Winn Collier 12/10/10

Professor Jones

Barth and the Task of Prayer

Karl Barth has received voluminous and wide-ranging descriptions, fitting for a

thinker of such massive impact. Many refer to Barth as a theologian of the frontier, one

who “decisively reorganized an entire discipline”1 and who plowed “a new furrow.”2 A

number of Barth’s readers would affirm Barth as a theologian of vivid possibility, a

thinker brash and audacious, “strikingly innovative…and…daring in conception.”3 Still

others present Barth as a theologian of a re-imagined orthodoxy, a “deeply traditional”4

interpreter who, though always resituating and questioning established dogma, held a

consistent “theological concern not to drift away from hard-won insight into the true

nature of the Christian confession.”5 Barth has been conversely categorized as both a

rigid systematician and a freewheeling vanguard, as both a rescuer of and an affront to

established Christian interpretation.6

Amid all the descriptors, summaries and epitaphs however, one rarely discovers

momentum to situate Barth as a theologian of prayer. I. John Hesselink says it plainly:

“When one thinks about Barth’s many contributions to theology, few people, including

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!Webster, John, Barth, 2nd edition, (New York: NY, Continuum, 2004), p. 1.!2!Busch, Eberhard, The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), p. 14.!3!Hunsinger, George, How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology, (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 3.!4!Ibid., p. 3.!5!Webster, p. 2.!6!Perhaps these facts, how widely Barth is understood (or misunderstood) and the many (and competing) theological grids on which Barth lands, say as much as anything about the extent and breadth of Barth’s enduring impact on the theological landscape.

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Barth’s specialists, would suggest that prayer is one of them.”7 Perhaps this opinion of

Barth’s ambivalence toward prayer is to be expected. One could make the case that

prayer was a secondary concern to Barth. Barth was uneasy with particular pietistic

strands, a fissure that placed him at odds with much contemporary thought on and

expressions of prayer. And, of course, his treatises on prayer may appear as though

haphazardly scattered throughout Dogmatics, as if they are sidelights subsumed by other

topics or commitments. Such a minimalist view seems to be supported by the scant

attention interpreters give to Barth’s views on prayer. In most volumes, the subject

receives barely a mention.8

However, any attempt to relegate the subject of prayer to a distant footnote in

Barth’s theological concern fails to do justice to the wide sweep of Barth’s treatment on

prayer. Most certainly, judging prayer as a negligible concern for Barth fails to take into

account Barth’s assertion, given as part on his 1962 American tour that was something of

a swan song for his public life: “The first and basic act of theological work is prayer.”9

He goes further, declaring how “theological work does not merely begin with prayer and

is not merely accompanied by it; in its totality it is peculiar and characteristic of theology

that it can be performed only in the act of prayer… It is natural that without prayer there

can be no theological work.”10 For Barth, theology separated from the work of prayer

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!7!Barth, Karl, Prayer, essay by I. John Hesselink, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002). p. 74. 8!Bruce McKormack’s Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectic offers no sustainable treatment. Webster’s Barth and Hunsinger’s How to Read Karl Barth provide about three pages each. 9!Barth, Karl, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, (New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), p. 160. 10!Ibid., p. 60.!

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actually ceases to be theology. Given this, a shrunken view of Barth’s concern for prayer

would undercut his entire life’s work.

Noting this, Daniel Migliore observed that “[n]o other theologian of the twentieth

century took prayer more seriously or developed a more extensive theology of prayer

than did Barth.”11 A deeper probe into the scope of Barth’s theological contribution

support this assertion and yields other angles by which to assess Barth’s priorities. In

Church Dogmatics, Barth has two sections (3.3 and 3.4) that hone in on the topic of

prayer. In Evangelical Theology, his chapter on prayer is the lead chapter for the section

devoted to the topic of “Theological Work.” There, Barth’s assertion that theology begins

with prayer was matched by the thoughtful way he organized his material: first things

first. Further, Dogmatics 4.4 (on the ethics of reconciliation but published posthumously

– and incomplete) devotes a large portion to the first two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.12

All said, Barth devoted 540 pages to the exposition of prayer.13 From this wider view, it

would be difficult to argue against prayer as a substantial theme within Barth’s project.

Geoffrey Bromiley even suggests that it was due in part to Barth’s internal wrangling

over whether or not to locate invocation (or alternately faithfulness or gratitude) as the

ordering principle for 4.4 that slowed up his progress and eventually left the volume

unfinished.14 It is possible that Barth was slow to push forward the completion of his

life’s work because (in part) he was concerned that the topic of prayer not be slighted but

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!Prayer, p. 95. 12!Barth, Karl, The Christian Life: Church Dogmatics, Volume IV, Part 4, Lecture Fragments, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 1981), p. ix. 13!Hesselink, p. 75.!14!The Christian Life, p. vii.

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receive its proper import. It would be a strange irony if what Barth left unsaid tells us as

much about Barth’s critical concern for prayer as what he did say.

Since, for Barth, prayer is the first theological task and the task apart from which

theology cannot be done, the obvious question emerges: How did Barth understand

prayer?

