| The 60-Second Aquinas Lesson |  |
Prayer as Petition October 15, 1999 Prayers are not simply emotional pleas for help, though we often consider them to be such. We are not acting emotionally and irrationally simply because we ask for something. That we seek things from God in prayer is another proof that prayer is actually a form or spoken reason: "Prayers as petitions seek God’s intervention in order to set things according to order as they should be according to reason" (ST II-II, Q. 83, Art. 1). Aquinas goes on to speak of causes: "Now one thing is the cause of another in two ways: first perfectly, when it necessitates its effect, and this happens when the effect is wholly subject to the power of the cause; secondly imperfectly, by merely disposing to the effect, for the reason that the effect is not wholly subject to the power of the cause" (ibid.). The "perfect" cause, as spoken of first, merely refer to those things that directly cause an effect. For example, I tip my coffee cup upside down, and coffee spills. My tipping of the cup is the direct cause of the spill. Clearly, when we pray, we ask for God’s intervention, but we cannot cause an effect in the same manner as we can in small earthly things like spilling something. Prayer is a cause in the second imperfect manner because God "is not wholly subject to the power of the cause." Prayer as a secondary, imperfect cause will be discussed further in the next lesson. |