I have a lot of questions around this and I'm not sure if this better belongs in a different forum, but I didn't see one that was a good fit.
The questions I have are around the interplay between probabilistic events, natural law, human agency, and miraculous supernatural intervention as it relates to "answered prayer" and God's sovereignty.
In thinking about answered prayer, one must start with God's sovereignty. What is the extent of his power/force over events in the universe (I am already assuming God created everything)? Does he directly cause no outcomes, all outcomes, or somewhere in between? How does natural law and human agency fit within the notion of meticulous sovereignty? What is the difference between sovereignty and causation? Or sovereignty and providence? Causation and delegation?
Assuming God is sovereign over all things, does he also then cause all things? Is God like an infinite switchboard operator, constantly at work every microsecond causing all events to occur down to the smallest particle? Surely as an infinite being he could literally and actively be causing all things without injury or exhaustion, but does he?
Is he every moment pulling down all mass to the center of cosmic objects based on their own masses and distance? Is he at the same time actively causing cell division and all other phases of the cell cycle? Is he adding length and breadth to plantlife, producing flowers and fruit? Is he weaving baby DNA together in the womb? Is he actually throwing lightning across the sky and literally swiping the ocean into waves against the beach? Is he creating black holes, destroying stars or slinging asteroids around the universe? Is he the master strategist firing neurons around the brains of two opponents playing chess, directing the moves each decides to play? Is he contracting the muscles in the lion's jaw to crush down on its prey?
Or has he established natural law that governs the universe including physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, mathematics, etc. that he has set in motion and given some kind of delegated power and force and will to the universe?
Has he not given at least instincts if not some kind of power, agency and decision making to the animal kingdom to act according to their natures and in response to the natural law God has established?
Has he not granted human beings some kind of agency, will, and power to cause events to occur? Is this not what it means to rule over all creation and subdue it? Surely God does not give that mandate then in subterfuge circumvent the imputed authority and cause all of humanity's actions like pulling on a puppet's strings? In the moral sphere, at least, there must be agency and will for there to be accountability and culpability. Automatons can not be guilty of any crime.
Surely there are at least some events that God does not himself cause, such as evil actions, thoughts, or intents? What then is the cause of those events, and by what power are they caused? What agency controls them? Surely God is incapable of directly acting or otherwise employing indirect means that are contrary to his own nature?
It seems safe to assume that God does not himself literally, actively, directly cause all events to occur. There are natural forces that cause some natural events based on natural laws that he has established. There are instincts and agency that God has granted to all creatures, especially mankind. He has granted both the will and the power/ability to act on behalf of that will, within the limits of the natural law he has established. There are amoral, natural events that occur based on natural law and the agency granted to animals (tangent: can any animal actions be moral or immoral?). There are immoral events that occur because of the agency granted to men. There are also moral events that occur because of the agency granted to men.
So then what does it mean that God is meticulously sovereign if he is not actively causing all outcomes? Is he sovereign in the sense that he initially established natural law and natural forces and granted agency? But not in the sense of being the primary cause of every outcome? Or in the sense that he could destroy it all if and when he chooses? Is it to confuse determinism and providence to assume that God is the primary causal agent behind every outcome? Is he actually meticulously sovereign, then? Can/does he override natural events and forces to create alternative outcomes as a result of prayer? Can he redirect or influence human agency to realize a different outcome than what naturally would have occurred? By what means does he do that? Does such “meddling” negate human agency altogether? A lot more to think about here.
If he is never active in the universe after creation, and all outcomes are the result of natural law, force and agency, lines seem to blur with deism. If he is infinitely active causing all events and outcomes in the universe to the nth degree, and there is hardly a separation between God, his actions and the universe, lines seem to blur with pantheism.
To bring this back to the issue of answered prayer, let’s focus on the events and outcomes themselves and the activity of God in realizing the outcome.
Given natural law and agency, there are such things as probabilistic events. There are outcomes that are more or less likely to occur based on variables present in nature, including the variety of agencies involved, human or otherwise.
The simple example is drawing a single card from a randomly-shuffled standard deck. There is a 100% probability of drawing “any card”, a 25% probability of drawing a “Spade”, and only a 7% probability of drawing “a King”.
If a man prays to God that he would draw “any card”, which he would do 100% of the time, it is accurate to say that outcome is answered prayer? Did God actually do anything to realize that outcome when he drew the card? Did he act beyond the distant past creation of a universe that resulted in men with brains, muscles, and hands to produce paper, ink and imagine a game of four suits of 13 cards each? If an outcome is 100% probable, can it be called an answer to prayer?