Barth on Prayer

Barth’s first extended treatment of prayer occurs in §53 (3.4) where, immediately

after claiming (in §52, “Ethics as a Task of the Doctrine of Reconciliation”) ethics to be a

task rightfully emerging from the doctrine of creation, Barth moves to the question of the

human’s freedom to act before God. For Barth, the free human’s response to a free God

portrays its reality primarily in three ethical acts: the holy day, confession and prayer.15 In

§53, Barth gives his fullest and most straightforward definition of prayer. Barth

understands prayer as an ethical human act that exerts freedom, offers petition, takes

shape within a community and remains grounded in a faith certain that God hears us.

Prayer as a Free Act

Barth’s fundamental concern was that we understand prayer as a true human act.

Prayer, though “a commanded activity,” is not coerced or mechanical (87). The human’s

invitation is to approach God, to move toward God. Barth’s prime concern was “that

alongside and in all his other activities man must not fail to turn to God, to go directly to

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!15!Barth, Karl, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The Doctrine of Creation: Church Dogmatics, Volume III, part 4, (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2004), p. xv.!

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Him.” (87) Prayer is the free activity of a free human. The possibility always lurking is

that we may not move toward God, that we may not go directly to God. There is the

possibility (and this is what troubled Barth) that we might not pray.

The fact that Barth’s treatment on prayer is located within his treatment on ethics

tells us much. For Barth, prayer is the human’s response, the human’s responsibility

before God. In prayer, we are responsible to act. Whenever Barth ventured into ethical

discussions (and we are impoverished that he was unable to complete this effort), prayer

often arrives at the fore. This impulse of prayer-as-action was not a late development for

Barth but present from the beginning of his work. In Barth’s first draft of a distinct ethics

in Münster (1928-1929), he gave significant space to prayer. For Barth, to be human

before God was to act. As such, to be human before God was to pray.

Given this, it was vitally important that prayer actually be applied, that prayer

happen. The question of how to pray and what to pray were of second concern for Barth.

Preeminent was the sheer necessity that people address God, that they go to God. Prayer

did not need “to be beautiful or edifying, logically coherent or theologically correct…The

only thing that counts is that he shall really be concerned with God and with a request

addressed to Him.” (88) Consistent with his broader work, Barth asserted that prayer was

indeed concerned with God’s honor. However, even God’s honor was turned back toward

the human’s ethical action because “the very highest honour that God claims from man

and man can pay Him is that man should seek and ask and accept at His hands...” (87)

Even if we do not know how to pray and even if our prayers are bumbling efforts

(perhaps we can only “sigh, stammer and mutter”), the crucial point is that we act, that

we pray. (88)

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Of course, consistent with Barth’s overarching concerns, for an act to be a truly

human act, he insists this necessarily implies that the act is free and un-coerced. As Barth

repeats, the “basis of prayer is man’s freedom before God.” (91) The human’s real

opportunity (and responsibility) to bring her lack and her need to God, even to attempt to

“influence or even direct [God’s] will” is at the core of what prayer means (91). Prayer is

the place where the human states his “privation and desire,” where the human’s will (and

hope, longings, pain, etc.) take shape (in a meaningful, free way) before God. From this

assertion, the questions tumble. Is it actually possible for humans to influence God? What

could we ever say to God that God doesn’t already know – and know better than we

know? Doesn’t the sheer fact of God’s reality make us embarrassed to “worry [God] with

[our] desires and requests?” (92) Barth’s response to all such speculation (speculation

that locks the human mind moving infinitely “round in a circle”) is to brush it aside by

asserting the plain fact: God has invited humans to pray (92). Humans hold a “God-given

permission to pray,” and this permission “becomes a command and order and therefore a

necessity.” (92) Prayer is a necessity.

Prayer is a necessity because God has willed it to be so. Contra Schleiermacher

whose foundational principal for prayer was that “there can be no relation of interaction

between creature and Creator” and that supposing prayer “exerts an influence on God” is

a “lapse into magic,” Barth believed that prayer affects God.16 “God yields to human

petitions … he alters his intentions and follows the bent of our prayers.”17 If we do not

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!16!Schleiermacher, Friedrich, The Christian Life, (New York: T&T Clark, 1999), p. 673. 17!Evangelical Theology, p. 14.

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pray, God may not act. Prayer does change things. “God does not act in the same way

whether we pray or not.” In prayer, humans are cooperating partners with God.

When God’s children invoke him as Father, this is in no sense a gesture, a shot in the dark, an experiment or a gamble. They do this as those who have a part in the history in which God is their partner and they are his partners, in which they are liberated for this action and summoned to it, in which there is also given to them the promise of his corresponding action…”18

Even more startling: “Prayer exerts an influence upon God’s action, even upon his

existence.”19 Hesselink points out how “Barth flies in the face of much academic

treatment of prayer that is skeptical about any concrete results in response to petitionary

prayer.”20 We can never know how our prayers affect God, only that they do. We are

never in control, but we are always true collaborators with the Almighty.

