Essays

Prayer Questions
by Darcy West

reprinted by permission

Note: Questions related to specific books of the bible are directed to those who claim and/or believe that the bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible "word of God".

QUESTION 1: Prayer: Do Prayers Affect What God Will Do?

After observing Christians in a variety of contexts, I have concluded that the majority of Christians believe that God answers prayer. When I say that they believe God answers prayer, I mean that most Christians believe that God hears and often grants their requests. If one doubts that this is a commonly held belief, all one must do is to observe a Christian chatroom for a day and record how many times individuals come into the room with "praise reports" or how many times individuals ask the room to join them in prayer that a certain request of theirs will be granted.

So the question I have is this: since Christians really believe that God answers their prayers, isn't it true that they also believe that their prayers affect what God will do? And if Christians believe that their prayers have an effect on what God will do, then isn't it true that Christians also believe that God is a God who changes his mind? i.e. if God can be persuaded to do something he wasn't going to do originally, then isn't it true that there must be a degree of indecision on God's part?

If God changes his mind or experiences any degree of indecision whatsoever, how can he be omniscient? To be omniscient would mean that one knows everything, including everything that he is going to do. If God already knows everything that he is going to do, there can be no room for indecision and therefore the prayers of his followers can have no impact on what he is going to do. .

In spite of these contradictions and in spite of the fact that it is impossible for a being to be omniscient and to also experience indecision, many Christians do in fact believe that he is both of these things: omniscient and undecided. Isn't this a bit like believing that God can be both good and evil at the same time? Or that God is both alive and dead? And if Christians really believe that God is capable of changing his mind, how can they be sure that God won't change his mind about their salvation?

QUESTION 2: Persistence in Prayer?

Does it pay to persist in prayer? Many Christians seem to think so, and it's not hard to understand why. The author of Luke, in Luke 11:5-8, claims that Jesus said the following about prayer:

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him." And he answers from within, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. (NRSV)

This passage, which is frequently held up by Christians as an example of why it is important to be persistent in prayer, clearly demonstrates the Christian notion that persistence in prayer pays. But what is the implication of this belief? Setting aside the impossibility of a God who is both omniscient and affected by prayers, as outlined in Question 1, do Christians honestly believe that their god must be persuaded to do a good thing? If Christians are praying for say, the healing of a child suffering with cancer, do they honestly believe that God must be persuaded to heal the child and to deliver her from her suffering?

Not only do Christians believe that persistence in prayer is effective, but their practice of forming prayer chains shows that they also believe that there is a direct correlation between the number of people who pray for a given thing and the likelihood that their god will be persuaded to grant their request. If Christians honestly believe that their God is a God of love and compassion, then why do they believe he needs to be persuaded to do that which is good? Can anyone imagine any decent person needing to be "talked into" relieving the suffering of a child if that person had the power within him to do so? Common decency dictates that we not simply look away from the suffering of another human being when we have within us the ability to end that suffering, so if we expect common decency from our fellow man, how much more should we expect such decency from an almighty God?

QUESTION 3: Thy Will Be Done?

Christians capable of understanding the impossibility of an omniscient God whose actions are affected by prayer will sometimes attempt to extricate themselves from the prayer predicament by quoting C.S. Lewis and taking the stand that: "Prayer does not change God. It changes us."

I will not argue that prayer may change an individual. However, many Christians using this line of argument try to say that the correct interpretation of biblical teaching about prayer is that one should pray, not with the hope that God will answer one's requests, but that his will would be aligned with the will of God. Christians seeking to validate this theological stance will point to verses such as the following where Jesus prayed that God's will would be done:

Matthew 26:39: And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." (NRSV)

Matthew 6:9-12: Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.. Give us this day our daily bread..."

It is true that in these incidents, the bible claims that Jesus prayed that God's will would be done and not his own will. However, can believers really say that because Jesus allegedly prayed on at least two occasions in this manner that all of his other teachings on prayer, such as the ones contained in the following passages, are irrelevant or somehow inferior?

Mark 11:24-25: So I tell you; whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses." (NRSV)

John 15:7-8: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

Christians know that simple observation and experience make it abundantly clear that the instructions given in Mark 11:24-25 and John 15:7-8 simply don't work. So rather than admit the obvious, that Jesus lied or was mistaken or that those who wrote about him lied or were mistaken, why do some try to say that the verses do not mean what they obviously do mean?

If any other religion had a book whose God said something like: "Anytime you would like for it to rain, just say abracadabra, and it will rain," and if the followers of this religion were unable to make it rain by saying the words "abracadabra", isn't it true that Christians would be having a field day pointing out the obvious untruth of this religion? And yet, why do Christians refuse to be consistent in their own standards when it comes to evaluating their own religion?

