Why doesn't God answer prayers?

Prayer is mind-blowing. On top of the whole salvation thing, we have been invited to bring praise and thanksgiving before God in a way that is both freeing for us, and acceptable to Him in this life! More than that, we have been told to petition our desires to God, and assured that He will bring them to fruition. We have been released in spiritual gifts, commanded to heal, to prophecy, to perform miracles. How amazing is that!! I can't even understand free will vs predestination, and now God tells me I can change things supernaturally, through the Holy Spirit?! May we not loose sight of what a privilege prayer is.

However, regardless of our religious disposition, most of us would agree that God doesn't answer a lot of prayers. For an atheist, or even a deist, the explanation is simple; God never answers prayers because He either doesn't exist or does not intervene in our universe. Even among Christians, some adhere to the position of Cessationism which argues that spiritual gifts ceased with the early church apostles, and with the completion of the New Testament canon.

The trouble is that none of these positions really explain why, as it will appear to most Christians, "prayer sometimes works". Of course the fact that some petitions come to pass and others don't doesn't mean that there is a God who is answering prayers. One would expect the same result praying to a teapot. But what if you know beyond reasonable doubt that God has, on occasion answered your prayers, but many other times He simply has not?

The mainstream view talked about most in Christian circles seems to be the idea of "God always answers prayers. Sometimes 'Yes', sometimes 'No', and sometimes 'Wait' ". But the implication here is not usually that God tells you the answer, simply that you deduce the answer from what happens. At this point alarm bells should be ringing. After all, what other options could there be? And how do you know the difference between God saying 'Yes' and saying 'Wait'? This system practically tells us nothing about prayer, other than apparently suggesting that God doesn't talk back.

Before I go on, it's worth pointing out that I'm as much ranting at myself as anyone else. Sorry if it comes across as accusatory! Also this is a seperate question to the whole "Why does a loving powerful God allow evil to happen." Check out "The problem of evil" or "Free will vs Predestination" for that!

Anyway, a lot of prayers these days are along the lines of "please bless this person", "may they feel refreshed in the morning", "draw them closer to You", "show me your will", and "please give me strength/wisdom/authority/health/wealth/a six pack". They seem cheap, placebo-loaded and very petitionary. They tend to either be egocentric, simply up-building, or virtually untestable. Which is convenient, as it doesn't require God to do anything much at all.

This is a far cry from the radical, concise, and authoritative prayer lives described throughout Scripture. The men and women of God who would spend most of their prayer time proclaiming Gods sovereignty, or wrestling with His will, and then would heal and prophecy and perform miracles. It was certainly God working through them in these things, but they released the spirit with their actions. There was groaning, crying, shouting, passion and sheer relentlessness in their "quiet times"!

It would perhaps be wise of us to remember that the Lord's prayer began, not with a shopping list, but with adoration; "Our Father in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name". Jesus intended this prayer to be a generic framework from which we can learn how to pray, but this prayer is still more specific than most of our prayers today. After exaltation comes a radical sentence: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as in Heaven".  We have to bear in mind here that God's will for Jesus involved scourging, crucifixion and separation from Himself! Do we pray for God's will to be done, our too easily want Him to fit His will around our petty desires?

This is a prayer from someone desiring God's will above their own, and announcing their complete surrender to Him in all they do. God is proclaimed sovereign over all things, and is adored rather than flooded with all of the wants and needs of the one praying. It is prophetic and spoken in faith, rather than reading like the wish list of a spoilt child.

I am not saying that petition is not a vital part of prayer. There is simply more to being in communion with God than asking Him for things. In Psalm 27, David praises God, declaring "One thing do I desire, the thing I seek the most, is to dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life". Can we say that with David? If you looked at the transcripts of your prayers from the past month would you find the predominant theme to be seeking God's presence? Too often we'd find the predominant theme simply being that with which our flesh is most interested in at the time.

It is clear that we are supposed to pray a lot - "Pray without ceasing" - 1 Thessalonians 5:17,
and that some of this prayer should be petitionary - "Brothers, pray for us" - 1 Thessalonians 5:28, and that God answers believers prayers - "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it shall be yours" - Mark 11:24.

So what is going wrong? Why are our prayers not being answered all of the time?