This bears out in the life of Jesus, in that heart-wrenching moment when Jesus

prayed alone in Gethsemane. Recognizing that obedience to the Father meant his own

death, Jesus prayed that the Father would allow the cup of suffering to pass. Jesus’ prayer

was the crucible where he worked out his truly “human decision.” (4.1, 166) Though

Jesus’ identity as God’s elected one meant he would choose obedience, Jesus’ prayer

carried the real opportunity for him to alter the Father’s intended action. As Paul Jones

reminds us, we “may not bury the possibility that Jesus may have been overcome and that

God’s justifying love may have miscarried.”21 Prayer, for Jesus and for us, carries

genuine consequences.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!18!The Christian Life, p. 104. 19!Prayer, p. 13 20!Ibid., p. 81. 21!Jones, Paul Dafydd, The Humanity of Jesus Christ, (New York: T&T Clark, 2008), p.232.

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In response to objections about the logical quandary of how any legitimately

effective encounter between humans and divine providence might work, Barth simply

returns to the bare fact: How could it be “otherwise than that God’s will shall be done by

[the human] and in [the human].” (93) God wills that his will be done via the instrument

of human prayer. Human prayer is truly free because God who is the one truly free being

of the universe has willed it to be so. God’s will “is so superior, so majestic, so clear that

it makes man’s prayer immediately necessary.” (93) God’s will is inviolable on this point

(i.e. humans are actually not free to controvert it).

Still, even though prayer grants humans the staggering possibility of influencing

and affecting God, the human is not the first cause of prayer. Rather, prayer rests on

God’s will that humans should bring their need to God – and find their needs met in God.

We may be tempted to interpret truly free prayer as prayer that originates in the human

experience and psyche. However, Barth swiftly slashes this notion. Our awareness of our

emotive needs certainly carry no guarantee that we will carry them to God. Further, if the

starting point for true and free prayer rests in the human experience, prayer ceases when

human emotions change. If we feel resignation or a “lack of desire and spirit to pray,”

then prayer, shackled to fleeting perspectives and emotions, wilts (96). However, it is

precisely in God’s supreme otherness, in the “infinite qualitative distinction between God

and [the human],” that makes human prayer truly possible and truly free. As Barth says,

man “is simply to do what he is called to do, and in this action to be a man free before

him.” (96) And the human is called to pray.

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Prayer as an Act of Petition

As Barth added layers to his definition of prayer, he singled out one fact, re-

emphasizing an undergirding assumption he had carried throughout his argument. For

Barth, prayer is petition. Absolutely. With no wiggle room. Barth contrasted his view

with the “striking feature” of Luther and Calvin expositions on prayer (97). In Barth’s

opinion, the Reformers’ ambivalence to pronounce prayer decisively as petition was

troublesome. Even worse were subsequent theologians who “tried to be cleverer and to

interpret petition as only one element of prayer alongside others.” (97) Barth insists, “[I]t

is important to understand prayer definitively as petition.” (97) Petition is not one kind of

prayer. Prayer is petition, or it is not prayer.22

This assertion is crucial to Barth for two reasons. First, Barth believes that if

prayer moves out of the realm of petition (and only petition), it erroneously re-introduces

the possibility for humans to approach God through their own acts of self-worth and self-

justification rather than as supplicants cast upon God’s mercy. However, when prayer is

petition, then humans renounce “all arbitrariness toward God, confessing that there can

be no question either of representing himself as worthy or of presenting anything worthy

to God.” (97) Prayer means to come with “empty hands” that are “spread out before God

and filled by Him.” (97) Barth remains persistent and inflexible, placing himself at odds

with wide swaths of Christian practice by (for instance) rejecting the teaching of Ignatius

of Loyola who promoted prayer exercises that Barth believed wrongly encouraged self-

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!22!Later, Barth raises the question of “whether prayer must not necessarily include thanksgiving, penitence and worship.” (99) He suggests that these (along with repentance) are elements of prayer – so then, elements of petition. So, Barth remains consistent by refusing to place these alongside petition as other forms of prayer but also wants to hold to each of them within the act of prayer. So, he works to demonstrate how each of them are necessarily subsumed by or lead to petition.

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effort.23 Any notion that we view prayer as a way of opening one’s self to God or

preparing for God’s activity is resolutely out of bounds. Prayer is petition, nothing else.

The second reason Barth insists on prayer as petition is his belief that only this

posture assures that humans come to God as they truly are and thus, that they come in a

truly free manner.24 If the human engages prayer from any other posture than as one who

has nothing to offer God other than her unadorned request, she will always be tempted to

come to God guarded, cautious or hiding. She will inevitably approach God in ways that

attempt to curry God’s favor. When this happens, prayer ceases. As Barth says, “all

masks and camouflages may and must fall away.” (98) If we do not come freely, as we

truly are, then we are not praying. “[I]n prayer we must and may step out of our role. In

prayer man does not perform a function or service. In prayer he has in no way to ‘give’

himself.” (98) For Barth, prayer must be petition and nothing else because he perceives

this to be the only “safeguard that the real man comes before God in prayer.” (98) And

the real person (sans masks and camouflage) is the only one who can truly pray, the only

one who can act and act freely, the only one whom God has commanded to pray – and so,

the only who is able to obey God by praying. As Barth notes,

The one who has need of God in and in spite of everything is man himself. And because it is man himself whom God call to Himself when he makes prayer a command for him, this needy one and therefore the one who comes to God in simple petition is the one who prays aright, in obedience to the command of God. (98)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!23!Barth is unrelenting. “This type of exercise, as evolved and prescribed by Ignatius Loyola for his pupils and as variously recommended in modern secular religion, can perform a useful task as a means of psychical hygiene, but it has nothing whatever to do with the prayer required of us.” (97) 24!At this juncture, Barth mentions another “striking feature” of the Reformers’ teaching on prayer, although Barth finds this feature more agreeable. Barth points out that the Reformers do not distinguish between private prayer and prayer within the church community. “Their interest is simply that there may be prayer (both on the part of the community and on that of individuals), and that it shall be true prayer. But according to them, true prayer is just asking.” (italics mine) (98)

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True prayer requires coming to God naked, and Barth believes this means coming to God

with nothing to give, only something to request.

