Much of what we need in life we must ask for. As this is simply a given, it points to the importance of learning how, what, and whom to ask. Thomas Aquinas holds that we can naturally know that there is a God who can help us, and who is worthy of honor and worship. But to know God as a Father, and to approach him as such, is yet another thing.

I am reflecting on the difference that fatherhood makes. Aquinas says something remarkable in writing on prayer: “One who asks out of fear does not ask a father, but a master or an enemy.”

This is challenging, even confusing. If the one I’m petitioning is objectively a father, then clearly I’m asking a father, regardless of how I ask, right? That much, I am confident, Aquinas would grant. Surely he is focusing here on the petitioners, and how we are asking. Sometimes, we approach a father as though he is not a father; and to that extent, we are not ‘asking a father.’ In other words, we approach as though the one we are approaching is, for instance, more a master, or even an enemy.

Significantly, this leaves open the issue of why we approach in this way. One can imagine a child who approaches his father and asks something ‘out of fear’ precisely because of a pattern of how his father treats him. It might be quite understandable that the child asks ‘out of fear’ and so does not (really) ‘ask a father.’ Here we have occasion for a beautiful and bracing insight: to be seen (and so approached!) as a father, a father needs to act like one.

Indeed, the drama grows when we reflect more on Aquinas’s words about prayer. What does it take to recognize, and so approach, God as a father. Surely, this is deeply intertwined with human parents and children.

Father! We use and hear the word so often. And sometimes our life experience makes it more difficult to see the power and almost blinding brightness of the reality behind the word. Here we are at the very center of reality, and certainly of all life. One could run to a mountain top and bellow: ‘There is fatherhood!’ Or, ‘There are fathers!’

What else is there like fatherhood? An obvious answer: motherhood. Yet this simply serves to heighten the unique status of the reality in question, because motherhood is the complementary principle giving another angle of insight into the stunning bi-fold richness at the heart of human life.

So what does it take to recognize God as father? Clearly, this can be very challenging. Again, it is one thing to have a father; it is another to know it, and to feel it(!), and to approach that father as children do a father they recognize. That is, as a father.

I offer three brief remarks regarding this all-important question. First, it is always fitting to reflect again on the astounding commission of human fathers to be a first pattern of fatherhood, which though having a feature of being a ‘master,’ is so much more. We reasonably ask: what aspects of my dealings with my children could unintentionally form them to approach me from a place of fear. This self-examination calls for a concerted effort to look at myself through their eyes.

Second, we must not overlook that human motherhood provides an irreplaceable angle into divine fatherhood. Here we notice that forming the young to see and feel God’s fatherhood is precisely what a husband and wife, a father and a mother, do together in their parenting. Every day.

Finally, we might cultivate the practice of noticing signs of fatherhood all around us in the natural world. Yes, from the perspective of human reason, the wonders of the world do not ‘prove’ the full fatherhood of God. Nevertheless, these wonders are in reality the effects, indeed the precious gifts of One who is a father. As such they give occasion for endless reflection on the astounding paternity of the One who supernaturally reveals himself as Father.

Autumn color. A wooded landscape. Sun and moon. Flowers. A fireside. Edible plants. Eyes that sparkle. Lips that smile, and speak… countless signs of what a father does. All day, every day. ~ ~ ~

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Image: by Frederick Morgan, A Father’s Return
Quotation: from St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chap. 16, lecture 6, #2142

John Cuddeback

Husband, father, and professor of Philosophy. LifeCraft springs from one conviction: there is an ancient wisdom about how to live the good life in our homes, with our families; and it is worth our time to hearken to it. Let’s rediscover it together. Learn more.