Proverbs 15:29 says "The Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayers of the righteous" and James 5:16 says "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working". To be righteous means to be made right before God. To be seen as holy and blameless in His presence. This comes when we accept Jesus as our saviour, as He intercedes for us, before God.

It is also apparent that our motives must not be convoluted. "When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And you Father who sees in secret shall reward you." - Matthew 6:6. Praying with other people is great, but there are so many potential hidden agendas (social status, therapy, encouragement, manipulation) that are not necessarily bad, but that dilute the potency behind your prayers. Prayers in private serve no purpose other than communication with God.

Coming before God with requests should also be taken seriously, and carried out with reverence. "Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears ... and He was heard because of His reverence." - Hebrews 5:7

It seems clear from Scripture that those close to God will have their prayers answered. We cannot view prayer as a big lottery, where some people just seem to have the knack while others don't. Those who walk close to God have authority in prayer, and so our response to God not answering our prayers should not be "Why is God not doing what He said He would?", but rather "What is it that I am doing wrong that is getting between me and God?"

It is worth also mentioning that withdrawing any grudges we have is important to do before we pray: "Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone..." - Mark 11:25, and that some things require fasting in conjunction with prayer: "This kind does not come out expect by prayer and fasting" - Matthew 17:21, though this appears to apply in fairly specific circumstances.

Residual pride, or independence, can stand between us and God. Isaiah 44;3 says "I will pour my water upon him that is thirsty, and flood the dry ground." If we already consider ourselves satisfied without God then how can He be expected to answer us? One cannot pour water into a cup that is already full.

Perhaps we are simply not praying enough. Paul says in Phillipians 4:6: "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God." God encourages us to not just tell Him our requests, but to make them known to Him, to keep knocking. This is not because God is senile and needs reminding over and over. Neither, I believe, is it merely so that we can "show God" how important it is to us. Just as the act of expressing adoration completes, as well as communicates, love between two parties, as we dig deep in prayer the issue takes root more deeply in our being.

Wrong motives can also hinder our authority, as is made clear in James 4:3, "You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts", as can lack of love and generosity: "Who so stopped his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard"- Proverbs 21:13.

Of course sometimes the cliché answers are spot on. Sometimes it is simply not God's will. Often God's timing is not our own. In fact too often we fail to notice when God does answer our prayers! The take home message is that God has empowered every one of His disciples with spiritual authority when we pray. Sometimes we wont see answers to petitions, healings, conversions etc. But if we struggle to think of any times when God has unambiguously answered our prayers then something has gone wrong. And it's probably not God's fault.

Can God be omniscient or omnipotent?

The main purpose of this blog is to add to - as opposed to detract from - how we think of God. I say this explicitly because the majority of it attempts to explore the limitations of God. The reason for doing so is because if we place no limits on God and just say "God knows everything, can do everything and will always do the best thing" then our position is, quite frankly, laughable. I believe it is in the interests of every Christian to explore the nature of God in this way. He is, after all, big enough to handle it.

Consider the following logical argument:

(1) It is raining.
(2) There is water on the ground.

Now suppose I check the ground and realise that it is dry; no water. There are no logical flaws in the argument (okay, I admit there are plenty if you look hard enough, but I could have avoided this by using a strictly mathematical example) so what has gone wrong?

The answer, which I hope is clear, is that the initial assumption must be incorrect. "It is raining" implies "there is water on the ground". Therefore "there is no water on the ground" implies "it is not raining".

This is called the contrapositive in formal logic and it is simultaneously very simple and quite mind boggling. In general we say: If A implies B, then (not B) implies (not A). If we can start with a statement and logically deduce a statement we know to be false, we have successfully proven the original statement false.

What relevance does this have to God and His properties? It means that the properties must be wrongly attributed if we can begin with them as assumptions and deduce something that is plainly nonsensical. This is quite a fun way to falsify a statement; assume it is true and see if we can conjure up some ridiculous necessary consequence.

Let us first examine omnipotence; the apparent absolute power that God possesses. We all agree that, if God exists, then He must be pretty powerful. So we will aim to pin down just how much power God can have such that no contradictions can be construed.

