Why ask anything of God?
Correspondence with a friend about the efficacy of prayer
Friend:
On the subject of petitionary prayer: If God is all-loving and active in the world to bring about good, then what possible help could my limited information and requests be to him? If in some way I could change his mind from what He was going to do anyway, I would be changing the mind of the all-knowing and perfectly loving Being to something I want, which would be worse than what He was already planning to do. No?
Me:
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this email do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit.
"What possible help could my limited information […] be to Him?"
Zero (cf. Matthew 6:8).
"What possible help could my […] requests be to Him?"
Epistemically speaking, which is probably what you meant, zero. But in terms of efficacy, according to the Scriptures, a lot, at least when God so moves. “An upright man’s petition, when it is put into effect, is very powerful” (James 5:16b, DBH; cf. 1 John 5:14-15, Mark 11:20-25). God has tied at least some—and I’d say all—of His special action on earth to the prayers of the saints.
If in some way I could change his mind from what He was going to do anyway, I would be changing the mind of the all-knowing and perfectly loving Being to something I want, which would be worse than what He was already planning to do. No?
Yes. This is one of the reasons we often don’t receive what we request: It isn’t what He wants. This goes under-acknowledged (though surely not completely ignored) in open theologies like Boyd’s.
Friend:
I must grant that the scriptures do say “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” so there is that. And it does seem that God has tied, for His own reasons, His special action to prayer, possibly for reasons of partnership.
So maybe my prayer is effective when it aligns with his will simply because that is how God wishes it to be so that we can have relationship and I have some authority and agency. Boyd contends that God has distributed real authority to other beings—us included—and thus we can use that authority or not and it makes a difference.
I guess I get stuck pondering: If something is good and His will but I don’t pray for it, will He not do it? And if something is not His will but I do pray for it, will He do it on behalf of my prayer?
Maybe a matrix like this:
God’s will, no prayer = Maybe
God’s will, yes prayer = Yes, or perhaps likely
Not God’s will, no prayer = No, or perhaps possibly (lots of things that are not His will happen, if He’s good)
Not God’s will, yes prayer = No, or less likely
I mean, even telling us to pray, “Your Kingdom come, and Your will be done” is odd on the surface. “All-powerful Being, do what You want…”
This is why open theism and a God who has distributed authority and in some ways “can’t” just do He he wants without messing up the master plan makes way more sense. Boyd would say there are ten thousand other forces and factors at work which could thwart the “incident-specific” will of God and that my prayer helps make that less likely.
If I was a “God is sovereign” person I would certainly never pray except out of sheer duty to command.
I just wish that my experience, after nearly 26 years of praying for things, was not so abysmal in its recognizable impact. My kids perceive this fact and point it out regularly…
Me:
Ah, so we are talking about efficacy. I like your matrix and believe it answers well the questions in your third paragraph (“I guess I get stuck pondering…”). Here’s the matrix again with slightly more detail:
God wills it, I don’t pray → maybe, but probably limited to very special things (e.g., Jesus’ resurrection) or things when He is actually on earth in the flesh
God wills it, I do pray → more likely than above, but constrained by the will and decisions of myriad other agents and thus potentially not in this lifetime or, if time-bound, not at all; also, if possible, more likely to happen via apparently natural means rather than undeniably supernatural means
God doesn’t will it, I don’t pray → up to the will and actions of myriad other agents as well as the vicissitudes of the rest of the natural order
God doesn’t will it, I do pray → no—at least, not by God, although the coincidental will and actions of myriad other agents and the vicissitudes of the rest of the natural order may make it happen anyway
But onto the rub: “I just wish that my experience, after nearly 26 years of praying for things, was not so abysmal in its recognizable impact. My kids perceive this fact and point it out regularly…" I hear you. I feel it, too. So does Greg Boyd.
I wonder how many of your kids’ prayers or would-be prayers are or would be answered more slowly than they’re able to perceive or are or would be answered by natural means. I also wonder how ridiculous some of their prayer requests are. You’ll recall that in 5th and 6th grade, I prayed that God would give me the same power as Cyclops.
But I know [your child] has prayed for the removal of nightmares—hardly an outlandish request—and has been disappointed at the results. But let’s avoid simplistic understanding of God’s will here. It’s easy to speculatively appeal to God’s wisdom. Nightmares (1) are often symptoms of other problems that need to be addressed and (2) if they’re not symptoms and are just random, will pass with time and age. Given that we are not sorcerers and He would not, for at least two good reasons I can think of, have us be sorcerers, it’s better to get used our non-magical existence sooner rather than later so as to be properly equipped for every good work we are to do. If we run around thinking magical prayers will solve everything, we’ll end up behaving like the worst of the folks in Redding.
What’s more, let’s note the highly biblical precedent that God may refuse to grant a prayer request even when the source of the trouble is clearly evil and the resulting, request-denied status is highly unpleasant for us. The thorn in Paul’s flesh was “a messenger of Satan to torment” him, yet God refused to remove it—pause for second: God explicitly refused to counteract a messenger of Satan—to keep Paul from exalting himself (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). (Tangentially, this reminds me of the Spirit purposely driving Jesus out into the wilderness, where He was tempted by Satan [Mark 1:12], as well as the part of the Lord’s prayer where Jesus instructs to ask that God “not bring us into trial” [Matthew 6:13].) The Crucifixion of Jesus itself was an agonizing, unjust act by a wayward Judea and Rome from which God refused to rescue Jesus. And those are just the two most salient New Testament examples…
God’s will in a specific situation is sometimes painful and often inscrutable. He loves us, yes, deeply, but the Bible, not to mention The Chronicles of Narnia, tells us He often solves problems differently from how we would. That means we should never be surprised by an ungranted prayer request. I’m hopeful that someday we’ll all be singing along with Garth Brooks.
P.S. Your comment about the “God is sovereign” people belies their understanding of the compatibilism of our free will and His. They would still very much agree that the prayer of an upright man makes tremendous power available. So if I were one of them, I would be just as excited, maybe even more excited, to pray. But of course, I hold their understanding of the compatibilism of our free will and His to be nonsensical, so I’m not one of them.
P.P.S. Here’s my list of reasons to pray even if God isn't real. When done rightly, it:
amplifies, directs, and actionizes my empathy,
pledges my allegiance to in the very least, the idea of Him and the virtues it represents to me
develops self-control
helps me sort out my thoughts
gets me outside, and
is generally healthy, like meditation, for the mind.
These days I don't often have to fall back completely on these reasons, but sometimes I do.