Recently, Pope Francis has (again) courted controversy this time with his views on the Lord's Prayer. He takes issue with "lead us not into temptation" because he says, "A father does not do that, a father helps you to get up immediately." He prefers to say, "do not let us fall into temptation".
The trouble is that the Greek text which is the earliest record of what the Lord says does say quite clearly "lead us not into temptation". The Greek word is eisenegkēs - "may you bring into..." - a very clear expression of us being led by God. However, what does this actually mean? Is God responsible for putting us into positions where we can be tempted away from Him.
There is an apparent contradiction here:
1) God wills us nothing but Good.
2) God might lead us into temptation.
We must appreciate the hurt and scandal that our Patriarch is trying to address here. There seems to be an inconsistency in God's behaviour towards us. However, we need to try and unpack what Our Lord says when He tells us to pray "lead us not into temptation."
The Greek word peirasmos can mean an experiment, trial or a test. When the Lord is taken into the desert specifically to be tempted (peirasthēnai) of the Devil in St Matthew iv.1, who does the leading? Answer: the Holy Spirit. God leads His Son into temptation! In verse 7, we hear "Thou shalt not put the Lord to the test" and the verb "putting to the test" (ekpeiraseis) is again related to peirasmos.
It seems that when the Lord tells us to pray "lead us not into temptation" He means it. What of Pope Francis' objections?
It is clear that we need to understand peirasmos. What is temptation?
When we are tempted, we are faced with a choice: there is one choice which is immediately preferable but has serious consequences; there is another which appears hard but ultimately will bring about some good. The chocolate biscuit tastes nice, but not having diabetes is nicer. It seems, then, that temptation is a battle of wills.
Consider the Agony in the Garden. A choice presents itself to Our Lord Himself who seems never to be free from temptation in the way we are only He does not sin. This Agony comes from a very simple question, "Do I have to be crucified?" His Father's will has led Him to this occasion in which the temptation arises. The Lord's human will is tempted, but He aligns it to the Father's will which causes this agony. Our Lord articulates this desire that the cup should pass from Him and, in doing so, He presents His human will to God and thus gives it the respect of its God-given dignity. However, He seeks only the will of His Father.
Our Lord knows what it is to be led into temptation, and He doesn't wish it upon us. He does not want us to suffer, but knows that we must because of the very nature of what it is to love. Love opens itself up to be wounded: there must be agony. God does not want suffering, but suffering is necessary for some greater good that we cannot understand but rather must accept as we learn to trust God.
It is clear that, by telling us to pray not to be led into temptation, Our Lord is saying that we should not want to be put into this position of having to choose between God and not-God. What we should want is for there to be no choice for us to make, that things should be clear-cut if not easy. This means being utterly aligned to the Father's will even as He is.
It also seems that Our Lord is tempted so that we shouldn't have to be.
Thus, we need to voice to God that we do not seek out to be tempted - we do not want the martyr's death - but rather prefer the stable, quiet life in God. We can see this if we try making the opposite prayer: "lead us into temptation!" While this might appear the prayer of a champion of the Faith to test his resolve, we notice that it would be a prayer for Pelagianism: we seek to earn our way into heaven by overcoming temptation off our own merit.
Thus, perhaps we should see "lead us not into temptation" as a prayer for grace to live out God's will knowing our own weakness and fallibility. We have to fear temptation knowing that, with the best will in the world, we will probably fall so very far short by choosing the path of sin. In praying not to be led into temptation, we are praying to rely on God's grace in the face of temptation and receive our salvation at His hands.
If he is indeed questioning what is in plain scripture, Pope Francis may be inadvertently opening up major Catholic Teaching to question. If the Lord's Prayer doesn't say what it says, then why shouldn't other words of Our Lord say something different? Are the Jehovah's Witnesses actually right when they believe that Our Lord says, "this represents my body" instead of "this is my body"? If this is what he is saying, does our venerable patriarch not make it possible for Protestant innovations to become normalised?
Perhaps he isn't saying this after all. I know that I am fallible but, then again, so is he!
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