Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics

Chapter 23: St. Thomas and the Ontology of Prayer

Chapter 23 ST. tHOMAS AND THE ONTOLOGY OF PRAYER Introduction Twice in his twenty-year academic career, toward the beginning and toward the end, St. Thomas Aquinas undertook to present systematically the act of prayer. The first of these studies is found in the fourth book of his Commentary on the Book of Sentences of Peter Lombard, written about 1256.1 There2 the general topic is the sacraments, and in the midst of the discussion of the sacrament of penance, St. Thomas reviews the means by which one makes satisfaction for an offense against God. These means are fasting, almsgiving , and prayer.3 In this way, an occasion is presented for a discussion of prayer, and St. Thomas responds with a set of twenty-three basic queries and replies arranged under seven headings.4 Since, at the corresponding moments in their commentaries on the work of Peter Lombard, neither St. Bonaventure nor St. Albert the Great gives us such a treatise on prayer, it can be suggested that the study presented by St. Thomas manifests a particular interest on his part in the theology of prayer.5 That this is the case is also shown by the fact that the treatise follows very much its own intrinsic lines of interest, quite independent of the issue of penance and satisfaction.6 The second of St. Thomas’s studies on the act of prayer is found in the second part of the Summa theologiae (ST), written about 1271.7 In the prologue for the whole ST, St. Thomas tells us that he is writing the work with a view to eliminating useless questions, articles, and arguments, and with a view to presenting the material according to an order suitable for   Wisdom, Law, and Virtue learning, rather than merely in an order dictated by the task of commenting on another author’s work.8 It is thus of some interest that the question on prayer still contains some seventeen articles (seventeen basic queries), a record for an ST question.9 These correspond in a general way to those found in the Commentary on the Book of Sentences, and certainly the seven large headings of the Sentences treatment remain; nevertheless, they have been thoroughly reordered.10 Furthermore, the question on prayer is no longer found in the midst of a discussion of penance, but now takes its place in the treatment of the virtue of religion.11 One of the most evident and important consequences of this is that the whole question on prayer is now preceded by a question on the act of devotion, viewed as the immediate and proper cause of the act of prayer.12 This question on devotion has no parallel in the writings of St. Thomas.13 From these few indications of change, it is evident that St. Thomas’s second treatise on the act of prayer constitutes a considerable revision as compared with the first. The complete investigation of the nature and extent of this revision would involve us in a task of some magnitude. Here, I will limit myself to presenting one evident and important revision bearing on the essential nature of prayer.14 What Is Prayer? The first of the seven articles or general headings in the Sentences is entitled ‘‘What is prayer?’’15 This general topic is presented by means of three more particular queries: 1. Is prayer an act of will, of desire, of the affective side of man, or is it an act of reason, that is, of the manifestative, demonstrative, representative side? 2. Is prayer the act of a gift of the Holy Spirit, or is it the act of a virtue?16 3. Is prayer an act that we can be and are commanded to perform, that is, does it constitute the matter for a commandment? To see how these queries pertain to the question of the essence of prayer, I will touch lightly on the content of St. Thomas’s responses to them. As regards the first, the connection is not very difficult to see, since it concludes that ‘‘prayer is an act of reason referring the desire of the will St. Thomas and the Ontology of Prayer  to him who is not in our power but is above us, namely God. Hence, the definition of [St. John] Damascene, ‘prayer is the asking of fitting things from God,’ most truly sets out the essence of prayer...