Summa contra Gentiles3.95 Chapter XCV and XCVI. That the unchangeableness of divine providence does not exclude the usefulness of prayer

We must also observe that as the unchangeableness of providence does not impose necessity on things foreseen, so neither does it exclude the usefulness of prayer. For we do not pray that the external disposition of His providence may be changed, since this is impossible, but that He may grant what we desire. For it is fitting that God should assent to the pious yearnings of the rational creature, not that our. desires have the effect of changing a God who is unchangeable, but as an effect befitting His goodness in granting our desires. Because since all things naturally desire the good, as we have proved, and since it belongs to the supereminent divine goodness to bestow being and well-being on all things in a certain order, it follows that He fulfils, according to His goodness, the pious desires of which our prayers are the expression.

Again. He who causes a thing to move, should lead that thing to the end: so that by the same nature, a thing is moved to its end, attains to that end and rests therein. Now every desire is a movement to a good: and it cannot be in a thing except it come from God, who is good in His essence, and the source of goodness: for every mover moves to its like. Therefore it belongs to God, according to His goodness, to bring to a fitting issue the reasonable desires which are expressed by means of one’s prayers.

Besides. The nearer things are to their mover, the more effectively do they receive the mover’s impression: thus the things nearer to a fire are more heated thereby. Now intellectual substances are nearer to God than inanimate natural substances. Consequently the impression of the divine motion is more efficacious in intellectual substances than in other natural substances. Now natural bodies participate in the divine motion to this extent that they receive therefrom a natural appetite for the good, as well as the fulfilment of that appetite, which is realized when they attain to their respective ends. Much more therefore do intellectual substances attain to the fulfilment of their desires which are proffered to God in their prayers.

Moreover. It is essential to friendship that the lover wish the desire of the beloved to be fulfilled, inasmuch as he seeks his good and perfection: hence it has been said that friends have but one will} Now we have proved that God loves His creature, and so much the more as it has a greater share of His goodness, which is the first and chief object of His love. Hence He wills the desires of the rational creature to be fulfilled, since of all creatures it participates most perfectly in the divine goodness. Now it is from His will that things derive their being, because He is the cause of things through His will, as was proved above. Therefore it belongs to God’s goodness to fulfil the rational creature’s desires, as laid before him in our prayers.

Besides. The creature’s good flows from the divine goodness, in a kind of likeness thereto. Now it is seemingly a most praiseworthy trait in a man if he grant the prayers of those who ask aright; since for this reason is he said to be liberal, gentle, merciful and kind. Therefore it belongs in a special manner to the divine goodness to grant pious prayers.

Wherefore it is said in the Psalm (cxliv. 19): He will do the will of them that fear Him, and He will hear their prayers and save them: and (Matth. vii. 8) our Lord says: Every one that asketh receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

1And yet it is not unfitting that sometimes the petitions of those who pray be not granted by God.

For it was proved that God fulfils the desires of the rational creature, inasmuch as the good is the object of the creature’s desire. Sometimes, however, it happens that what we seek is good not truly but apparently, and is simply evil. Such a prayer, therefore, cannot be granted by God: hence it is said (James iv. 3): You ask and you receive not, because you ask amiss.

Again, it was shown to be fitting that God fulfils our desires, because he moves us to desire. Now the thing moved is not brought to the end of its movement unless the movement continue. Accordingly if the movement of desire be not continued by repeated prayer, it is not unfitting if the prayer be ineffectual. Thus our Lord says (Lk. xviii. 1) that we ought always to pray and not to faint: and (1 Thess. v. 17) the Apostle says: Pray without ceasing.

Further. We proved that God fittingly fulfils the desire of the rational creature on account of its being near to God. Now a man approaches to God by contemplation, devout affections, and humble but firm resolutions. A prayer, therefore, that lacks these conditions in its approach to God, does not deserve to be granted by Him. Hence it is said in the Psalm (ci. 18): He hath had regard to the prayer of the humble; and (James i. 6): Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.

Moreover. We proved that God grants the prayers of the devout on the score of friendship. Consequently if a man rejects God’s friendship, his prayer is unworthy of being granted. Hence it is said (Prov. xxviii. 9): He that turneth away his ears from hearing the law, his prayer shall be an abomination: and (Isa. i. 15): When you multiply prayer, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood. It is on the same principle that sometimes a friend of God is not heard when he prays for those who are not God’s friends: thus it is said (Jer. vii. 16): Therefore do not thou pray for this people, nor take to thee praise and supplication for them: and do not withstand me: for I will not hear thee.

It happens, too, sometimes that through friendship a man refuses his friend’s request, because he knows it to be hurtful to him, or the contrary to be better for him: even as a physician will sometimes refuse a sick man what he asks, knowing that it is not good for his health. Wherefore, since it has been proved that God, for love of the rational creature, fulfils the desires set forth in his prayers, we must not be surprised if sometimes He fulfil not the prayers of those even who are most dear to Him, that He may accomplish what is best for the welfare of the suppliant. For this He removed not from Paul the thorn in his flesh, though thrice he prayed for this, because he foresaw that this would be good for him by keeping him humble, as related in 2 Cor. xii. 8, 9. Hence also (Matth. xx. 22) our Lord said to some: You know not what you ask: and (Rom. viii. 26) it is said: For we know not what we should pray for as we ought. For this reason Augustine says (Ep. ad Paulin, et Theras.):x The Lord is good, for often He grants not what we want, that He may give what we want more.