Barth fully suspects that this fact of bare humanity coming before divine

perfection would (and should) cause discomfort. There are reasons we humans hold to

our masks so tightly. Of course, our actions, even prayer, will at times be “unholy.” (101)

Of course, we will often have impure motives and sinful whims scattered among our

petitions. However, we must remember we are coming before God – and God knows and

God loves. So, we have nothing to hide. “There may indeed be an influx of what is

human, perverted and limited into our petitions. We shall come as we are, and God

knows well what we are.” (101) However, in the coming, God sanctifies our impurity.

“[A]s our asking follows His command and is addressed to Him, it is necessarily ordered

and purified.” (101) We can have confidence in our nakedness and brokenness before

God because whatever is wrong with us, God will make right.

Barth presumes that if prayer ever budges from its foundation as petition, it allows

the human the illusion of a measure of initiative or control over prayer (and thus, over

God). The disastrous result of our elevated role would be to center the impulse to pray on

something other than the clear and unequivocal invitation and command of God to pray.

Without God as cause, human prayer would cease to be truly free which means it would

cease to be prayer. Thus the only possibility for true prayer is via petition.

Prayer as a Communal Act

Having laid the foundation of prayer as a free act where humankind offers their

petitions to God, Barth turns to discuss the necessary context in which prayer happens.

For Barth, prayer is clearly a free, ethical action that takes place within human

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communities. Barth believes this point so obvious that he feels little compulsion to argue

his point long. Highlighting this communal necessity as an assumed a priori (that, if it

were not present, would make the rest of his exposition nonsensical), Barth points to

how, throughout his treatise, he has repeatedly spoken in the plural: “We are to ask God

in obedience…We must be humble…We must be ready to be taught, etc.” (102, emphasis

mine) Barth wants to make sure his point is plain – his use of “we” is “ontological and

not homiletical in character.” (102) There is no truly solitary prayer. One prays within

and as an expression of the community of faith or one does not pray. “We cannot pray by

ourselves.”25 This is not to say that one does not pray privately, but whenever one prays

privately (and one should), they do not pray alone but as a manifestation of the

community that takes shape in many forms and many spaces across time and history.

“When we ask who prays,” says Barth, “the answer is either ‘we,’ of whom I am one, or

‘I’ as one in the fellowship and unity of the ‘we.’” (102) Prayer is not a vague

spiritualized concept for Barth. Prayer is riddled with particularity. “Prayer is the prayer

of the Christian community.” (103) For Barth, prayer that is not communal is not prayer.

This communal essence of prayer prods at the heart of what Barth understands

prayer to be. Prayer is not fundamentally a “private religious action,” but rather a

vocational function of the we, the visible work of the visible (one could easily imagine

Barth saying historical here) Christian community gathered by and in and under the name

of Jesus Christ. (103) For Barth to answer what prayer is, he felt compelled to first ask

what the church (the community doing this work) is. Barth’s definition of the we is that

the “[w]e are the men who ‘are with Jesus of Nazareth.’” (102) The Church, the we, is all

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!25!Evangelical Theology, p. 17.

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those who have been united in Jesus Christ, who have been “made brethren by their

common Head and by His command.” (102) In a sense then, Barth says that the Church is

the ontologically true representation (in fact, not merely symbol) of Jesus Christ in the

world.26

However, Barth makes a turn. In this moment, Barth wants to emphasize the

church as a representation for all humankind rather than the church as a representation for

Jesus Christ. Of course, for Barth, because of the fact of humanity’s election in Jesus

Christ, these categories are not polar. However, in the act of prayer, Barth wants to press

how the church is “the representative of the universal subject.” The church is “this

particular subject,” an expression of the universal subject which is all “of mankind and

the world” that have been elected in Jesus Christ. (103) This universal subject is not only

humans but the entire cosmos, “the whole of creation.” (103) Barth understands the

church to be the physical manifestation of Jesus Christ (the elected one) in the world, but

here Barth understands the church to be the representation of the entire world (all elected

ones) to God. Jesus Christ is the elected one for all humankind, the one who went into the

far country to rescue all of God’s creation. Now, the particular elected ones pray with and

for this electing work of Christ alongside all of God’s people across time and space.

Now, individual Christians do “not merely represent [themselves], or the community in

the world, but mankind and the world as a whole before God.” (103) Indeed, any

Christian “asking as an individual thus acquires a genuinely universal character.” (103)

Prayer always happens among the we.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!26!In 4.1, Barth says that “[t]he community is the earthly-historical form of existence of Jesus Christ Himself.” (661)!

