Prayer is an effort to communicate with
God, or to some deity or deities, either to offer praise to the deity, to make a request of the deity, or simply
to express one's thoughts and emotions to the deity.
There are a variety approaches to understanding prayer:
- The belief that a god listens to prayer, and may or may not respond;
- The belief that prayer is intended to inculcate certain attitudes in the one who prays, rather than to influence a god;
- The belief that prayer is intended to train a person to focus on a god through philosophy and intellectual
contemplation;
- The belief that prayer is intended to enable a person to gain a direct experience of a god;
- The belief that prayer is intended to affect the very fabric of reality itself.
The existence of prayer is attested in written sources as early as 5000 years ago. Anthropologists believe that the earliest intelligent modern humans practised something that we would
recognize today as prayer.
The act of prayer
Praying has many different forms. Prayer may be done privately and individually, or it may be done corporately in the presence
of fellow believers. Some outward acts that sometimes accompany prayer are: ringing a bell; burning incense or paper; lighting a
candle or candles; facing a specific direction (i.e. towards Mecca or the East); making
the sign of the cross.
A variety of body postures may be assumed, often with specific meaning associated with them: standing; sitting; kneeling;
prostrate on the floor; eyes opened; eyes closed; hands folded or clasped; hands upraised; and others. Prayers may be recited
from memory, read from a book of prayers, or composed spontaneously as they are prayed. They may be said, chanted, or sung. They
may be with musical accompaniment or not. There may be a time of outward silence while prayers are offered mentally. Often, there
are prayers to fit specific occasions, such as the blessing of a meal, the birth or death of a loved one, other significant
events in the life of a believer, or days of the year that have special religious significance. Details corresponding to specific
traditions are outlined below.
Prayer in the Abrahamic religions
Prayer in Bible
In the Bible various forms of prayer appear; the most common form is petition. This in many ways is the simplest form of
prayer. Some have termed this the "social approach" to prayer. In this view, a person directly confronts God in prayer, and asks
for their needs to be fulfilled; God listens to prayer, and may or may not choose to answer. This is the primary approach to
prayer found in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, most of the Church writings, and in
rabbinic literature such as the
Talmud.
More detailed articles exist about prayer specifically in the
Hebrew Bible and in
the New Testament.
Jewish prayer
The
siddur is the prayerbook used by Jews the world over, containing a set order of
daily prayers. The siddur article describes the general order of Jewish prayer services, and how the siddur has
developed. There is a separate entry on the specific prayers that appear in the siddur, what they mean, and how they evolved
Jewish services.
The most important Jewish prayers are the
Shema Yisrael ("Hear O
Israel") and the Amidah ("the standing prayer").
Christian prayer
Jesus provided a model for prayer in
The Lord's Prayer. Many Christian denominations also have their own local prayerbooks. Many Christians
also devise their own, personal prayers. Prayers said by
Christians are
described in the article on
Prayer in Christianity.
Islamic prayer
Muslims pray a brief prayer service called
Salah in
Arabic, facing
Makka, five times a day. The "call for prayer" is called
Adhan or
Azaan.
Prayer in Eastern religions
Prayer in Hinduism
Hinduism has incorporated many kinds of prayer, from fire-based rituals to
philosophical musings. Prayer was part and parcel of the Vedic lifestyle, and as such permeated their books. Indeed, the highest
sacred texts of the Hindus, the Vedas, are a large collection of mantras (sacred hymns of Hindus, later adopted by Buddhists) and
prayer rituals extolling a single supreme force, Brahman, that is made manifest in several lower forms as the familiar gods of
the Hindu pantheon. Hindus in
India have numerous devotional movements. Stemming from the
highest Creator God called
Brahma, prayer is focused on His many
manifestations, including the most popular deities
Shiva,
Vishnu, Rama and
Krishna. See the
article on
Prayer in Hinduism for more details.
Bahá'í prayer
Bahá'ís are required to recite each day one of three obligatory
prayers revealed by Baha'u'llah. The believers have been enjoined to face in the
direction of the Qiblih when reciting their Obligatory Prayers. The longest obligatory
prayer may be recited at any time of day; another, of medium length, is recited once in the morning, once at midday, and once in
the evening; and the shortest is recited at noon. This is the text of the short prayer: I bear witness, O my God, that Thou
hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee. I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty
and to Thy wealth. There is none other God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Bahá'ís also read from and
meditate on the scriptures every morning and evening. There are also many other revealed prayers in the Bahá'í scriptures, most
for general use at the choice of the individual and some for specific occasions.
Buddhism
Buddhism for the most part discards worship, and places devotional emphasis on
the practice of
meditation alongside scriptural study. Although God and deities
are recognized as present,
Gautama Buddha claims it is mankind who by
their own free will possess the greatest capacity and potential to liberate
themselves and are urged to do so without exterior assistance. Therefore, prayer is not as central to devotion as in its
neighbouring Asiatic faiths. In some later
Mahayana related practices, especially
Pure Land Buddhism, there is an emphasis on prayer-like
mantras that are recited by devotees.
Prayer in Jainism
Although Jains believe that no spirit or divine being can assist them on their path, they do hold some influence, and on
special occasions, Jains will pray and meditate for right knowledge to the twenty-four Tirthankaras (saintly
teachers).
Philosophical paradoxes of prayer
There are a number of philosophical paradoxes involving prayer to an omnipotent
God,
namely:
- If a person deserves God to give him the thing he prays for, why doesn't God give it to him, even without prayer? And if a
person is not deserving of it, then even if that person does pray and request it, should it be given just because of his
prayer?
