http://www.calvinseminary.edu/pubs/forum/09spring.pdf#page=3

FW (from the second page onward...but read the wholt thing)

But God’s will is sovereign.

A more profound reason to wonder whether our prayers make a difference is the biblical emphasis on God’s greatness and the power of his will. Reverence for God’s sovereignty in creation and redemption is a deep and pervasive characteristic of the (Reformed) Christian faith. God’s will ultimately ordains everything, including our eternal destiny. Ephesians 1 and Romans 8 teach that God has predestined and providentially governs "all things," from before the foundation of the world to their final destiny in Jesus Christ. Theologians call this God’s eternal counsel. How can prayer possibly change what God has willed "from before the foundations of the earth" (Eph. 1)?

What’s more, Scripture emphasizes prayer according to God’s will. Paul repeatedly asked that his "thorn in the flesh" be removed, but God did not remove it (2 Cor. 12:7). Jesus himself, the night before he was crucified, prayed, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). Apparently God does not answer our prayers if they are not according to his will.

But even if they conform to his will, do they make any difference? If God’s will is fixed, how can anything change his mind or alter his plans? And if nothing can alter God’s plan, then prayer can’t alter God’s plan. So we might conclude: "No. Prayer does not change things. Talking to God has no effect on how things turn out."

See the bigger picture.

Is this where Reformed theology brings us? Does it force us to deny one teaching of Scripture (that prayer is effective) to affirm another (that God is sovereign)? Does our doctrine undercut assurance that the Lord hears and answers us? Can we trust that prayer is real communication and not just a pointless ritual? Or must we disbelieve that God would change things because we ask him to?

No human theology can capture, harmonize, and fully explain everything that Scripture teaches. But sound and tenable theology strives to get as close as humanly possible. The best of Reformed theology does provide a way to affirm both God’s sovereign will and the genuine communication and effectiveness of his children’s prayers. But in joyful reverence we acknowledge we can’t explain how: "God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform."

God’s plan for history includes everything that happens from the beginning to the end of the world. He knows and providentially sustains the sequences, connections, causes, and consequences of all things and all events. God wills them in the sense that these are the things that happen in the world he has chosen in Christ to create, redeem, and fulfill. So "not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my heavenly Father," as the Heidelberg Catechism teaches. (God does not will all things in the sense of approving of sin and evil, however; rather, he permits them.) Our prayers and the things about which we pray are part of this history.

But does God really hear and answer prayer? Do we really connect with him? God’s providence does not make him a distant impartial observer. In fact, just the opposite is true. God is eternal and omnipresent—"present everywhere." Every creature and every event at all times and places are fully present to God. He is "nearer than hands and feet" throughout our lives, including when we pray. God does not listen merely as an empathetic human would—first learning our needs and then deciding how to help. His knowledge, love, understanding, and response are real long before we whisper our prayers, real while we pray, and real long after we’ve forgotten them.

But does prayer make a difference— effect outcomes? Of course. If God knows and wills all things, then he knows and wills the prayers of his people and the circumstances in which we pray them. In God’s plan, our prayers can be crucial links in the chain of events. If I get sick, pray for healing, and then get better—this sequence is part of God’s plan. Why can’t it be his plan to heal me because I pray? God can decide that my prayer is the reason he heals me just as God can will that medical treatment is the cause he uses. God could have healed me if I didn’t pray or not healed me if I did. But it is God’s eternal will that I become sick, that I pray, and that I am healed because I prayed. My prayer did not heal me; God did—a real answer to prayer. God’s will and effective prayer are not contradictory. They go together. Our prayers really do matter!

But do they change anything? Can we change God’s mind? Not in one sense, but yes in another. God’s eternal counsel—his providential plan for history—is not altered. If God’s plan does not include my healing, then he will not heal me. If Christ’s return is scheduled for 2020, no amount of prayer will make it sooner. But from our human point of view, things can take unexpected turns because we pray. If my doctor says my illness is terminal, I might not expect healing. But God might heal me miraculously because of prayer. God told Moses that he intended to destroy the Israelites, Moses interceded, and the Lord did not punish them. The interaction was real. Moses’ plea is the reason God relented. But the Lord always knew and willed that this would happen. God is not a human we can talk into improving his strategy.

