During a debate between Alister McGrath and Richard Dawkins, Dawkins questioned the logic behind thanking God for one answered prayer in the midst of so many that are left unanswered. The eye of faith, he rightly contended, seems to focus on the one child miraculously saved from a disaster but ignore the thousands of others who were not so fortunate, to focus on the one answered prayer in the sea of fervent, faithful, yet unanswered prayers.
In today’s world, it indeed takes the eye of faith to see God’s faithfulness to prayer. For example, disasters, both natural and human-made, do not seem to relent despite the countless prayers of the faithful. So much suffering seems to stagger on unabated. Though I believe God does act on prayers, He does not seem to do so often. Why not?
I believe this problem is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer had in mind when, in his Letters and Papers from Prison, he wrote that “God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him.” Humanity has turned its back on God, and God has granted humanity’s wish by allowing us to live without Him. God allows Himself, in a certain sense, to be “pushed out of the world.” To see the suffering in the world is then to see our need of God. On the other hand, then, to see the one child saved is to see God’s intention for the thousands of others. That answer will not silence many critics, and will not, in itself, offer much comfort to those in pain.
The Christian response does not end there, however. As God is pushed out of the world, so God becomes one with us through Jesus Christ. God is present to us in suffering and weakness because we have rejected His power and strength. He experiences the struggle of a creation without a Creator, even experiencing the height of our abandonment in His death. As Bonhoeffer continues, “Man’s religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world: God is the deus ex machina. The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help.”
And so, I would add, only the suffering church can help. Not all of our prayers will be answered, at least not in the ways and with the timing we wish them to be answered. Not everyone will respond to God’s love. Not everyone will find their pain eased. In this sense, we must continue to struggle as those who have pushed God out of the world and so live without Him. But we can now pray with the knowledge that God is present in our pain and with the hope that God is even now setting things right. That knowledge should drive us to be present with people in their suffering, to love, serve, and pray for them as Christ loved, served, and prayed for us, no matter the consequences. Our prayers, then, may not be effective in any immediately perceivable sense, but the ultimate point of prayer is not to be effective. The point is to be faithfully dependent on the One who will be effective in setting things right.
Thanks for blogging this. I’ve given a lot of thought to the issue of theodicy and God’s presence in the midst of pain, especially regarding whether or not He is the one who sovereignly dictates everything that happens, including suffering. I strongly believe that it is against his loving and just nature to be the source of suffering of the innocent; I never heard before about what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said as you quoted, and I find it very interesting.
What would you say the distinction is, however, between Bonhoeffer’s hands-off view and the perspective of deism? Was Bonhoeffer a deist in present tense, but otherwise in future? Does he hold that God just doesn’t show up personally, bur rather that he is spiritually present in the hearts of believers and works through them? I suppose there is ample evidence against this being exclusively true.
I’m not an expert on Bonhoeffer in any sense, but given it was a letter and not a systematic work, not to mention the stress he was under awaiting execution, I imagine he was being somewhat hyperbolic. Deists would see no place for God in the world, whereas Bonhoeffer would see God as present, but primarily as a suffering presence. God gains “space” in the world and accomplishes the work of redemption not through acts of power and coercion, but through Christ and so in humility, weakness, and suffering (Phil 2:6-11). I imagine Bonhoeffer would have in mind Luther’s (if not John’s or Paul’s) theology of the cross: the cross truly reflects who God is, God’s glory is revealed on the cross.
I personally think God often (if not primarily, though I hesitate with that phrasing) works through the Spirit’s working in people, at this stage in redemptive history (“how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”). I would definitely not say exclusively, but I think its been God’s intention since creation to work through people to bring creation to its designed end, and this intention has been included in Gods redemption of a fallen creation. Prayer becomes a key part of that redemption, giving us a place to participate in God’s work and allows the Spirit to work in us. I see a value in prayer in this sense whether or not prayers are immediately answered.
Most importantly, when Christ comes again, all will be made right, and all prayers will find their answer.
You’re going into some dangerous waters talking like this. Sail on my friend. I only hope I have the courage to sail with you. “Only a suffering God can help.” Wow, what do we do with that? Something tells me it’s true (the cross, Scripture, Luther, Bonhoeffer, Metzger and now you) but honestly I’m still a little squeemish. The god I have always known overcomes through his power and politics and apologetics not weakness. What good is a weak God? How can a weak God be of any real use to us? This is a massive paradigm shift. If it’s true, I suspect it will take some time for us to grasp this experientially. Thanks for mixing it up.
I think you’re right, a weak God is useless in worldly terms. We have to train ourselves to see along with Paul how Christ’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9-10). A sight that led Paul to “delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.” When Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, I don’t think He’s oblivious to the fact He’s asking us to make ourselves vulnerable to be slapped again. That should make us squeamish, but that is where Christ’s power is found. In a world torn to bits by power plays and violence, turning the other cheek becomes a radical form of protest against sin in the world. And we can have confidence knowing that we are not venturing into uncharted waters, but that Christ has gone before us.
just to chime in (nearly a year later)…we might find the parable of the mustard seed to be most exposing in this conversation…
“The god I have always known overcomes through his power and politics and apologetics not weakness.”
Though we note that in the stated parable, the field is the world; and the seed is the agent of transformation: and the seed dies into the field (like all seeds).
This would have surely taken the breath out of 1st century Jewish crowds’ lungs. Moreover, they would have the issue of the kingdom of heaven being likened to an “unclean weed” to deal with.
GREAT conversation here. I am loving this blog and all of the challenging, encouraging, and provoking posts to be found.