“Then certain Epicureans and Stoic philosophers encountered [Paul]. And some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,’ because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection” (Acts 17:18)
Every rabbi taught his disciples how to pray and gave them a prayer to lift up to God. It then was natural for the apostles to ask the same from our Lord Jesus. And we, following them, recite the Lord’s Prayer several times each day. And in our prayer addressed to the heavenly Father we are praying with Jesus Christ for the will of the Father to be accomplished throughout the universe, asking that the order as it exists in heaven be achieved on earth. Evidently this is not yet attained, and another conclusion to be drawn is that it has to do with our intentions. We must want it to happen. Before that some premises are in order: One, that we have a responsibility for changing what needs changing, and two, that our prayers can bring about the transformation from the world as is, and the way God wants it to be. Otherwise the phrase: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” would be for naught, or at best wishful thinking.
Had the Epicureans and Stoics listened to the “babbler,” as they ungraciously referred to St. Paul, they might have heard that God is a Listener. He not only hears our prayers, but He is a loving Father and responds to them. He takes them seriously, and if they are in accord with His will for the cosmos or universe, they have merit. We whose prayers have been answered know and glorify Him for it. But it seems that St. Paul did not have much success with the philosophers. They gave him an audience, but they were not persuaded. They were filled with their own ideas, leaving little room for a new and bold theology of Christ, His gospel, sacrifice and resurrection.
Epicurus (342-270 B.C.) taught that the gods are beings who constantly enjoy themselves, and thus are not harmful to people. They do neither good nor evil. If they heard the prayers of all people, the human race would end, since people don’t know what they want nor do they know what’s truly in their best interests. Suffering comes and must be endured, as Stoics believed. Pain lasts temporarily. Abstract your mind from suffering, and you won’t notice it as much. Conversely, do not expect or get used to happy times. This is something like the teachings of Christian Science in our times, where pain is an illusion.
The men of Athens gave St. Paul an audience, and his sermon to them was quite profound; however, when he came to the climax and presented the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrection from death, they mocked him for such an irrational idea. Nevertheless, there were a few who said that they would think it over. “We will hear you again on this matter” [Acts 17:34].
Philosophers in our time take for granted that the entire universe is cosmos, an entity that has order to it; but they are not prepared to affirm a deity responsible for it all. They feel that science can do without that premise—not that they are necessarily atheists who deny God’s existence, but rather agnostics, those who have no opinion on the matter. Many do believe. Paraphrasing the verse “The heavens are telling the glory of God and the firmament declares His handiwork,” (Psalm 19:1), the renowned atomic physicist Niels Bohr said of the atomic structure of all matter: “The atoms are telling the glory of God, and the protons and electrons are showing His handiwork.”
St. Paul’s experience on Mars Hill in Athens taught the apostle a lesson: “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolish of the message preached to save those who believe. For the Jews demand a sign, and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (I Corinthians 1:20-25).