Prayer and impassiblity

[Brock Joseph]

If God is impassible, and cannot be urged to do good or evil to us, why do we ask God to have mercy on us? Why ask God for help? Or why ask God to help others?

Is prayer simply "meditation", like trying to "tune in" to God's goodness? Trying to realize and become aware of God's consistent lovingkindness?

Is "Lord have mercy" simply a way to say "God, I agree that what you do is good, I say AMEN". (Lord have mercy = AMEN?)

Does prayer simply consist of contorting our own hearts into a position where "I" can get out of the way and let God move?

Thanks.

[Paul Cowan]

Dear Brock,

Sorry for such a long response but frankly, I just saw this question.

I hope others chime in as well since I have a history of being on the edge of almost being right or wrong as the case may be. That said, please re-read the Prodigal Son. The son "came to himself" after years of prolifigate living and wanted to come home to be a hired hand just to have food. He humbled himself to his father who then slaughtered the fatted calf , gave him a robe and ring and welcomed him home.

The father did not "do good" or "do evil" by allowing the son to leave or return. He simply received him to Himself as a lost repentent child and bestowed upon him Sonship.


Why ask God for help? Or why ask God to help others?

Read Job. God did nothing good or evil to Job. Job was a righteous man. The devil because of his hate of mankind, asked God to test Job. But God only allowed the devil to go so far, not to kill him. The devil had to ask permission because he is weak. God does not cause sin or cause us to sin. We choose to sin due to demonic influence on our lives.

So we ask God for mercy and for mercy on others so the devil will not be given permission to sift us as wheat as Christ said he wanted to do to Peter.

Yes, prayer does assist to get our will out of the way of God's way so He can work in our lives for the betterment of others.

I pray others will either fine tune this or flat out correct me.

Paul

[Kusanagi]

If God is impassible, and cannot be urged to do good or evil to us, why do we ask God to have mercy on us? Why ask God for help? Or why ask God to help others?

Is prayer simply "meditation", like trying to "tune in" to God's goodness? Trying to realize and become aware of God's consistent lovingkindness?

Is "Lord have mercy" simply a way to say "God, I agree that what you do is good, I say AMEN". (Lord have mercy = AMEN?)

Does prayer simply consist of contorting our own hearts into a position where "I" can get out of the way and let God move?

Thanks.

This is not definite.

There is a possibility that the impassibility of God is an attribute we as humans perceive in Him unless there is specific text saying He is so.

Much like when St Isaac the Syrian says God does bad things when we read in the Old Testament some things occur because God allows it or commands it etc. But he goes on to say this is not so because only goodness can be found in God, anything negative is associated with the devil.

So maybe the same can be applied here?
We just perceived he is impassible?

But the Mother of God does intercede on our behalf so God's punishment does not befall man like in the Vatopedi Icon of the Mother of God for example.

[Brock Joseph]

Thanks to you two for responding.

Paul - This statement you raised caused me to consider some things:

"So we ask God for mercy and for mercy on others so the devil will not be given permission to sift us as wheat as Christ said he wanted to do to Peter."

This still seems to me that we are asking God to change or to move in a certian way. In this case, God moves to refrain himself from giving permission to the devil. It sounds like we interact with God in such a way that he becomes passible, that he changes his mind toward us:

Once he was going to allow us to be sifted, now out of some kind of shift within him as a result of our prayer he decides not to allow us to be sifted.

But this doesn't sound like an impassible God.

Unless God is passible in that he is always loving toward us and we have to be responsive to that love in order for him to "act". Kind of like he is busy loving us but allowing us to be sifted because we don't want to not be sifted (the double negative seemed the best way to put it).

Then when we don't want to be sifted, because we want Life and Union with God, God contiues in his impassibility to love as he has always loved but now we have opened the door for his love to penetrate deeper.

I don't know if this stuff is even close to what the Frs. mean by passibility of God. There is supposed to be a sermon by one of the Gregorys about the impassiblity of God, anyone know about that?

(TABOO PART II)
But this all makes it sound like God wears masks and many of the biblical stories are Gods masks and one has to see through the mask to the impassible loving God. But the masks (the myths) seem distracting, complicating, and almost misleading.

