The Silence of God: Meditations on Prayer

by James P. Carse

Essays discuss the presence of God, the meaning of prayer, the relationship between God and man, and the nature of gifts

Genres: Religion, Spirituality

128 pages, Paperback

First published March 2, 1985

About the author

James P. Carse taught at New York University for thirty years as the Professor of the History and Literature of Religion, and Director of the Religious Studies Program. He retired from the University in 1996. He is a writer and an artist, and lives in New York City and Massachusetts.

James Carse was the Director of Religious Studies at New York University for thirty years. He was a member of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, and the recipient of numerous teaching awards. He is retired and living in New York City.

Reviews

[Percival Buncab · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wasn't my plan to buy "another" book on prayer. But when I saw this book on a popular thrift bookstore in our country (Philippines), I scanned it and I saw some great quotations. So I decided to buy it because it's also considerably cheap.

Generally, books on prayer do not intrigue me because I have a prejudice that they're all just saying the same stuff. But whenever I do buy and read a book on prayer, my prejudice is always proven wrong!

Silence of God is not your typical book on prayer. It talks about the philosophy of language, relating it to prayer (our conversation with God).

Though I have some reservations on the author's apparent low view of the Bible's inspiration and theology's significance, he has done a scholarly level of what he calls "meditations" on prayer.

The book is relatively short, but I had to re-read a lot of paragraphs, not because it's hard to understand, but because they're so rich in insights that they're worth re-reading.

I learned so much about prayer from this book. In fact, I highlighted almost half of it. But if there's one lesson that really impacted me beyond others, it is: Praying is not making ourselves presentable to God, but presenting ourselves to God as we are.

[Carolina Benevinuto · Rating 5 out of 5]

This right here is sacred inspiration.
I was continuouly captivated by his words.
What an honor it is to read James P. Carse.

[Jakru2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A radical theopoetics that traces the roots of prayer to a desperate human heart and identifies prayer's most pressing concern not as "to whom am I speaking?" or "what I can say about him?" but as "everything in my life is given and I need help." One particularly salient interpretive flourish that frames this theopoetics is the suggestion that of the father’s desperate cry to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!”, the operative word is “help” rather than “unbelief.”

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meditations on prayer.