What if he prayed that he would draw “a Spade”, and did? There was a 25% chance that he would draw it without any divine intervention. How should the man think about that outcome? Should he believe that God acted on his behalf to ensure the outcome? Was this answered prayer? Did God do anything special to realize the outcome? It would be impossible for him to know if God truly acted since there was a non-zero probability of the outcome occurring naturally. Should he ascribe the outcome to God and praise him for it? Is that faith? How does God think about people ascribing outcomes to him that he did not cause (if he did not cause it)? Surely when God works and acts, he wants those works to be unequivocally known as his own.
Must there be a direct, primary cause of an outcome for it to be considered answered prayer? Should we even pray for outcomes that have some probability of occurring? The only way to truly know that God acted was if an outcome occurred that had a zero probability: the man prays that when he flipped the next card, the card turned into a $100 bill instead, and indeed it did. Assuming normal conditions and a standard deck with no prior meddling, it would require a supernatural cause for that outcome to occur. In other words, a miracle. That would be a direct and divine intervention by God; truly answered prayer.
I think most prayers are not for zero probability outcomes (miracles). At least for me, I think most of my prayers are for outcomes that have some probability of occurring naturally. Probably because, by definition, miracles are supernatural and go beyond our common thinking and experience and we don’t have the imagination or belief that those outcomes can or should occur. We never actually see true miracles (that is, zero probability outcomes) - we only see probabilistic outcomes that occur through natural and normal means. When we pray, we are wanting to “tip the balance” of those probabilities in our favor. But is that how we should pray? And is that how we should think about answered prayer? Should these outcomes bolster our faith? What I believe may not be true, even if it’s a “positive” or “good” belief.
For probabilistic events, should we believe that God chose to intervene (or not) to ensure a desired outcome? Or should we simply be grateful if the outcome “went our way” without directly ascribing that to affirmative causality by God?
It seems that posture is not much different from wishful thinking or merely hoping that things go our way, if we don’t believe God will or does directly intervene. But there is no way to know that he did act, that he did “answer my prayer” for outcomes that were already probable. How can prayer, in this way, be for the purpose of increasing my faith; that is, to see God’s working in my life? Should my faith increase more when low probability events occur, but less when high probability events do?
What about prayers for rain (or no rain) or colds to go away or for a well-earned promotion or for the traffic light to stay green?
Problems multiply when you start looking at prayers with more serious consequences. I may pray for a dangerous hurricane to miss my town (a probabilistic event in the “cone of probability”). If it misses me, was it answered prayer? When it devastates another area instead, in particular a more poor, unprepared, uneducated, perhaps even unbelieving people, now we must say that God, in answering my prayer, chose to intervene and devastate and destroy and kill thousands of men, women, children, and animals, entire communities in order to “answer my prayer”. There are both physical and eternal consequences to this action. Had it hit my wealthy town and nation, most homes would have been fine, hardly anyone would die, and government services and first responders would get things back up and running in no time. I might lose power for a couple days. Instead, hundreds or thousands of people were killed and sent into eternity. I’m sure I didn’t pray exactly for that outcome, but what if that was the only alternative to answer my prayer? What should I think of a God who would do that to answer my prayer for convenience? And likely there were many people there praying for it not to hit them. Why did God choose to answer my prayers but not theirs?
And actually, that outcome had a probability of occurring without divine intervention. And with the infinitely complex variables of weather conditions and geography, perhaps that outcome was even more probable than it affecting me to begin with. So was it even answered prayer at all that the hurricane missed me?
If God is the primary cause of all events, does he change what he was planning to do before a prayer was uttered? If he was always going to do what was prayed for, how efficacious was the prayer anyway (it changed nothing and proved nothing)? If he did change his mind, does that raise doubts about the goodness or perfection of the original plan (man’s idea was better than God’s)? Or does God choose to cause less good outcomes for some other reason because someone prayed for it? Maybe the lesser good now will lead to a greater good later, but why would he have needed to change his mind because of prayer to lead to that greater good- why not choose it to begin with?
Does answered prayer just mean “things went my way” but not that God necessarily intervened?
Why is it that when probabilistic events “go our way”, we attribute that to God and answered prayer, but when outcomes don’t go our way, we usually don’t attribute God’s direct causation to the outcome- rather, we say he “didn’t answer our prayer” in a way that seems like a passive response or rather a non-response: a non-action; he “didn’t intervene”. In this scenario, is he merely “allowing” an outcome but not causing it? But that brings us back to his sovereignty and what you believe that means. You can’t believe that he causes all outcomes except the ones that you didn’t want. Even more troubling is when you start thinking about outcomes like suffering and evil. Does he or does he not cause those outcomes?