-Brock Joseph

[Paul Cowan]

Dear Brock,

I try to say things from the heart, but more times than not, the conversation gets technically wordy and the words themselves seem to twist back on themselves. At that point, I usually stop posting for more brainy people to answer as my limited knowledge is. I am praying they do soon as my technical side is fast coming to its limit.


It sounds like we interact with God in such a way that he becomes passible, that he changes his mind toward us:

Once he was going to allow us to be sifted, now out of some kind of shift within him as a result of our prayer he decides not to allow us to be sifted.


The best way I can make sence of this is to keep in mind, God is outside of time as we know it. He has already heard our prayer millenia before we were born. So He is not moving. We are the ones that are changing our minds and perceptions of Him and our circumstances. If God seems to be moving, it is only because we have changed our limited Big Picture view of existence and He has already a millenia ago known we would. He is just waiting for us to catch up to Him.


Unless God is passible in that he is always loving toward us and we have to be responsive to that love in order for him to "act". Kind of like he is busy loving us but allowing us to be sifted because we don't want to not be sifted (the double negative seemed the best way to put it).

Then when we don't want to be sifted, because we want Life and Union with God, God contiues in his impassibility to love as he has always loved but now we have opened the door for his love to penetrate deeper.

I read another poster recently that said... a man was praying for his burdens (passions) to be removed. The Forerunner John told him he would help remove this particular burden (passion) from his life but if he did, the man would not get the crown that awaited him for struggling with the burden.

God does not give us more than we can bear. He also tests us as he did the Patriarch Abraham. This does not mean He changes His mind. It means He has a plan even if we can't see it.

Have you ever wondered why your employers would ever make the decisions they do? You may be a low level employee being subjected to their decisions, not knowing and thinking they are crazy for their policies. They on the other hand seeing the Big Picture have a 5 or 10 year strategic growth plan that makes perfect sence to have you doing the "silly" task of the day.

Just a thought.

Paul

[Father David Moser]

If God is impassible, and cannot be urged to do good or evil to us, why do we ask God to have mercy on us? Why ask God for help? Or why ask God to help others?
...

Is "Lord have mercy" simply a way to say "God, I agree that what you do is good, I say AMEN". (Lord have mercy = AMEN?)
...


When we say "Lord have mercy" we in essence surrender whatever is the topic of our prayer into God's hands. We tell God about the situation or person for which we have concern (the content of the litany) and then say "Lord have mercy" indicating that we put the whole matter in God's hands for Him to resolve according to His Mercy. We don't have to implore Him to be merciful, since He is already merciful by nature, rather we have to remove ourselves and our ideas from the equation and let God act according to His mercy rather than according to our ideas. This is mostly what I have learned from my own experience and my own pitiful prayer.

There is also a treatise on the the prayer "Lord have mercy" by St Paissius Velichkovsky, but I have not been able to find it in English anywhere (and since I don't read Russian/Slavonic I have not read it myself). If someone knows where this might be published in English please let me know as I very much desire to read the thoughts of this particularly prayerful saint on the most common and basic prayer that we have.

Fr David Moser

[Celinda Grace]

When we say "Lord have mercy" we in essence surrender whatever is the topic of our prayer into God's hands. We tell God about the situation or person for which we have concern (the content of the litany) and then say "Lord have mercy" indicating that we put the whole matter in God's hands for Him to resolve according to His Mercy. We don't have to implore Him to be merciful, since He is already merciful by nature, rather we have to remove ourselves and our ideas from the equation and let God act according to His mercy rather than according to our ideas. This is mostly what I have learned from my own experience and my own pitiful prayer.

Fr David Moser

I would just add a brief note to Fr. David's point. It is not just that we put the whole thing completely in God's hands. The Body of Christ is God's hands. Whether through active works, but more often through participation in prayer, we ourselves become the instruments through which God works His mercy. Therefore in praying the words, "Lord have mercy" we are being instruments bringing His mercy to the world so in this sense our prayers go beyond simply agreeing with what already is and are indeed effective.