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Barth understands the church to be a participant in and a revelation of the work of

Jesus Christ in the world. As such, Barth wants to resist any practice in prayer that he

perceives to surrender God’s cosmic purposes that are, because of the electing work of

Jesus Christ, always communal, active and self-giving for the good of the world. “[T]he

community believes, prays, and asks only as the representative of the universal subject.”

(103) Barth insists that this communal character does “not form an exclusive circle. On

the contrary, ‘we’ are most intimately bound to the human world around us.” (102) This

provides context for Barth’s disdain for mystical and pietistic traditions that he perceived

to promote individualistic prayer (or non-prayer, since Barth would have refused to

identify them as prayer) disconnected from God’s action in Jesus Christ for the good of

the world.

In Dogmatics when Barth wants to flesh out the particular content of prayer and

later when Barth gave fuller lectures on prayer, he consistently returned to the Lord’s

Prayer. Of course, since Christology served as his grid and theological foundation, we

would expect him to center on the prayer Jesus prayed. Barth narrates the obvious, how

the prayer begins with “Our Father,” a phrase that is fundamentally communal. This

phrase highlights the community’s (Our Father) covenant relationship with God (Our

Father). However, Barth does not tarry long with God’s role in initiating covenant, the

foundation that makes prayer possible. Rather, Barth forwards the striking claim that

prayer is the manifestation of God’s desire for humans to do God-work. God, sovereign

and free, has chosen that God not be the only one in whom God’s work happens. “[T]he

God who rules and is revealed in Jesus Christ, and through Him bids us call upon Him as

our Father, is not a solitary God who wills to work and create, to fight and win, to rule

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and triumph alone.” (103) Prayer is communal because prayer is our participation in

God’s work; and God is a communal God, not a solitary God. God has willed to work in

God’s world in such a way that humans are necessary (necessary, as Paul Jones points

out, “in the sense that God wills for reconciliation to include the event of human action).27

Of course, theological wars have launched from such a line. However, Barth (happily, it

seems) feels no need to explain how or why. He simply asserts that it is so. God has work

to do in this world, and humans are a part of how God intends to do it. Barth, as one

would suspect, wants to restrain this cart from running away wildly, terming the human

role “modest participation.” (104) However, it is participation. It is action that is

necessary because God has willed it so.

This foundation – of prayer as a moment where humans find their identity and

vocation in God’s intention for them to join God in God’s work – offers the dual force of

both giving the human the responsibility for necessary ethical action and insisting upon

the human the humility of recognizing their work, identity and very existence depends on

the prior reality of God in Jesus Christ. “If God the Creator does not will to be God

without man, neither can man the creature be man without God. His cause would be lost

if God did not make it His own.” (105) While human acts of prayer are scandalously

necessary; it is a necessity grounded within a larger scandal: the scandal of God’s

comprehensive action in Jesus. Though our prayers are essential and though (because

God has willed it to be so) God will not work alone, the fact that we are a we and the fact

that our very act of prayer demonstrates our union with Jesus Christ secures the good end

of our praying.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!27!Thanks to Professor Jones for his feedback on this point.!

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Prayer, though it is in every way our act, does not find its efficacy in human

ingenuity, fervor, spiritual discipline or erudite theology. Our part is to pray, and it is

necessary that we do so. However, our confidence does not come in the fact that we pray

but in the fact that God has already acted in Jesus Christ. God has already re-ordered the

world. God has already elected Jesus and elected all of humanity. God has already moved

on God’s behalf; thus, God has already moved on our behalf. We live in the confidence

that there can be “no question of man’s cause falling to the ground” because God has

made our cause his own. (105) We are to pray because we exist as a we; and because we

are a we, we discover that our cause was actually God’s cause first. And we can rest

secure because God will never let God’s cause go fallow. “To participate aright [in

prayer],” Barth adds, “we need God to stand security for our cause.” (105) In Jesus, God

has stood (and stands) as security for our cause (which is God’s cause). So then, we “may

be free and bold and defiant to claim God as really for us, as our Support and Helper.”

(105) Our prayers are necessary, but God is more necessary.

For Barth, this is the point: God is our Support, our Helper. God has acted in

Jesus for the entire world, and now we pray alongside all of God’s people and for the

good of the entire world. In the simple fact of our praying, “our asking loses its merely

private character.” (105) Our work is “indissolubly united in the work of Jesus Christ.”

(105) We need not worry over how it is so or why it so. We need not fret that our prayers

may fall short of God’s desire for our participation. We simply need to pray. And, in the

praying, we evidence that we are part of God’s we, and we give testimony to the fact that

our prayer is the prayer God desires.