Wow, so that was a lot I guess. How should I think about these topics?
The questions I have are around the interplay between probabilistic events, natural law, human agency, and miraculous supernatural intervention as it relates to "answered prayer" and God's sovereignty.
In thinking about answered prayer, one must start with God's sovereignty. What is the extent of his power/force over events in the universe (I am already assuming God created everything)? Does he directly cause no outcomes, all outcomes, or somewhere in between? How does natural law and human agency fit within the notion of meticulous sovereignty? What is the difference between sovereignty and causation? Or sovereignty and providence? Causation and delegation?
Assuming God is sovereign over all things, does he also then cause all things? Is God like an infinite switchboard operator, constantly at work every microsecond causing all events to occur down to the smallest particle? Surely as an infinite being he could literally and actively be causing all things without injury or exhaustion, but does he?
Is he every moment pulling down all mass to the center of cosmic objects based on their own masses and distance? Is he at the same time actively causing cell division and all other phases of the cell cycle? Is he adding length and breadth to plantlife, producing flowers and fruit? Is he weaving baby DNA together in the womb? Is he actually throwing lightning across the sky and literally swiping the ocean into waves against the beach? Is he creating black holes, destroying stars or slinging asteroids around the universe? Is he the master strategist firing neurons around the brains of two opponents playing chess, directing the moves each decides to play? Is he contracting the muscles in the lion's jaw to crush down on its prey?
Or has he established natural law that governs the universe including physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, mathematics, etc. that he has set in motion and given some kind of delegated power and force and will to the universe?
Has he not given at least instincts if not some kind of power, agency and decision making to the animal kingdom to act according to their natures and in response to the natural law God has established?
Has he not granted human beings some kind of agency, will, and power to cause events to occur? Is this not what it means to rule over all creation and subdue it? Surely God does not give that mandate then in subterfuge circumvent the imputed authority and cause all of humanity's actions like pulling on a puppet's strings? In the moral sphere, at least, there must be agency and will for there to be accountability and culpability. Automatons can not be guilty of any crime.
Surely there are at least some events that God does not himself cause, such as evil actions, thoughts, or intents? What then is the cause of those events, and by what power are they caused? What agency controls them? Surely God is incapable of directly acting or otherwise employing indirect means that are contrary to his own nature?
It seems safe to assume that God does not himself literally, actively, directly cause all events to occur. There are natural forces that cause some natural events based on natural laws that he has established. There are instincts and agency that God has granted to all creatures, especially mankind. He has granted both the will and the power/ability to act on behalf of that will, within the limits of the natural law he has established. There are amoral, natural events that occur based on natural law and the agency granted to animals (tangent: can any animal actions be moral or immoral?). There are immoral events that occur because of the agency granted to men. There are also moral events that occur because of the agency granted to men.
So then what does it mean that God is meticulously sovereign if he is not actively causing all outcomes? Is he sovereign in the sense that he initially established natural law and natural forces and granted agency? But not in the sense of being the primary cause of every outcome? Or in the sense that he could destroy it all if and when he chooses? Is it to confuse determinism and providence to assume that God is the primary causal agent behind every outcome? Is he actually meticulously sovereign, then? Can/does he override natural events and forces to create alternative outcomes as a result of prayer? Can he redirect or influence human agency to realize a different outcome than what naturally would have occurred? By what means does he do that? Does such “meddling” negate human agency altogether? A lot more to think about here.
If he is never active in the universe after creation, and all outcomes are the result of natural law, force and agency, lines seem to blur with deism. If he is infinitely active causing all events and outcomes in the universe to the nth degree, and there is hardly a separation between God, his actions and the universe, lines seem to blur with pantheism.
To bring this back to the issue of answered prayer, let’s focus on the events and outcomes themselves and the activity of God in realizing the outcome.
Given natural law and agency, there are such things as probabilistic events. There are outcomes that are more or less likely to occur based on variables present in nature, including the variety of agencies involved, human or otherwise.
The simple example is drawing a single card from a randomly-shuffled standard deck. There is a 100% probability of drawing “any card”, a 25% probability of drawing a “Spade”, and only a 7% probability of drawing “a King”.
If a man prays to God that he would draw “any card”, which he would do 100% of the time, it is accurate to say that outcome is answered prayer? Did God actually do anything to realize that outcome when he drew the card? Did he act beyond the distant past creation of a universe that resulted in men with brains, muscles, and hands to produce paper, ink and imagine a game of four suits of 13 cards each? If an outcome is 100% probable, can it be called an answer to prayer?
