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Prayer, Rosenstock-Huessy says, is "doubtful, agitated, despairing, searching." Prayer desperately seeks answers. When prayer cools into a "residue," it's called "research": "If research is real, it still has the dignity of prayer, although it is the last and most cooled-off phase of genuine prayer."
This cooling process is evident in the history of theology. Augustine writes Confessions as prayer, as Anselm does his Proslogion. Aquinas looks cool, but there are stories about Aquinas agonizing in prayer over some point of theology. One can feel the same animating principle in Luther and much of Calvin. These all write theology hot with prayer. Scholasticism is cooling, and much modern theology, often conducted by people who no longer believe in prayer, is frozen. It is mere research, still searching for answers to questions, but not as a matter of life and death.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 06:47 PM
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