Back to the stance taken by some Christians that the correct understanding of scriptural teachings regarding prayer is that one should pray only that his will be aligned with God's will, even if it was true that Jesus prayed twice for the will of God in his own life and not for his own will to be done, how does his doing so negate his other instructions about prayer? If a verse or passage in the bible is shown to not be true, is it really honest of Christians to say that that particular verse doesn't mean what it obviously does mean? If this is the method Christians wish to use, then shouldn't Christians use it consistently and stop quoting verses like John 3:16 since that verse alone contradicts other scriptural teachings about salvation? If Christians believe that honesty is really important, then why don't they start being honest with themselves and admit that they believe some verses in the bible are true and some are not?

Lastly, for Christians who believe that the correct understanding of scriptural teachings regarding prayer is to pray only that his will would be aligned with the will of God's, do these Christians realize that they are still making a request to God? They are requesting that God change their attitude, their thinking, and their very will. In so doing, they must believe that God is going to respond to that prayer. In this case, they must believe that their prayer will affect what God will do and they are faced with all of the contradictions mentioned in Questions 1 and 2. In other words, isn't it true that if it is God's will to change the heart of the person praying, then God will do it? But if it is not God's will to change that person's heart, then God will not do it? And so unless the Christian believes that God is going to fail to carry out his own will unless the Christian prays, a situation which would lead to all kinds of other contradictions and problems, then how can the believer in an omniscient God believe that his prayers will have any affect on what God will do?

There is one other possibility. It is possible that what the believer really means when he says, "Prayer changes me and not God" is that by engaging in the act of prayer that his will would be aligned with God's, the believer effectively changes his own mindset in the same way a person who wills himself to think positively changes his own mindset. Using this line of reasoning, wouldn't Christians have to begin to admit that yes, prayer changes them, but only in the same way that the meditation of the Buddhist, the chanting of the Hindu, the manipulation of the Ouija board and the transcendental exercises of the New Ager changes them? If prayer and meditation changes people of all religions, then isn't it possible that either it is the act itself, without the intervention of any kind of deity, that changes a person or that deity of some sort exists, but that this deity is not the biblegod and he/she/it/they respond to any "cry for help" from us humans?

I think that we can definitely say that prayer changes a person, but does it always change a person for the good? Wouldn't the type of change in a person, resulting from prayer, depend very much on just how that person views God? For example, if a person believed that God was a wrathful, vengeful, God, isn't it possible that prayer would cause him to become a wrathful and vengeful person, since he would convince himself that he had aligned his will with the will of God? And if a person believed that God was kind and loving, then wouldn't prayer perhaps help him to be kind and loving also? It seems to me that the act of prayer can in fact change a person but that the kinds of changes wrought within any praying individual would depend altogether on the kind of god he believes exists. This is why I believe it is so important to combat primitive superstitions about who God is or might be. If we believe that God is an angry, vengeful punishing God who is pleased by the smell of burning flesh (as we learn in the Old Testament) and who can only love and accept his own creation, imperfect as he made them, if his only son first dies a brutal and terrible death, then can the one praying honestly hope to be any less angry, any less vengeful and vindictive, any less punishing than the one to whom he is offering his prayers?

QUESTION 4: God Exists Outside of Time?

Some Christians try to defend the concept of an omniscient God who still responds to prayer by saying that God "exists outside of time" and therefore already knows what the believer is going to pray and how he is going to answer it. Unfortunately this answer is sufficient to quiet many skeptics, not because it solves the problem or removes the contradiction, but because it sounds sophisticated and technical and successfully clouds the issue.

If one looks carefully at the "exists out of time" defense, one realizes that the impossibility of an omniscient God responding to the prayers of men remains. Even if God knew before he created the world exactly what each of us was going to do in any given situation, he still would have been faced with a decision regarding how he was going to respond to each action. Saying that God "exists outside of time" simply backs the decision-process up...it does not remove the problem unless Christians using this defense wish to mean that God was "born" knowing everything that was going to happen and how he was going to respond. If this is the case, then how is God anything more than a robot on autopilot? If he can't think of anything new to do but must simply follow a programmed script, how could he possibly have a new idea or create anything on his own? Isn't he nothing but a slave to his own limitations, the biggest limitation being this script that he must follow?

The fact of the matter is that an omniscient God (even one that "exists outside of time) cannot be in any way affected by the prayers of humans. It is logically impossible. On the other hand, if theists could remove the qualities of omniscience and omnipotence from God, they could then believe not only that prayer is meaningful but they could logically believe that their prayers bring about divine intervention or power in some unknown, mysterious way.