Not How to Pray, But Why We Dare to Pray in the First Place.

IMG_4917Right. I know Barth is the big beast in 20th Century Dogmatics. But his sparring partner, Emil Brunner has been too easily overlooked and underestimated in such comparisons. Brunner's Dogmatics were also written for the church.
 
I mention Emil Brunner because while chasing something else I found myself in Volume III, chapter 24, A Theology of Prayer.
 
Reading it was like cycling downhill into a fresh wind, exhilarating and bringing tears to your eyes 🙂
 
Brunner understands the struggles of faith, and the complexities and perplexities trying to understand what we are doing when we pray. Here are the last couple of sentences of the chapter, summing up the God-centred and grace enabled experience of prayer, and the wonder that we can pray at all!
 
"The highest possible privilege on earth is that of praising God in the name of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. This is the nearest approximation to the final goal, to eternal life in the Kingdom of God. In this act of praise, faith as a life act 'is actually present.' In this praise we have an anticipation of that which is ultimate and eternal."

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