Is het gebed een dialoog?

This article explores the nature of prayer: is prayer dialogue? If so, how does this relate to the experience of the petitioner? In conversation with John Calvin, Sarah Coakley and Gerrit Immink, this essay argues that prayer is a dialogue in which the petitioner and God maintain their subjectivity, but in asymmetrical and reciprocal ways. It is argued that the affirmation of God’s subjectivity in prayer affects both the doctrine ofGod and theological anthropology in numerous ways. The most important of these is a diminished emphasis on causality in the approach to God and therefore a less deterministic history than is often assumed in the Reformed tradition. It also affords a serious reconsideration of the influence of the petitioner through prayer in Christ’s reign.