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Prayer as a Faithful Act

Because prayer is a communal act that, by its mere happening, serves as the

assurance that God has taken up our cause, Barth wants to expand this notion further, into

the final element of his definition of prayer. Prayer is a free, communal act that expects

God to be present, listening and responding. “True prayer,” says Barth, “is prayer which

is sure of a hearing.” (106) If prayer is the working out of the action of Jesus Christ in the

world, then anyone praying must believe that Jesus Christ is actually working in the

world – and that Jesus is working in this very act of prayer. Our prayers are not to be

offered timidly to God. We do not tiptoe, wondering if perhaps (if we say the right words

and sufficiently prove our sincerity or get our theological ducks in a row) God might

every so often be kind enough to actually bend an ear our way. Rather, cautious and

uncertain prayer is not prayer. Prayer relies upon the concrete work and presence of Jesus

Christ. Without this content and posture, what we have is some vague spiritual exercise,

but not Christian prayer. Barth affirmed the Reformers description of our assurance in

prayer as “not merely a laudable but optional property.” (107). Barth agreed with the

view that unwavering confidence in God’s hearing our prayers was “a conditio sine qua

non of true prayer.” (107) To pray is to have faith that God hears us when we pray.

Barth’s concern is not to elevate faith as some human work added to God’s work,

but rather to elevate the certainty of God’s action in Jesus Christ over any human

deficiency. “It is not as if our prayer were the certain thing and His hearing the uncertain,

but precisely the opposite.” (107) Our assurance rests in the fact that we are praying in

Christ, as ones who have been “raised as His brethren to the side of God.” (108) Could

anyone imaging, Barth asks, the preposterous idea of Jesus praying – and the Father not

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hearing Jesus’ prayer? When the Son prays, the Father listens. And since we are in the

Son, when we pray, the Father listens. Always. This is what it means to pray “in Jesus’

name”: we pray with Jesus’ authority and in obedience to Jesus’ command and (more

remarkably) “in the unity of our asking with His [asking], … with the support of His

power as that of the Son, of His unity with the Father.” (108) When Jesus prays, we pray.

When we pray, Jesus prays. And when Jesus prays, God hears.

This does not mean that our prayers must carry confidence in our praying but

rather confidence in the fact that God hears our prayers. In fact, the faith we bring to our

prayers “is only a poor beginning.”28 We may be unsure of ourselves, but we must not be

unsure of God. “We can doubt the value, power and sincerity of our own asking, but not

God’s hearing.” (107) One wonders if these categories, from the angle of human

experience at least, can be so neatly divided. Can humans always separate their sense of

self-doubt from their doubts of God? And what exactly does Barth mean by being

“certain” of God? Are the many expressions of doubt and wavering faith in the Psalms

not prayer? One could imagine an answer suggesting that the very fact of speaking our

doubts (or anger or disappointment or apathy, what have you) to God rather than hiding

or withholding are precisely the kind of assurance Barth intends (contra the emotion of

confidence). However, Barth left this largely unanswered. What Barth wants to

continually affirm is that true prayer has the “character of hope” because “its object is the

attitude of the sovereign God.” (106) Prayer is participation in God’s work, and so prayer

must rest on the confident assertion that God is indeed working. God is indeed hearing.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!28!Prayer, p. 10.

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The Sum of It

Barth understands prayer fundamentally as a free, human act. Prayer is a genuine

act with genuine import. When people pray, God hears and God responds. Conversely,

when people do not pray, God may not hear and God may not respond. Because God has

willed that humans participate in God’s work via prayer, prayer is the community’s

confident movement to join God’s action in history. Like God’s action in Jesus Christ,

prayer is the Christian community’s active participation in God’s work on behalf of the

world.

Expanding Barth’s Purview

Barth situates prayer as a meaningful human action. While humans could never

lord over or manipulate the Wholly Other, God has invited us to act, to move, to

participate in God’s activity.29 In prayer, humans approach God in humility, recognizing

the need for divine assistance. Yet, in prayer humans also approach God. We act. And

we act freely. God stands center, but humans have work to do. However, within Barth’s

framework, there are moments where, by stretching his understanding of prayer, Barth

could improve his desire for prayer to be a deeply human action.

Prayer as More than a State

Even a cursory reading of Barth on prayer sabotages the suggestion that Barth

held a hollow view of the requisite nature of human action. One might hope at times for

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!29!Evangelical Theology, p. 159.

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Barth to flesh out more fully some of his claims (for instance, the nexus between the

historical reality of Jesus Christ and the temporal experience in human time and space –

for starters), but Barth iterates repeatedly that human action is real and obligatory because

God has willed it to be so. God has chosen for humans to participate in God’s work.

Given one’s reading of Barth in other places, one might suspect (though most likely it

would be a misreading) Barth to de-emphasize human action when moving into a

discussion on prayer. Even for those not given to a Reformed schema emphasizing the

centrality of God’s action over and against human action, it is commonplace to think of

prayer as a way of receiving from God or stilling one’s heart before God. In other words,

prayer situated in more passive terms. However, Barth resists a passive posture at every

turn. It is a tad ironic that one of the best places to look for Barth’s robust opinion on

ethical action is in the very place that many Christian traditions would not think to look:

in Barth’s treatment of the Divine–human conversation in prayer.