What if he prayed that he would draw “a Spade”, and did? There was a 25% chance that he would draw it without any divine intervention. How should the man think about that outcome? Should he believe that God acted on his behalf to ensure the outcome? Was this answered prayer? Did God do anything special to realize the outcome? It would be impossible for him to know if God truly acted since there was a non-zero probability of the outcome occurring naturally. Should he ascribe the outcome to God and praise him for it? Is that faith? How does God think about people ascribing outcomes to him that he did not cause (if he did not cause it)? Surely when God works and acts, he wants those works to be unequivocally known as his own.
Must there be a direct, primary cause of an outcome for it to be considered answered prayer? Should we even pray for outcomes that have some probability of occurring? The only way to truly know that God acted was if an outcome occurred that had a zero probability: the man prays that when he flipped the next card, the card turned into a $100 bill instead, and indeed it did. Assuming normal conditions and a standard deck with no prior meddling, it would require a supernatural cause for that outcome to occur. In other words, a miracle. That would be a direct and divine intervention by God; truly answered prayer.
I think most prayers are not for zero probability outcomes (miracles). At least for me, I think most of my prayers are for outcomes that have some probability of occurring naturally. Probably because, by definition, miracles are supernatural and go beyond our common thinking and experience and we don’t have the imagination or belief that those outcomes can or should occur. We never actually see true miracles (that is, zero probability outcomes) - we only see probabilistic outcomes that occur through natural and normal means. When we pray, we are wanting to “tip the balance” of those probabilities in our favor. But is that how we should pray? And is that how we should think about answered prayer? Should these outcomes bolster our faith? What I believe may not be true, even if it’s a “positive” or “good” belief.
For probabilistic events, should we believe that God chose to intervene (or not) to ensure a desired outcome? Or should we simply be grateful if the outcome “went our way” without directly ascribing that to affirmative causality by God?
It seems that posture is not much different from wishful thinking or merely hoping that things go our way, if we don’t believe God will or does directly intervene. But there is no way to know that he did act, that he did “answer my prayer” for outcomes that were already probable. How can prayer, in this way, be for the purpose of increasing my faith; that is, to see God’s working in my life? Should my faith increase more when low probability events occur, but less when high probability events do?
What about prayers for rain (or no rain) or colds to go away or for a well-earned promotion or for the traffic light to stay green?
Problems multiply when you start looking at prayers with more serious consequences. I may pray for a dangerous hurricane to miss my town (a probabilistic event in the “cone of probability”). If it misses me, was it answered prayer? When it devastates another area instead, in particular a more poor, unprepared, uneducated, perhaps even unbelieving people, now we must say that God, in answering my prayer, chose to intervene and devastate and destroy and kill thousands of men, women, children, and animals, entire communities in order to “answer my prayer”. There are both physical and eternal consequences to this action. Had it hit my wealthy town and nation, most homes would have been fine, hardly anyone would die, and government services and first responders would get things back up and running in no time. I might lose power for a couple days. Instead, hundreds or thousands of people were killed and sent into eternity. I’m sure I didn’t pray exactly for that outcome, but what if that was the only alternative to answer my prayer? What should I think of a God who would do that to answer my prayer for convenience? And likely there were many people there praying for it not to hit them. Why did God choose to answer my prayers but not theirs?
And actually, that outcome had a probability of occurring without divine intervention. And with the infinitely complex variables of weather conditions and geography, perhaps that outcome was even more probable than it affecting me to begin with. So was it even answered prayer at all that the hurricane missed me?
If God is the primary cause of all events, does he change what he was planning to do before a prayer was uttered? If he was always going to do what was prayed for, how efficacious was the prayer anyway (it changed nothing and proved nothing)? If he did change his mind, does that raise doubts about the goodness or perfection of the original plan (man’s idea was better than God’s)? Or does God choose to cause less good outcomes for some other reason because someone prayed for it? Maybe the lesser good now will lead to a greater good later, but why would he have needed to change his mind because of prayer to lead to that greater good- why not choose it to begin with?
Does answered prayer just mean “things went my way” but not that God necessarily intervened?
Why is it that when probabilistic events “go our way”, we attribute that to God and answered prayer, but when outcomes don’t go our way, we usually don’t attribute God’s direct causation to the outcome- rather, we say he “didn’t answer our prayer” in a way that seems like a passive response or rather a non-response: a non-action; he “didn’t intervene”. In this scenario, is he merely “allowing” an outcome but not causing it? But that brings us back to his sovereignty and what you believe that means. You can’t believe that he causes all outcomes except the ones that you didn’t want. Even more troubling is when you start thinking about outcomes like suffering and evil. Does he or does he not cause those outcomes?
Wow, so that was a lot I guess. How should I think about these topics?
