Philosophy, theology and prayer

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE have to be most careful whenever we start doing philosophy and theology. These two sciences are, to me, the most important and crucial ones, because they strive to study and know the ultimate causes of things and God himself.

They are not just about technologies and arts which can be tackled to a large extent by our human powers alone. Obviously, the technologies, arts and sciences also need to be done in the context of prayer. Otherwise, they can go anywhere and can end up being a danger to us.

We have to see to it that our philosophy and theology are done always in their proper atmosphere of prayer. With prayer, we are guided by the Supreme Being himself who will enlighten us as we try to explore not only the metaphysical realities but also the spiritual and supernatural world that can give us a lot of blind spots and mysteries.

Let’s remember that when we pray, we enter into some conversation with God who actually tells us more than what we tell him. He guides us and shows us the reality of things in their ultimate objectivity. Without prayer, our philosophizing and theologizing would most likely be a mere exercise of speculation that more often than not would end up in some error.

Without prayer, the motivation of our philosophizing and theologizing would be suspect. They most likely would be driven simply by intellectual pride, arrogance, jealousy, and things of that sort, that prevent us from seeing things objectively. They end up becoming a sheer exercise in self-indulgence and ego-tripping.

And the usual effect of such philosophizing and theologizing would be to elicit a similar reaction of pride, arrogance, jealousy, etc. There is some kind of mirror effect involved here, a sort of vicious cycle.

That is why philosophizing and theologizing always need to be pursued in prayer. When we truly pray, our motives become pure. We would be driven by an earnest but humble pursuit for the truth about the ultimate causes of things and about God himself.

Let’s never forget that humility is what enables us to see things objectively, regardless of whether they are favorable and advantageous to us or not. St. Teresa of Avila even went to the extent of saying that humility is truth. Humility frees us from whatever conditionings we have that somehow distorts and even denies the truth.

A philosopher or theologian who does not pray would be a dangerous animal, because to a certain extent, he can be very convincing but at the same time wrong. He can regale us with his showy presentation of his studies and research, filled all kinds of data and information, but still ends up missing the real target.

A most likely sad effect of all this is that such philosophizing and theologizing would also generate the same reaction and response from their followers. That’s how many of our Godless ideologies have been produced.

The men behind these ideologies reprise the style of the Pharisees and scribes of the time of Christ. These leading Jews were quite knowledgeable about religion, but they did not pray as they should. And so, when finally Christ appeared to them, they could not recognize him as he was and is. In fact, they killed him.

We have to be wary when we dare to philosophize and theologize outside of the context of prayer, of a conversation with God, of the guiding light of faith.