Here is a problem with claiming that God is "all powerful":

(1) God is all powerful: He can do everything
(2) God can create a rock which He can not lift
(3) God can not lift the rock, so He can not do everything

If you view this as a silly hypothetical that proves nothing (which it really isn't) allow me to show you what else you have to believe, as a consequence of believing that God can do anything:

He can destroy Himself and is therefore not necessarily timeless.
He can create a being greater than Himself, and is therefore not the greatest conceivable being.
He can prove true statements to be false, and therefore can break logic.

All three of these conclusions are simultaneously ridiculous and a direct logical consequence of God being able to do absolutely anything. The last one, in particular, really is a killer. Even if we claim that God can not prove a true statement false (or a false statement true) but simply say that He can decide whether every statement is true or false we run into problems!

Consider the statement: "This statement can not be proven true or false"; if God is all powerful He can certainly either prove that the statement is true or that it is false. But either way this is a contradiction as it can not, by definition, be proven true or false. Take a few minutes to brood over this until you convince yourself that there is no loophole.

A being possessing total omnipotence runs into immediate and devastating contradictions. Such a being simply can not exist. A lot of people will at this point want it pointed that I have only shown that such a being can not exist logically. Maybe, they will think, God does transcend logic. You may be right, but at this point I can hardly hope to argue with you any further. Most atheists will, however, see this as a rather childish "triumph" and I struggle to disagree.

To ensure that we don't define God to be something that results in immediate contradictions, we should define God as "possessing all logically possible power". This feels like we are in some way limiting God by our flimsy rules, but in reality this definition encapsulates far more glory than the previous defintion, as it is actually logically coherent! A truly omnipotent being could not exist, so this revised definition is better; God possesses a property of power greater than that of an omniscient being.

Further we can argue that, although God theoretically could do pretty much anything, He will not do anything that is against His character. As He is unchanging and eternal, this really means that He imposes on Himself more constraints; more things He will not, and thus can not do. He can not create something which He does not want to create. This is the deeper magic that C.S. Lewis speaks of.



On to omniscience; "God possesses all knowledge". This is, if anything, a more ridiculous claim than the previous! Does, then, God know all logically fallacious statements? Does He know that 1+1=3, that "it is raining" implies "it is not raining", and that He possesses no knowledge? These are necessarily false statements. If God knew these statements He would be seriously mentally impaired!

Perhaps it would be more apt to say "God possesses all knowledge that it is logically possible for Him to know". After all, this school of thought seemed to work for omnipotence. Unfortunately we run into problems when we consider non-propositional knowledge; Does God know that He was born in Norwich? Of course not! If He did know this He would, again, be mentally deficient. But this knowledge is logically coherent; in fact I know that I was born in Norwich. Yes, God also knows that I was born in Norwich. But I, unlike He, can truthfully say "I was born in Norwich" and know it to be true.

Third time lucky. How about "God knows, and only knows, whether any given statement is true or false"?  Not quite. We have ventured too far; by this definition God would not know that He is God, or indeed anything else about His own character; the statement "I am God" has no inherent truth value as it is entirely subjective, but God certainly should be able to say it and know it to be true.

Further, if God is sovereign then He chose our reality over all others, knowing exactly how each possible version of reality would play out. In other words God not only knows that "Obama is president" is true (though perhaps not for long) but also should know whether the statement would be true or false in all possible universes and time-frames. We need to loosen our definition to allow for this knowledge, for without it God could not be sure of being all-good when making decisions.

A concise definition escapes me, but something along the lines of "God knows, and only knows, the truth value of all statements - with respect to every logically possible set of circumstances and subjects when non-propositional" should do for now. As before, we have now arrived at a logically coherent definition of Gods knowledge, without restricting how we think of Gods knowledge; this definition increases the glory we assign to God. He is greater than an omniscient being could possibly be, as He exists!

The topic of benevolence and the problem of evil is one for another time, so we shall wrap up. What have we achieved? With these more precise definitions of Gods properties, the God we describe might actually exist. This might not seem like much of an accomplishment to a resolute Christian, but if you ever want to convince anyone that God does exist, and that further He loves them and sent His son to die for them, it makes sense to have a definition of God that doesn't result in immediate absurdity.

Whether you agree with me or not I hope you've enjoyed the post and can, with me, enjoy marvelling at the mystery of a sovereign God, who has every particle in the Universe in His complete control and yet cares intimately about every one of us!