January 18, 2010 by catholictechnogeek
Disclaimer: This is not intended as a theological statement…but a chain of reasoning based on personal experience,logic, and emotional reasoning that may be mistaken for logic… If you are looking for a theological statement see your local theologian.
Definition: God an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnipotent (all-powerful, everywhere, and all-knowing) being that loves humans and wants us to be happy.
Question: So why doesn’t God answer prayers the way we want them to be answered?
Premise: God can’t answer all prayers the way we want them to turn out without radically changing the world.
Argument: Imagining 20 people applying for a job with a small mom and pop store. Each one prays that they be the one to get that particular job. Unless God somehow grows the business within a very short time so that it needs all the applicants immediately for the same job, there is no way those 20 people can all get the job. There would also be a chain of consequences that would affect others in negative ways.
Question: So is it useless for those 20 people to pray because there is a 95% chance they are not getting the job?
Answer: There is a five percent chance they will have the prayer answered.
Assumption: They need to understand they might not get the job, and God, for some reason decided that they shouldn’t get the job.
Question: Wouldn’t it be better for each person to pray that the best person gets hired for the job?
Answer: It certainly would put the person in the state of mind of allowing God’s will to be done.
Question: Your answer seems to show that we can somehow limit God’s power to do something. Are you saying God is not omnipotent?
Answer: There is a difference between having the power to do something, and deciding not to do something.
Question: Why would God, who is loving, not force his will into a situation?
Answer: Using the God definition, God is also all-knowing. Since we are an emotional being with pride and other emotions, forcing God’s will could have negative outcome. An all-knowing being should foresee this outcome and would not force God’s will out of love.
To be continued…