On Prayer

29 June 2026

On Prayer

“The Athenian Stranger: . .  this is what I assert: it is dangerous for one who lacks intelligence to pray, and the opposite of what he wishes comes to pass.  If you want to take me seriously here, you may.”

(Plato, Laws, translated by Thomas Pangle, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980, page 72, 688b-688c, ISBN: 0226671100)

What the Athenian Stranger is referring to is petitionary prayer; that is to say making requests of the Gods for specific things.  This will become clearer with the additional quotes that follow.

“Socrates: . . .  you [Alcibiades] change about from this side to that without settling down for a moment, but as soon as you are firmly convinced of a thing you seem to slip out of it again and cease to hold the same view – well, if the god to whom you are going should even now appear to you and ask, before you uttered any prayer, whether you would be content to obtain one of those things which were mentioned at the beginning, or whether he should leave you to pray as you were, how do you suppose you would make the best of your chance – by accepting his offer, or by praying for something on your own account?

“Alcibiades:  Well, by the gods, I could not answer your question, Socrates, off hand.  Why, I take it to be a fatuous request, when it is really a case for great caution lest one pray unawares for what is evil while thinking it to be one’s good, and then after a little while, as you were saying, one change one’s tune and retract all one’s former prayers.”

(Plato, Alcibiades II, translated by W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1927, page 263, 147e-148b, ISBN: 9780674992214)

What Socrates is saying is that given the fickle character of Alcibiades it is likely that Alcibiades could easily change his mind about what he wanted from the gods to whom he was praying.  Alcibiades does not know how to respond to the point Socrates is making, but acknowledges that it is possible to pray for something that will prove harmful, both to oneself and to others; discovering that one has in fact made such a prayer will lead to wanting to pray to retract one’s former prayers.  Better to refrain from prayer until such time as one’s mind has stabilized.

The strongest critique of prayer from a Platonic perspective that I have run across is Oration 5 by Maximus of Tyre, simply titled ‘Prayer.’  Maximus begins by telling legends of how individuals were trapped by their prayer requests when the God that was prayed to granted the request in an unexpected way.  Some of these legends are famous such as the one about the Emperor who wanted to conquer a kingdom and asked an oracle about undertaking this conquest.  The Oracle responded by saying a great kingdom will be defeated if this project is undertaken.  The Emperor attacks and is defeated by the kingdom he attacks; the great kingdom that was defeated was his own.

It’s interesting to me that Maximus uses this as an example of why one should refrain from prayer because it shows that Maximus includes requests to Oracles as a type of prayer.  I find that interesting on a number of levels, not the least of which is that it differs from later Classical Platonists who tended to be more receptive to oracles.

Maximus also likes to emphasize that the gods are fickle and arbitrary in their granting of prayer requests, “When Priam offered prayers for his homeland, with daily sacrifices to Zeus of oxen and sheep, Zeus left them unfulfilled.”  And that’s just one example cited by Maximus.

(Maximus of Tyre, Oration 5: Prayer, translated by M. B. Trapp, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, page 43, ISBN: 0198149891)

Maximus undertakes an analysis of why things happen the way they do as an extended critique of why petitionary prayer is ineffective and unwise, “Of all the things which men pray to obtain, some are under the control of Providence, some are enforced by Destiny, some are at the mercy of fickle Fortune, and some are regulated by Science.  Providence is God’s work, Destiny the work of Necessity, Science the work of man, and Fortune the work of blind chance.  It is to the supervision of one or another of these four factors that the raw material of life is allocated.  What we pray for must therefore be attributed either to divine Providence, or to destined Necessity, or to human Science, or the vagaries of Fortune.

“If our objects are to be attributed to Providence, what place is there for prayer?”  Maximus makes a similar point with the other three factors of Destiny, Fortune, and Science.

(Ibid, pages 45-48)

Toward the conclusion Maximus does grant that philosophers such as Socrates and Pythagoras engaged in prayer.  But Maximus distinguishes between petitionary prayers and philosophical prayer, suggesting that philosophical prayer is a ‘conversation’ between the philosopher and the gods, “If you deprive life of philosophy, you have removed from it the living, breathing spark that alone knows how to pray.”

(Ibid, page 50)

It would appear that Maximus has the view that only a philosopher is mature enough to engage in prayer with exposing himself to strongly negative consequences.

