David Capes
Yes, our minds cannot quite grasp everything. One of the things you talk about is how free will morally prevents God from acting. The notion that human beings are free agents in this world, who can choose this or can choose that. In a sense, sometimes [human free will] morally prevents God from being able to come along and act in a way that we would deem to be an answer to prayer. What do you mean by that, free will preventing that?
John Peckham
I believe, and I try to make the biblical case for this. I believe that God grants humans free will of the kind that we have the ability to will and do otherwise than God prefers. Or to use other language, other than God ideally wills. I believe God does so, because that kind of freedom is necessary for love. And God is love, and he desires love, and relationships with creatures. So, to the extent that God commits himself to granting free will, and if free will is necessary for love, then God is going to act within parameters that undermine that kind of free will. Because he’s not going to undermine love. He cannot do anything that denies his own nature. He’s not going to undermine love.
So, when I speak in that way, I don’t mean that God loses any power. Another way of thinking of it is just that God always keeps His promises. God always keeps his commitments, and if He grants creatures free will consistently for the sake of love, he will never do something that undermines or contravenes that kind of free will. Now, when it comes to prayer, that can be very relevant. On one side, on the side of petitioner prayers for ourselves, it’s not hard to see how if God is respecting our free will, that we could grant God the room or the space or the permission structure, for him to intervene more strongly in our lives, in a way that doesn’t contribute our free will because we’ve asked him to. That’s not hard to see how free will could make a difference. It doesn’t help us to understand as well, intercessory prayer for others. And this is why I think a broader picture is necessary that goes beyond just free will to a kind of cosmic conflict framework.
David Capes
And without that cosmic conflict framework, it’s hard to understand, to some degree, the whole notion of how prayer might even work or not work. I think what you’ve done here is you’ve joined two things together that I think are very helpful for people, because it’s not just me and God, you know, or God in us. It is this broader world of believers, non-believers, of forces and factors that are opposed to him at times and then those that are aligned with him. And I loved what you talked about with some of the angels as well.
There’s a passage in Daniel 3:17-18 that you talk about, and I want to read it, and I want to get your comment on it. It’s one of my favorite stories. It was chapter six, which is entitled Prayer, When God Seems Hidden. Now, a lot of people who listen to this podcast will know that five years ago, our adult son died of a very rare and aggressive cancer. And we’ve been struggling with that, trying to put all the pieces together for a long time. You know, trying to understand this. Sometimes understanding prayer has been a real issue. But prayer, when God seems hidden, because almost all of us will have a experience in life of the “dark night of the soul”, I think St John of the Cross termed it. There are seasons of life when it seems God is available, and a season when it seems God is hidden or unavailable, absent, as it were.
Well, in this, in this particular story, there is Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They’re getting ready to be cast into the furnace. And this is their response to King Nebuchadnezzar.
Oh Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. If our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O King, let him deliver us. But if not, (those three words are key). But if not, let it be known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods. We will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.
“But if not.” You talk about this, about faithfulness and trusting, even when you pray, and it seems God does not grant the prayer that you think he should. And sometimes it can be something simple. Other times it can be the life of your son, the life of your daughter or it can be your own life. Tell us how that story inspired you in writing.
John Peckham
Yes, I love that story as well, and I think the three people in that story are such a model of faithfulness in the midst of darkness and potentially impending doom. I mean, they don’t know what’s going to happen. They believe in God. They know that he’s powerful enough to deliver them, but God can do what he wants. He often acts unpredictably, and so that statement they make to him is such a statement of allegiance and deep faith. Even if not, we will still serve Him, even if not, we will not bow down to your idol. And I think that those three Hebrew youths are a proleptic model, if you will, of Jesus Himself as the ultimate faithful representative of this kind of prayer.
You look at Jesus in Gethsemane, where he prays, Lord, if it is possible, let this cup pass, if it is possible. Which already tells you something else is going on. He also says, for you, Father, all things are possible. So, there must be some sense in which some things are not possible, even for God, even while he remains all powerful. He says, Lord, if it is possible. And he says, yet not my will, but Your will be done. And I think we’re sometimes tempted when we pray and things don’t turn out the way that we think they should, especially in times of deep suffering and darkness and loss, such as what you have gone through.
