Does God change His mind when we pray?

I would say that God wills, above any desires involving the temporal and passing, the union of human persons made in His image, with Him the Eternal and Divine.

God understands well the desires of man in his immaturity, matters pertinent to his own needs, pleasures and satisfactions. God acts to advance man in his life of prayer, to the maturity of the life of prayer: prayer is union with God. This is God's will: our communion in Him, in God the Holy Trinity, and with all in Him; communion in His Life and Truth and Love.

He knows all. He knows we will seek and ask. He knows... the hardened hearts and the ones trying.
He answers prayers. Indeed. Most likely He knows we were going to ask. He did say prayer can move mountains.
He said it can avert natural disasters [insert apparitions]

Does He preordain our actions? No.
Does He insist on His will being done? It's the best way... but we have free will.
If we chose His will be done, HE will move those mountains.

I don't know if it's as simple as all that.

Our priest was in a rural parish at one time. A number of the parishioners were farmers presumably.

It had been very dry, and so there were prayers for rain.

But some farmers most definitely didn't want rain. They had crops which were soon to be harvested, and if it rained the crops would be ruined.

As the priest said "What's God supposed to do?"

I suppose we could ask for prayers that the rain only fell inside the fence lines of the farmers who wanted rain, and that the clouds did a neat geolocation circuit around the outside of those who didn't want rain. While we're at it, only on the footpaths and not on the road thanks so we don't have as many accidents.

But if we're supposed to depend on faith, that sort of manipulation would make for easy believing.

Which prayers should God listen to and answer - the farmers who wanted rain, or those who didn't?

Bob Crowley said:

I don't know if it's as simple as all that.

Our priest was in a rural parish at one time. A number of the parishioners were farmers presumably.

It had been very dry, and so there were prayers for rain.

But some farmers most definitely didn't want rain. They had crops which were soon to be harvested, and if it rained the crops would be ruined.

As the priest said "What's God supposed to do?"

I suppose we could ask for prayers that the rain only fell inside the fence lines of the farmers who wanted rain, and that the clouds did a neat geolocation circuit around the outside of those who didn't want rain. While we're at it, only on the footpaths and not on the road thanks so we don't have as many accidents.

But if we're supposed to depend on faith, that sort of manipulation would make for easy believing.

Which prayers should God listen to and answer - the farmers who wanted rain, or those who didn't?

Click to expand...

The farmers benefit all.
Rain is but a short day or so...
Question: if it ruins crops if it rains or helps? I'm confused.

Bob Crowley said:

I don't know if it's as simple as all that.

Our priest was in a rural parish at one time. A number of the parishioners were farmers presumably.

It had been very dry, and so there were prayers for rain.

But some farmers most definitely didn't want rain. They had crops which were soon to be harvested, and if it rained the crops would be ruined.

As the priest said "What's God supposed to do?"

I suppose we could ask for prayers that the rain only fell inside the fence lines of the farmers who wanted rain, and that the clouds did a neat geolocation circuit around the outside of those who didn't want rain. While we're at it, only on the footpaths and not on the road thanks so we don't have as many accidents.

But if we're supposed to depend on faith, that sort of manipulation would make for easy believing.

Which prayers should God listen to and answer - the farmers who wanted rain, or those who didn't?

Click to expand...

tHERE'S A FEW VERY VERY WET AREAS IN THIS WORLD.
iNDIA HAS ONE. i'M NOT ABOUT MOVING THERE... JUST SAYING.

i DO LIKE MY RAIN AT NIGHT AS i SLEEP.

Oh buggers, looking at keyboard and not minding the caps.Sorry.

Michie said:

God himself does not change, but God wills change in his creation — and he wills to bring it about through our prayers.

Q. Since God is in the eternal present, and is all-knowing, he knows the destination of everyone and he knows the result of every situation. How, then, do our petitionary prayers have any effect on what God already knows is in the future? — Anonymous Truth Seeker

A. I will take you through St. Thomas Aquinas’ answer to this puzzling question. Aquinas says that prayer is not about changing God’s mind, but about changing us to conform with God’s plan. We pray that we may obtain by intercession that which God has disposed from the beginning to be fulfilled by our prayers.

Since God is outside of time, he knows from all eternity that for which we will pray. From all eternity, too, he has decided which of our prayers he will answer as prayed and which he won’t. When he does what we ask, he does it because it is for our good. Sometimes he answers by not doing what we ask. This, too, is for our good. His answers to our prayers are part of his providential plan for our good from the beginning.

St. Gregory the Great says it like this: By asking, we deserve to receive what the Almighty God from all eternity has disposed to give.

Continued below.

Does God Change His Mind When We Pray?

God himself does not change, but God wills change in his creation — and he wills to bring it about through our prayers.

www.ncregister.com

Click to expand...

From a theological philosophical POV —i.e. logical, haha— God is not like us. We are constantly submitting God in our minds to our concepts, anthropomorphically making him answer to our habits, and this in many ways. It may seem silly, what I am about to point out, but regardless of whether one wants to say that God actually changes his mind as we pray, as we repent, etc etc, or not, there is good reason to understand that our human assessment of this question is not quite God's assessment. He is certainly not bipolar, not unfaithful, not psychotic, not inconsistent.

What God has done, (which I think we can understand as humans), is to cause that to which he reacts. This does not contradict the attribute of "God's 'Immutability'" (the 'changeless' nature of God), nor his foreknowledge, and certainly not his decree (his plan). When he was ready to destroy the Children of Israel, Moses talked him out of it, but it is pretty obvious that God had gone to some extent to have Moses there for that very purpose!

Another important attribute of God to consider, is God's Simplicity. Among other things, Simplicity says that ALL of God's attributes exist at once and are not any of them without all the others —more formally, that God is not made of parts. Thus, God's Immutability is not without mercy, not without immediate relevance, etc. The fact that what God does is expressed as it is in Scripture —now wrath, now mercy, now imploring, now declaring, etc— is done for our understanding, because we don't know how to deal with all of him at once.

Thus, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." (KJV); (Douay-Rheims) "For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much."

WarriorAngel said:

The farmers benefit all.
Rain is but a short day or so...
Question: if it ruins crops if it rains or helps? I'm confused.

Click to expand...

Lots of farms have both early summer and fall crops. You can have crops ready to harvest that can be ruined by too much rain (rotting) and especially if the rain contains hail. At the same time you've planted your next round of crops that need rain or they'll die before they start to thrive.

My priest growing up used to just pray for good weather for our crops. He gave up trying to pray for specific weather because in some farmer's mind whatever it might have been was not a good thing.