It is clear then from what has been said, that prayers and pious desires are the cause of some of the things done by God. Now it has been shown that God’s providence does not exclude other causes: rather indeed does He dispose of them so that the order appointed by His providence may be established in things. Consequently second causes are not inconsistent with providence, in fact they accomplish the effect of providence. Accordingly prayers are efficacious before God: yet they do not upset the unchangeable order of divine providence: since even the granting of each suppliant’s prayer is included in the order of divine providence. To say, therefore, that we must not pray that we may obtain something from God, because the order of His providence is unchangeable, is like saying that we must not walk in order to arrive at a place, nor eat that we may have nourishment, both of which are clearly absurd.

By the foregoing we refute a twofold error about prayer. For some have said that prayer has no fruit. This was asserted both by those who, like the Epicureans, utterly denied divine providence; and by those who like certain Peripatetics withdrew human affairs from the providence of God; and again by those who with the Stoics contended that all things subject to providence happen of necessity- For it results from all these opinions that prayer produces no fruit, and that consequently all worship of the Godhead is in vain. There is an allusion to this error in Malach. iii. 14: You have said: He laboureth in vain that serveth God. And what profit is it that we have kept His ordinances, and that we have walked sorrowful before the Lord of hosts? On the other hand some have contended that the divine ordinance can be changed by our prayers: thus the Egyptians said that fate was averted by prayers, certain images, incensings or incantations. Certain passages in Holy Writ would seem at the first glance to admit of being taken in this sense. For it is related (Isa. xxxviii. 1-5) that Isaias, at God’s command, said to King Ezechias: Thus saith the Lord: Take order with thy house, for thou shalt die, and shalt not live, and that after Ezechias had prayed, the word of the Lord came to Isaias saying: Go and say to Ezechias... I have heard thy prayer... behold I will add to thy days fifteen years.—Also (Jerem. xviii. 7, 8) it is said in the name of God: I will suddenly speak against a nation, and against a kingdom, to root out, to pulldown and to destroy it. If that nation against which I have spoken shall repent of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do to them. And (Joel ii. 13, 14): Turn to the Lord your God; for He is gracious and merciful.... Who know eth but He will return and forgive?

These passages, if taken in their superficial sense, lead to an impossibility. For, in the first place, it follows that God’s will is changeable. Also, that God acquires something from the course of time. Further, that things happening in time to creatures cause something that is in God. These are all impossible as appears evidently from what has been already laid down.

They are also contrary to Holy Writ which contains the expression of infallible truth. For it is said (Num. xxiii. 19): God is not as a man that He should lie, nor as the son of man that He should be changed. Hath He said then, and will He not do? Hath He spoken, and will He not fulfil? And (1 Kings xv. 29): The triumpher in Israel will not spare, and will not be moved to repentance: for He is not a man that He should repent. And (Malach. iii. 6): I am the Lord and I change not.

Now it suffices to consider carefully what we have said above for one to realize that every error occurring in the present matter is due to one’s overlooking the difference between the universal and the particular orders. For, since all effects are ordained one to another, forasmuch as they have one common cause, this order must needs be the more general, as the cause is more universal. Hence the order appointed by the universal cause which is God must of necessity include all things. There is nothing therefore to prevent a particular order being changed through prayer or in some other manner: because there is outside that order something that can change it. Wherefore it is not strange that the Egyptians, who referred the ordering of human affairs to the heavenly bodies, held that fate, having its origin in the stars, can be changed by certain prayers and rites; because outside and above the heavenly bodies there is God, who can hinder the heavenly bodies from producing the effect which was to have taken place in this lower world as a result of their influence.—But outside that order which includes all things, it is not possible to assign a thing whereby the order depending on the universal cause can be subverted. For this reason the Stoics who referred the ordering of all things to God as the universal cause, held that the order appointed by God is utterly unchangeable. But these again failed to consider the universal order, in that they held prayers to be altogether useless, thus implying that man’s volitions and desires, which lead him to pray, are not included in that universal order. For, when they say that whether we pray or not, the result is the same on account of the universal order of things, it is clear that they exclude the suppliant’s prayers from that order. For if they were contained in that order, effects would follow through the divine ordinance from these even as they follow through other causes. Accordingly to deny the efficacy of prayer is to deny the efficacy of all other causes. And if the unchangeableness of the divine order does not deprive other causes of their efficacy neither does it destroy the efficacy of prayer. Therefore prayers are useful, not as though they brought about a change in the order appointed from eternity, but as included in that very order. On the other hand, there is no reason why the particular order of an inferior cause should not be changed by God through the efficacy of prayer: for He transcends all causes, so that He is not bound by the order of any cause, but on the contrary all necessity imposed by the order of a lower cause is subject to Him, because it originated from Him. Accordingly when some change is brought about by prayer, in the order of inferior causes, God is said to return or to repent: not that His eternal ordinance is changed, but that some effect of His is changed. Hence Gregory says that God changes not His mind although at times He changes His sentence: not that, mark you, which expresses His eternal decree, but that which expresses the order of lower causes, in keeping with which Ezechias was to die, and a nation was to be exterminated for its sins. Such a change of sentence is described metaphorically as repentance in God, forasmuch as He behaves like a penitent, who shows himself penitent by changing his behaviour. In the same way He is said figuratively to he angry, forasmuch as by punishing He does what an angry man does.