The Paradox of Prayer

I have thought much, and have concluded that the modern conception of free will given to us by god, and the modern conception of prayer are at odds with each other—where both cannot be true. I am writing this not as a normative truth, but rather, as the manifestation of a dialogue I’ve been having with myself. If any of you has a suggestion to the solution of this paradox please comment.

God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, so the question is, why do bad things happen? An atheist sees it like a parent would—if a child is suffering and his/her parent has the power to stop it, shouldn’t they, especially if they love the child? Even humans, with their mortal version of love, do everything in their power to stop the suffering of their children. God—and I cite natural disasters, horrid accidents, birth defects among more—obviously doesn’t. So again—why?

The most common explanation, to quote a Christian is this: “God has given us freedom of choice. Having this freedom means that we can rebel against God and make choices that are contrary to His desires. Since we can say that evil is anything contrary to God's perfect and holy will, then anyone who chooses anything contrary to God's perfection is committing evil. But this is the risk of being able to have freedom of choice. Evil and suffering are the result of making bad free choices.” Essentially, bad things happen because of free will.

Side Note: it is possible to cite the fall of Adam and Eve also as an explanation—that when they fell, sin entered the world and so too all the “bad happenings” of the world. Essentially, bad things happen because of Adam and Eve and the apple. But this requires a literal reading of bible (i.e. Adam and Eve are not just an example)—which requires the Earth to be less than ten thousand years old and therefore dinosaurs not existing and on and on…and since I assume most Christians don’t honestly take genesis to be literal for those obvious reasons—I will use free will as the true explanation.

So I continue—and ask, if free will is a Christian’s explanation to why bad things happen and why god does not interfere…then why do Christians pray?

This Thanksgiving many of you will hear one like this: “Thank you for this food and for the family arriving safely. We pray for the soldiers in Iraq and that Aunt Mary will recover from her illness.” It is quite typical—but let’s analyze such a prayer.

Firstly, I’ll have it noted that thanking someone for something implies responsibility. I would not thank Bob for John cooking me dinner. I thank John because he is the cause of the dinner. So when we thank god for this food, the implication is that he caused it to be. But notice that here god gets credit for this family having food, not that the food exists. We say, “thank you for this food,” not, “thank you for creating food,” or “food in general.” God is also thanked for the family arriving safely. So either he allowed their safe arrival or caused it to happen, either way, certainly by thanking god the implication is that he is responsible for their safe arrival. Later it is asked of god to be quite proactive. The family would like him to keep the soldiers safe and also to cure a family member of her illness. It seems so obvious that we hardly notice but in all like prayers we are assuming god is proactive: perfectly capable, and more, WILLING to intervene.

But that leaves us at a crossroad. On the one hand—god is not responsible for “bad things happening” because the world is ruled by free will and he therefore doesn’t intervene. But on the other, we ask him to intervene or thank him for intervening every time we pray.

Therefore, common prayer and Christianity’s conception of free will are contradictory. Either god can and does intervene—making prayer useful, or on Earth free will is trump and god doesn’t intervene—making prayer useless.

You can’t have your cake and it too. Which is it?

It seems to me that if prayers like, “god help the soldiers in Iraq be safe today,” are of any meaning and god does answer such prayers (intervening)…it follows that god is also responsible for suffering and bad things happening just the same a neglectful father is responsible for his starving child. If prayers are answered…god can intervene, does intervene regularly, but chooses not to.

Note: please do not respond…”god works in mysterious ways and we are not supposed to understand.” If we are not supposed to understand—then why do we go to church to hear a sermon explaining to us the bible? If we aren’t supposed to understand anything then ministers are artificial in claiming to teach the word (as they understand it).

Note: I am aware that prayer asking for forgiveness of sins would not apply, but surely, more is prayed for than forgiveness.