by Steve Hays
in ePub, .mobi & .pdf formats
A stock objection to Calvinism is that it renders petitionary prayer pointless. My stock response is that in Calvinism, prayer and answered prayer are means by which the future is realized. To put it counterfactually, some events will happen in answer to prayer that wouldn't happen absent prayer. That's entirely consistent with predestination. However, I'd like to go beyond that to address the objection from a different angle.
i) The Bible contains a number of blanket prayer promises. There is, however, a class of unanswerable prayers, and that's contradictory prayers. That's true for Calvinism and freewill theism alike. So there's an implicit exception to the prayer promises in reference to contradictory prayers. That doesn't call into question God's sincerity since God can't perform contradictions, so it should be understood that contradictory prayers aren't included in the promises.
ii) Mind you, the Calvinist God might prearrange history to reduce the number of contradictory prayer promises. However, that has to be counterbalanced by other considerations. A world history with more unanswerable prayers might be better overall than a world history with fewer unanswerable prayers. Prioritizing circumstances to minimize contradictory prayers would marginalize other goods.
iii) That said, freewill theism adds another class of unanswerable prayers. According to freewill theism, God has made prayer promises that he cannot keep because God's ability to make good on his prayer promises is often conditional on the independent cooperation of human agents. This means that in many cases, God can't grant your petition even if it's a perfectly legitimate request. In Calvinism, God is able but unwilling to answer some prayers while in freewill theism, God is willing but unable to answer some prayers.
-----
Contents
Predestination and prayer .................................... 5
Predestination and prayer .................................... 7
How often can God answer prayer? ..................... 8
Election and prayer ............................................. 10
Prayerless Arminians ........................................... 12
Hoping for the lost .............................................. 15
Why pray? ........................................................... 18
Arminian conundra ............................................. 19
On a wing and a prayer ....................................... 21
Prayer and psychic suggestion ............................ 28
Prayer is not about numbers .............................. 31
In the nick of time ............................................... 34
"Psychic prayer" .................................................. 36
Is prayer redundant? ........................................... 44
The problems of unanswered prayer.................. 46
Prayer in the multiverse ...................................... 48
Gridlock ............................................................... 50
Prayer promises .................................................. 51
What's the problem of unanswered prayer? ...... 53
When tomorrow never comes ............................ 55
Does prayer stop bullets? ................................... 57
Let me introduce you to my invisible friend ....... 59
God's sleeper cells............................................... 60
Is prayer pointless? ............................................. 62
Michael Brown on healing .................................. 65
Horse-racing ........................................................ 67
Surely God is good to Israel ................................ 68
Why doesn't God do more? ................................ 71
Pointless Prayer .................................................. 72a
How often does God intervene? ......................... 74
When the cat's away, the mice will play ............. 76
Where is God? ..................................................... 79
How problematic is the problem of unanswered prayer? ............ 80
Godless prayer .................................................... 81
Prayer and prevention ........................................ 83
Prayer, prophecy, and time travel ...................... 84
Pray at your own risk .......................................... 87
The problem of answered prayer ....................... 89
Hyperbole and prayer ......................................... 91
They that wait upon the Lord ............................. 93