These passages I have quoted are highly skeptical regarding the efficacy of prayer.  One might even draw the conclusion from these quotes that it is best to not engage in prayer, especially petitionary prayer.  The following quote from Phaedrus modifies that conclusion:

“Socrates:  I think he [Isocrates] has a nature above the speeches of Lysias and possesses a nobler character; so that I should not be surprised if, as he grows older, he should so excel in his present studies that all who have ever treated of rhetoric shall seem less than children; and I suspect that these studies will not satisfy him, but a more divine impulse will lead him to greater things; for my friend, something of philosophy is inborn in his mind.  This is the message that I carry from these deities to my favourite Isocrates, and do you carry the other to Lysias, your favourite.

“Phaedrus:  It shall be done; but now let us go, since the heat has grown gentler.

“Socrates:  Is it not well to pray to the deities here before we do?

“Phaedrus:  Of course.

“Socrates:  O beloved Pan and all ye other gods of this place, grant to me that I be made beautiful in my soul within, and that all external possessions be in harmony with my inner man.  May I consider the wise man rich; and may I have such wealth as only the self-restrained man can bear or endure – Do we need anything more, Phaedrus?  For me that prayer is enough.

“Phaedrus:  Let me also share in this prayer; for friends have all things in common.

“Socrates:  Let us go.”

(Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Harold North Fowler, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1914, page 579, 279a-279c, ISBN: 0674990404)

Here we have a famous example of Socrates praying to Pan and the ‘gods of this place.’  We have an intriguing contrast between Socrates sharing a prayer with Phaedrus in the dialogue Phaedrus, and Socrates challenging Alcibiades about what will happen to him if he prays in Alcibiades II.  I think the resolution of this is that Phaedrus, in the dialogue that carries his name, is engaged in deep philosophical discussion with Socrates; one gets the impression that Phaedrus is a budding philosopher with a very developed and cultivated mind.  In addition, the grove, which is outside the city walls of Athens, is thick with deities of various sorts; even the cicadas are communing with the gods in the hot summer air.  I suggest that these conditions are ideal for entering into prayer (as an aside, the grove is in nature, it is not a temple, which suggests that efficacious prayer has a spontaneous aspect to it.)

In contrast, Alcibiades has not developed his mind or his character and under the questioning of Socrates it is clear to the reader that Alcibiades has not lived an ‘examined life.’  (This is true for both Alcibiades I and II.)  Nor does the location of the dialogue lend support to prayer done in a manner consistent with the philosophical vocation.

The conclusion, I think, is that Socrates regards prayer is something that only a philosophical mind can undertake without inviting considerable risk both material and spiritual.

Concluding Remarks

This Platonist perspective on prayer would distinguish the life of a philosopher from that of a participant in the civic religion of Athens.  Praying for things, petitionary prayer, was a very common practice both at home altars and at temples.  For a philosopher to suggest that petitionary prayer is not a good idea for an untrained mind would, I think, have been baffling, or even seen as foolish, by most people.

I studied Buddhism in Korea many decades ago.  And there I learned that for most lay Buddhists their relationship to the Dharma is to go to a Temple, make an offering, light incense and bow, and then pray to the Buddha, or a Bodhisattva, for specific things: a new car, to pass a test, easy childbirth, a good business contract, a new house, and so forth.  In my own imagination I think of the civic religion of Athens as similarly focused. 

I think we often get a distorted impression of what religion is like in most circumstances, particularly regarding religions we don’t know much about.  Western Buddhists are inclined to read very sophisticated Buddhist analyses and philosophy; but these kinds of texts have almost no impact on an average Buddhist practitioner who goes to the Temple to pray.  Similarly, with regard to Platonism, those of us interested in Platonism may have developed sophisticated analyses as to the nature of the gods; a good example is the henads found in Proclus and other Late Classical Platonists’ writings.  Popular religion is, for the most part, practical; that is to say popular religion is looked at as a way to align with unseen forces so that one can better achieve material goals.  I understand that appeal and I am in some ways sympathetic to it.

But just as a philosopher cultivates a certain diet as a matter of purification, so also a philosopher cultivates a way of relating to gods, or unseen forces, that is also a matter of purification.  In this case the purification is meant to align one’s understanding with a larger context.

Personally, I pray every day as part of my morning practice.  I pray for those whom I have loved and who have passed away that they may rest in peace with the Good and the One.  I pray to embody the precepts of philosophy (ethical restraints).  And I repent for the negative things I have done in my past, that I may not repeat them.  I think this is consistent with the prayer that Socrates offers at the conclusion of Phaedrus.  My hope is that my practice of prayer may make me beautiful within, or uncover the beauty within, that I may return to the Good and the One and the Eternal.