Today's Reading
When we are praying about the result, say, of a
battle or a medical consultation the thought will often cross our minds
that (if only we knew it) the event is already decided one way or the
other. I believe () this to be no good reason for ceasing our prayers.
The
event certainly has been decided—in a sense it was decided ‘before all
worlds’. But one of the things /taken into account in deciding it, and
therefore one of the things that really cause it to happen, may be this
very prayer //that we are now offering. Thus, shocking as it may sound, I
conclude that we can at noon become part causes /of an event /occurring at
ten a.m. (Some scientists would find this easier than popular thought
does.)
The imagination will, no doubt, try to play all sorts of tricks
on us at this point. It will ask, ‘Then if I stop praying can God go
back and alter what has already happened?’ No. The event has already
happened and one of its causes has been the fact //that you are asking
such questions /instead of praying. It will ask, ‘Then if I begin to pray
can God go back and alter what has already happened?’
No. The event has already happened and one of its causes is your present prayer. Thus something does really depend on my choice. My free act contributes to the cosmic shape. That contribution is made in eternity or ‘before all worlds’; but my consciousness of contributing reaches me at a particular point in the time-series.
From Miracles
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
Miracles: A Preliminary Study. Copyright 1947 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1947 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Revised 1960, restored 1996 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.