- Why should it be necessary to pray with speech? Doesn't God know the thoughts of all people?
- If God is omniscient (all-knowing) then doesn't God know what we are going to ask Him for even before we pray?
- How can a human being hope to change God's mind? Why should human prayers affect God's decisions?
- Do human beings actually have the ability to praise an omniscient and omnipotent God? Praising God is difficult to do without
describing God, yet how can a finite human being know anything about God's ultimate nature? This question was the subject of
heated debate among many religious philosophers; one such debate took place in the 14th century between
Gregory Palamas and
Barlaam of Calabria.
These questions have been discussed in Jewish, Christian and Muslim writings from the medieval period onward. The 900s to
1200s saw some of the most fertile discussion on these questions, during the period of Neo-Platonic and Neo-Aristotelian
philosophy. Discussion of these problems never ceased entirely, but they did fall mostly from the public view for several
centuries, until
The Enlightenment reignited philosophical
inquiry into theological issues.
All of these questions have been discussed in many Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious texts. There was much intellectual
cross-fertilization between Jews, Christians and Muslims during parts of the middle-ages, and so there is much convergence among
some of the rationalist philosophers of that era. Many of these texts offer proposed resolutions to some or all of these
paradoxes.
The educational approach
In this view, prayer is not a conversation with God. Rather, it is meant to inculcate certain attitudes in the one who prays,
but not to influence God. Among Jews, this has been the approach of Rabbenu Bachya,
Yehuda Halevy,
Joseph Albo,
Samson Raphael Hirsch, and
Joseph Dov Soloveitchik. This view is expressed by Rabbi
Nosson Scherman in the overview to
the Artscroll Siddur (p.XIII); note that Scherman goes on to also affirm the
Kabbalistic view (see below). Among Christian theologians...(please add examples here) Among Muslim theologians....(please add
examples here).
The Kabbalistic view of prayer
People involved with
kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism) often reject
rationalist reinterpreations of prayer outright, but they also reject the social approach, in which prayer is viewed as a
dialogue with God. Instead, this approach ascribes a higher meaning to the purpose of prayer, which is no less than affecting the
very fabric of reality itself, restructuring and repairing the universe in a real fashion. For Kabbalists, every prayer, every
word of every prayer, and indeed, even every letter of every word of every prayer, has a precise meaning and a precise effect. In
Kabbalah and related mystical belief systems, adherents claim intimate knowledge about the way in which God relates to us and the
physical universe in which we live. For people with this view, prayers can literally affect the mystical forces of the universe
and repair the fabric of creation.
Among Jews, this approach has been taken by the Hassidei Ashkenaz, the Zohar, the Kabbalist school of though created by the
Ari, the Ramchal, most of Hassidism, the Vilna Gaon, and rabbis such as Yaakov Emden and Kalonimus Shapira. In the 1800s some
European Christians were influenced by Kabbalah...(please add information here)
The rationalist approach
In this view, ultimate goal of prayer is to help train a person to focus on God through philosophy and intellectual
contemplation. This approach was taken by
Maimonides and the other medieval
rationalists; it became popular in Jewish, Christian and Islamic intellectual circles, but never became the most popular
understanding of prayer among the laity in any of these faiths. In all three of these faiths today a significant minority of
people still hold to this approach.
The experiential approach
In this approach, the purpose of prayer is to enable the person praying to gain a direct experience of God (or as close to
direct as a specific theology permits). This approach is very significant in Christianity and widespread in Judaism (although
less popular theologically). In
Eastern Orthodoxy, this approach
is known as hesychasm. It is also widespread in
Sufi Islam, and in some forms of
mysticism. It has some similarities
with the rationalist approach, since it can also involve contemplation, although the contemplation is not generally viewed as
being as rational or intellectual. It also has some similarities with the Kabbalistic view, but it lacks the Kabbalistic emphasis
on the importance of individual words and letters.
Claims of evidence for the effectiveness of prayer
A famous
statistical experiment whether prayer was effective was conducted
by Francis Galton. Galton hypothetized that if prayer was effective,
members of the British Royal family would live longer, given that thousands prayed for their wellbeing every Sunday. He therefore
compared longetivity of the British Royal family with that of the general population, and found no difference. While the
experiment was probably intended to satirize, and suffered from a number of confounders, it set the precedent for a number of
different studies that confirmed his findings. Nevertheless, other studies concluded that prayer can have health benefits (e.g.
Byrd RC, see below).
Historical polytheistic prayer
In Graeco-Roman
paganism, ceremonial prayer was highly formulaic and
ritualized. The
Iguvine Tables
contain a supplication that can be translated, "If anything was said improperly, if anything was done improperly, let it be as if
it were done correctly."
The formalism and formulaic nature of these prayers led them to be written down in language that may have only been partially
understood by the writer, and our texts of these prayers may in fact be garbled. Prayers in
Etruscan were used in the Roman world by
augurs and other
oracles long after Etruscan became a dead language. The
Carmen Arvale and the
Carmen Saliare are two
specimens of partially preserved prayers that seem to have been unintelligible to their scribes, and whose language is full of
archaisms and difficult passages.
Roman prayers and
sacrifices were often envisioned as
legal bargains between deity and worshipper. The Roman formula was do ut
des: "I give, so that you may give in return."
Cato the Elder's
treatise on
agriculture contains many examples of preserved traditional
prayers; in one, a farmer addresses the unknown deity of a possibly sacred grove, and sacrifices a pig in order to placate the
god or goddess of the place and beseech his or her permission to cut down some trees from the grove.