In fact, it is precisely Barth’s strong prejudice of prayer as action that pushed him

toward his chiding critiques of numerous Christian prayer traditions. For Barth, “prayer is

not a state but an act.” (111) Prayer is something you do. Prayer is movement. Prayer

must be an act that takes the concrete form of speech toward God. As such, Barth

dismissed the spiritual prayer exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola because of his view that

Loyola encouraged prayer as preparation for God in addition to approaching God (i.e.

creating a state of prayer in addition to doing the act of prayer).30 Though he only names

Ignatius, the Quakers and the Berneuchenern sect, Barth’s criticism takes a generous

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!30!Barth also criticized Ignatius for some form of self-attainment and self-cleansing that Barth believed was at odds with God’s free grace. This is complicated, but I believe Barth’s predisposition keeps him from hearing Ignatius fairly.

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swipe at wide swaths of Christian prayer traditions: many monastic traditions from the

East and West, the desert mothers and fathers, good bits of Anabaptist spiritual practice,

and other contemplative strains.31 For these traditions and many others, prayer possesses

a fuller meaning.32 Prayer is not only something you do (though it is certainly that), but it

is also something you encounter. Prayer is a way of communing with God, a conversation

where one both hears and speaks, where one both gives and receives. These traditions

practice prayer in ways that suggest it is both a state and an act.

This disagreement comes into view best when Barth attacks the idea of silent

prayer. For Barth, prayer will of course be quiet at times (in fact, this “will be the rule in

individual prayer.” 111). Prayer need not be spoken aloud; however, for Barth, prayer

must always be spoken. “[T]here can hardly be prayer,” says Barth, “which does not take

shape in definite thoughts and words. It will always be speech, whether silent or vocal.”

(111) Barth understands silent, meditative quiet, where words are not the aim, to be at

odds with his essential sense that prayer is an act. “Wordless prayer,” he quips, “cannot

be regarded as true prayer.” Prayer means words.

Of course, Barth has little concern that his critiques level honored Christian

traditions. Barth would simply want to know what the Scriptures say. “Can [silent prayer]

be justified theologically?” Barth questions. One response to Barth’s query could be to

simply ask, “In what way would it need to be justified?” Can one pray only in ways

specifically outlined in Scripture? And is there any place in Scripture where prayer is

comprehensively delimited? Of course, prayer is most often verbalized. The Lord’s !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!31!Presumably, the Berneuchenern was a small German sect, something like the Quakers. However, I have found scant information on them. 32!Of course, Barth’s critique dismisses many other faith traditions all the more, but Barth seemed unconcerned about this.

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Prayer, the central prayer for most Christian traditions, is a vocabulary for prayer. It

would be difficult to imagine Christian prayer that didn’t have (often and regularly)

words directed toward God. However, is this the only way to pray? To push more to the

point, on what grounds can Barth rightfully say that prayer is only action? Or even if it is

always action, couldn’t Barth’s understanding of action have wider scope? Barth’s

concern is that prayer not evaporate into some vague, foggy haze of ethereal spiritual

practice. Jesus Christ is concrete, and as such Christian faith must also be concrete. “This

freedom before God [to pray],” Barth says, “will continually give rise to…concrete

obligations.” (111) However, is it any less of a concrete act for one to discipline oneself

to be silent under the Almighty than it is to discipline oneself to voice words to the

Almighty? In contemporary culture, being silent may be an even more difficult feat than

voicing words. Further, if the act of prayer (be it silence or words) has God revealed to us

in Jesus Christ as its hope and focus, then the prayer is concrete. It would seem that

Barth’s own Christological focus opens up the possibility and freedom for all sorts of

prayers.

However, a second response to Barth’s query could be to directly answer in the

affirmative by pointing to suggestions in the Biblical text that would open the possibility

for a broader understanding of prayer, even prayer without words. In the Psalms, the

prayer book of the Hebrew people and the Christian church, the Psalter narrates the

actions of Yahweh on behalf of Israel and then echoes the response God suggests: for the

people to “[b]e still, and know that I am God!”33 To “be still” can mean to “do nothing;

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!33!Psalm 46:10, NRSV.

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be quiet.”34 Again, the Psalmist prays, “For God alone my soul waits in silence.”35 From

the experience of Israel at Mt. Sinai to the experience of Peter, James and John at the

Transfiguration, one legitimate (and sensible) reaction to an encounter with Almighty

God would be to go numb, dumbstruck with awe or fear or bewilderment. Silence in

prayer may point, not to passivity but to humility and honor. The prophet Habakkuk says

precisely this: “[T]he Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before

him!”36 And Isaiah concurred, “Sit in silence.”37 This also answers Barth’s concern that

anything offered God other than petition would tempt us away from a humble posture

before God. Waiting and silence can be ways of quieting self-effort and silencing our

demands and activities. Silence can be just as humble an act as petition.

Silence can actually be another way to speak, to speak (via our refusal to speak)

of our recognition of God’s majesty and of our need for mercy. Prayer provides the

possibility of a humble, dependent posture before God. Silence can communicate that we

have little to say, little to add. We await divine grace for what we cannot accomplish on

our own. This form of silent posture is anything but passive. It is an active, disciplined

waiting. It is a waiting that is an obedient response to the recognition that God rules over

the earth, and so we don’t have to. In prayer, we ask God to act, but in prayer we also

wait for God to act. Waiting, silent prayer is a way for us to acknowledge, as Peter

Craigie says, that God has entered the world’s chaos and has “control of the world of

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!34!Translator’s notes, New English Translation 35!Psalm 62:1, NRSV. 36!Habakkuk 2:20 NRSV. 37!Isaiah 47:5, NRSV.

