a part of our prayer life as our aches and pains and those of society.

                         

Prayer meetings can very easily become little more than sentimental exercises in self-centredness, in which the intellect plays little part. But groups or organisations that take prayer seriously should not restrict their appeal simply to the emotional side of our nature. They should also be able to demonstrate that they are intellectually worthy of note. This is really no more than affirming the threefold basis which lies at the root of human nature — will, heart, and mind. What we do in prayer is authentic and complete only in so far as our minds are engaged to their fullest capacity, our hearts are moved, and our wills are activated to pursue the business of Christian living.

(This article was previously printed in the 2011 Newsletter)

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