The Philosophy Of Prayer

This volume explores the philosophical issues involved in the idea of petitionary prayer, where this is conceived as an activity designed to influence the action of the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God of traditional theism. Theists have always recognized various logical and moral limits to divine action in the world, but do these limits leave any space among God's reasons for petitionary prayer to make a difference? Petitionary Prayer: A Philosophical Investigation develops a new account of the conditions required for a petitionary prayer to be answered by employing the notion of contrastive explanation. With careful attention to recent developments in metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory, Scott A. Davison surveys the contemporary literature on this question. He considers questions about human freedom and responsibility in relation to different views of divine providence, along with the puzzles inherent in Christian teachings concerning petitionary prayer. Davison develops new challenges to the coherence of the idea of answered petitionary prayer based upon the nature of divine freedom, the limits of human knowledge, and the nature of those good things that require a recipient's permission before they can be given. He proposes new defences, building upon careful analysis of the shortcomings of previous proposals and clarifying the issues for future debate.

Many contemporary philosophers assume that, before one can discuss prayer, the question of whether there is a God or not must be settled. In this title, first published in 1965, D. Z. Phillips argues that to understand prayer is to understand what is meant by the reality of God. Beginning by placing the problem of prayer within a philosophical context, Phillips goes on to discuss such topics as prayer and the concept of talking, prayer and dependence, superstition and the concept of community. This is a fascinating reissue that will be of particular value to students with an interest in the philosophy of religion, prayer and religious studies more generally.

This collection of groundbreaking essays considers the many dimensions of prayer, and takes up the meaning of prayer from within a uniquely phenomenological point of view.

Excerpt from The Philosophy of Prayer Philosophy undertakes to explain the facts of existence. Those facts are the facts of experience, in the widest sense of the term, and the facts of necessary inference deduced from the premises furnished by experience. Prayer is a real fact of human life. It ought to have a philosophy. It is the effort of the following pages to enter a little way into that philosophy. The author recognizes the handicap of comparative loneliness in this field of study. He also recognizes the limitations of his own contribution. If it should do no more than prove an incentive to some abler writer to do better, it has been worth while. The subject is in sore need of critical study. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Vincent Brümmer's classic book on prayer from 1984 provides a comprehensive philosophical analysis of central issues regarding the nature and practice of prayer. What do we do when we ask things of other people, when we thank them or praise them, when we express penitence for what we have done to them and ask their forgiveness? And how does doing these things in relation to God differ from when we do them in relation to other people? And what does this entail for the existence and nature of the God to whom we pray? This new edition has been substantially revised and updated. Three new chapters have been added which develop in detail a hint by G.K. Chesterton that faith 'is not a thing like a theory but a thing like a love affair.' Since prayer is the expression of this 'love affair' it is also the clue to understanding the nature of faith. These chapters contribute significantly to the current academic interest in spirituality by showing how Brümmer's analysis of prayer helps us to understand the nature of spirituality, of faith and religious belief, and of theology. Spirituality is not aimed at achieving religious 'experiences' or mystical 'knowledge' about God; it is primarily aimed at attaining the religious form of life and at coming to see the world in the light of faith. Religious belief is not merely a cognitive enterprise like science; it cannot be divorced from spirituality and the life of faith, and is therefore fundamentally existential and not merely intellectual. Serving as a valuable core text for students, this book also contributes to a number of current debates in theology and philosophy of religion: the debates on realism and religious belief, on the rationality of faith and the nature of theology, on the relation between religious belief and morality, on the relation between science and religion and the lively debate among evangelical Christians in America on the 'openness of God.'