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history.” 38 The texts of Scripture and the experience of Christians both suggest prayer is

more than only our acts, more than what we do before God. Prayer is also how we act,

how we do what we do before God. Prayer is an act; but prayer is also a state.

Further, after warning the church in Thessalonica of the grave destruction and

darkness to come, the Apostle Paul encouraged the church to “pray without ceasing.”39

This unceasing prayer surely does not mean the never-ending repetition of words.

Though possible, it seems unlikely that Paul means simply to “not stop praying.” Rather,

it seems the apostle was instructing readers to live in a posture (a state, one might say) of

prayer, their hearts and minds always open and attuned to God’s instructions to them or

God’s care for them. In The Philokalia, an ancient text for Eastern Orthodox teaching on

prayer and other spiritual practices, St. Peter of Damaskos understands Paul’s words as

instructions for us “to be mindful of God at all times, in all places, and in every

circumstance.”40 It seems the Apostle Paul understood prayer to be a posture or state in

which the Christian could exist.

However, this wider understanding of prayer allows prayer to seep into the whole

of human life. Prayer is what we do, but prayer is also our posture toward God and

others, our openness toward the Divine presence. Prayer is our work and our leisure. If

prayer can be expanded beyond a narrow definition of an act (and particularly an act

connected to words), then everything humans do can be brought into (and made part of)

the work of prayer.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!38!Craigie, P.C., Vol. 19: Word Biblical Commentary: Psalms 1-50 (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 2002), p. 345. 39!I Thessalonians 5:17, NRSV. 40!St. Peter of Damaskos in!The Philokalia: The Complete Text (Vol. 3) trans. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p. 173.

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Praying With Other Kinds of Faith

When Barth speaks of prayer that must stand certain that God hears, there is at

least the twinge of a triumphant, idyllic image of the true prayer as one who has

unwavering certainty in God’s character and power. Barth insists that there is never any

question of God’s hearing the prayers of his people, but rather “the only questionable

thing is whether our asking is indeed this wholly unquestioning action.” (106, emphasis

mine) For Barth, prayer requires, in some sense, an unquestioning posture. To truly pray,

we must have assurance that God hears us. We must believe God’s promises and must

not doubt God (107) “Doubt is not permitted.”41 This unwavering certainty isn’t all Barth

wants to say. Elsewhere, Barth speaks briefly of doubt as one of the human conditions

that may prompt prayer, but he doesn’t want to linger there. He certainly doesn’t allow

much room for doubt in the ongoing practice of prayer. (95)

One easily understands why this is so for Barth; he wants to secure the assurance

of prayer by fixing assurance upon God who is in every way trustworthy rather than upon

ourselves who are in no way trustworthy. However, in an unintended reversal, Barth may

encourage exactly the sort of self-focus he wants to reject. To speak of assurance and

certainty – to speak of one being free from doubt – is to (often, at least) move into the

realm of human perception. Unless Barth means to speak of doubt and assurance as plain

cognitive affirmations (which would be hard to imagine him doing), then he seems to

open the door for basing our confidence in prayer on self-perception and passing

emotions (on our feelings of certainty or uncertainty). It may be possible that for Barth a

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!41!Prayer, p. 20.

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refusal to doubt may simply mean to refuse to let doubt obstruct our obedience. In other

words: to act no matter our existential state.

However, Barth never says as much, and Barth glosses over the many expressions

of human anguish, doubt, grief and lament that the Scriptures present as faithful prayer.

Migliore poses a poignant question: “Does Barth allow the distinctive prayer of lament

and protest, etched in the biblical tradition and voiced by victims of injustice and abuse in

every age, to deepen and enrich his overall theology of prayer? Is it not precisely this

form of biblical prayer that is so disturbing, even stunning in contrast with conventional

understandings and practices of prayer?”42 Barth does not linger in the difficult spaces

long enough, and as such his definition of prayer too quickly dismisses prayer that may

be offered amid doubt, anger or a looming question of whether or not God is good and

faithful. The father of the demon-possessed boy in Mark 9 expresses a conflation of both

faith and doubt: “I believe; help my unbelief.”43 Barth could have expanded his view of

prayer to allow both of these lines to be equal expressions of faithful prayer.

This common and very human range of emotion (and the conflicted prayers that

result) could provide a nuance to Barth’s understanding. It might also actually offer more

assurance (what Barth seems to want to do) for our prayers, confident that we are still

praying and that God indeed hears us even when we doubt or protest.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!42!Prayer, p. 111. 43!Mark 9:24, NRSV.

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In Conclusion

Barth understands prayer to be an ethical human act that exerts freedom, offers

petition, takes shape within a community and remains grounded in a faith certain that

God hears us. Barth also understands prayer to be the central work of theology, a work

without which true theological reflection does not happen. However, we could stretch

Barth’s understanding of prayer in a couple places, allowing for a more nimble

understanding of how prayer intersects with the human experience. If we could also

understand (1) prayer as more than only an act (or at least understand act in larger terms),

and (2) prayer as encompassing a wider range of human emotions and experiences,

Barth’s lively vision for prayer could carry even deeper resonance with concrete human

realities.