I don’t want to project this on you. But many people in the church think either, there’s something wrong with God because he should have acted in response to this prayer. And a great deal of this book tries to deal with how we can understand, not necessarily why God didn’t act the way we thought he should in a particular instance, but at least a framework in which it might make sense that God wouldn’t act the way that we always think. So. it might be God’s fault. And then there’s also the question that people often wrestle with, well, maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I just didn’t pray hard enough, maybe I haven’t been faithful enough, or maybe something else was wrong, that it’s my fault. And I think we should recognize something when our prayers are not answered the way that we think they should be when we’re praying for obviously good things.
We should not default to the view that there must be something wrong with our prayer, there must be something deficient with our prayers. Because if we look at Jesus, there was nothing deficient about him at all. He’s perfect in every way. He’s the ultimate model of faithfulness and prayer. And yet his prayer in Gethsemane, I won’t say it wasn’t answered because it was answered a different way, but it was not granted. His request was not granted, for that cup to pass from me. If possible, let it pass. It wasn’t granted. The prayer wasn’t answered in the way that he was praying for it to be answered. It wasn’t because there was any lack of faithfulness or anything he did wrong on his side. We can be assured of that. And it also wasn’t because God lacked any favor toward him. He is the ultimate beloved one, the ultimate elect one.
It was because there was a larger context for God to grant that prayer of Christ. In that context would mean that there’s no way to save the world, right? It’s not that he couldn’t have delivered Christ. He could deliver Christ in a vacuum, but he couldn’t deliver Christ and keep his commitment and his great desire, and the desire of Christ Himself, to save the world from sin and from the clutches of darkness. And that’s how I understand if it is possible. And so, you have Christ as the ultimate example of this dark night. That anyone else who suffers, anyone else who goes through not only the agony of suffering and evil, but also the cognitive dissonance that comes with it that compounds the suffering, because it also then makes us question, well, where is God in all of this? Can I really trust God the way that I thought that I could before only magnifies the pain and the anguish.
I think that the best thing for us to do is to look to Jesus, the ultimate model of faithfulness. I think again, the three Hebrew youths in Daniel 3 are modeling, “even if not”, we will still serve you. I think Jesus is saying the same thing. Let this cup past. but Your will be done, not my will be done. And recognizing that will, is always perfect, it always takes into account many other factors. I remember as a young child hearing people pray that way. Lord, if it’s your will, heal this servant, and I remember thinking, why wouldn’t it be God’s will to heal his servant. It was always confusing to me, and I think it confuses other people as well.
But I think it’s helpful to remember that God’s will here is not just with respect to that particular thing. Of course, he wants to always heal this person. Of course, he wants to end all suffering and death. It’s never his ideal will or what he prefers for anyone to suffer or die or any other evil thing to happen. But it’s his will in the context of this larger picture, including a cosmic conflict in which even God is working around impediments and the plan of redemption. There has to be a way for him to provide atonement in which he is the just and the justifier, as Paul puts it. And in the cosmic conflict, there’s other impediments. And so, this idea of will, this idea that not our will but your will be done, we can recognize this will as perfect and also yield ourselves to Him, put our entire trust in him, just like those three Hebrew youths did, and just like the ultimate example Jesus Himself did.
David Capes
This is a great book. It’s entitled, Why We Pray: Understanding Prayer in the Context of Cosmic Conflict. A lot of great theology is coming out of Andrews University, and much of that from the pen or the computer, I might say, of John Peckham. Dr John Peckham, thanks for being with us today on The Stone Chapel Podcast.
John Peckham
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
A Nugget of Wisdom from John Peckham
One thing I always like to tell my students that reinforcement them is this. Humans will let you down, but God never will. If you place your confidence or your trust in humans, inevitably, you will be disappointed. But if you place your trust in God, in the end, you will not be disappointed. He will not let you down.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