Our prayers and deeds can make a difference! We can even pray for the salvation of someone who does not love the Lord. God might answer by giving that person a new heart—spiritual rebirth. He might even use our words and deeds as means of change! Salvation is due to God’s sovereign grace alone, not our prayers, words, or deeds. But surely God wills to use them to build his church and bring his kingdom. Predestination does not render our prayers and actions pointless. If God wills the end, he also wills the means.

Our prayers and our deeds do make a difference! May the Lord teach us to pray effectively, according to his will.

FW - (Here's the beginning.)

Can prayer change things? Does talking to God have any effect whatsoever on what happens? If we are sick, does asking God to heal us make a difference in whether we get better? If a friend has rejected the Lord, is there any point in pleading for his salvation? These are not just theological questions. Our trust in God is at stake. On one hand, the Bible assures us that the Lord answers prayer. On the other, it teaches that God is the sovereign Lord who knows and rules all things according to his perfect will.

So we ask again: Can prayer really change God’s will? Does it really affect what happens in our lives and in the world? Or does it only affect us spiritually as we express our gratitude and dependence on God? Thoughtful Christians wrestle with this issue. Sometimes we conclude that prayer strengthens our souls but doesn’t change the world. What’s going to happen will happen whether we pray or not. Que sera sera.

Does prayer change things?

At first glance this is either a silly question or theological quicksand that could swallow our faith. Of course prayer is effective. The Bible says so repeatedly and gives plenty of examples. "The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well… . The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective" (James 5:15-16). Jesus himself says, "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it" (John 14:14). He assures us that our Father in heaven will give good gifts to those who ask him (Matt. 7:11). In Exodus 32 it seems the prayer of Moses even got God to change his mind (v. 14): God threatened to wipe out the Israelites, and Moses asked him not to. The Bible indisputably teaches that prayer can make a difference. So why do we still wonder?

Only if prayer is good enough.

One reason might be the conditions and qualities of prayer that Scripture lists. Apparently God doesn’t answer just any prayer. It has to be the right kind of prayer—prayer in Jesus’ name, or prayer according to God’s will, or the prayer of a righteous person, or prayer that is offered in true faith. If faith can move mountains and my prayers don’t even move the air, then perhaps I don’t really have faith. If the prayers of the righteous are effective and mine aren’t, then maybe I’m not righteous. Maybe I’m totally out of tune with God’s will. We fear that our prayers don’t matter because they aren’t good enough.

But Scripture assures us that God hears our prayers according to his grace and not our merit. Romans 8:26-27 is wonderfully comforting: "The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us … in accordance with God’s will." God’s love in Jesus Christ is so wonderful that it not only takes away our sins, it also infuses our feeble and fallible prayers with quality and content that please God. Our prayers are perfectly acceptable to the Father through Christ and the Spirit. It does take the right kind of prayers to get through to God, and by his grace we regularly pray them. So self-doubt should not make us wonder whether prayer can change things.

---CONTINUES ABOVE --

But does prayer make a difference— effect outcomes? Of course. If God knows and wills all things, then he knows and wills the prayers of his people and the circumstances in which we pray them. In God’s plan, our prayers can be crucial links in the chain of events. If I get sick, pray for healing, and then get better—this sequence is part of God’s plan. Why can’t it be his plan to heal me because I pray? God can decide that my prayer is the reason he heals me just as God can will that medical treatment is the cause he uses. God could have healed me if I didn’t pray or not healed me if I did. But it is God’s eternal will that I become sick, that I pray, and that I am healed because I prayed. My prayer did not heal me; God did—a real answer to prayer. God’s will and effective prayer are not contradictory. They go together. Our prayers really do matter!

But do they change anything? Can we change God’s mind? Not in one sense, but yes in another. God’s eternal counsel—his providential plan for history—is not altered. If God’s plan does not include my healing, then he will not heal me. If Christ’s return is scheduled for 2020, no amount of prayer will make it sooner. But from our human point of view, things can take unexpected turns because we pray. If my doctor says my illness is terminal, I might not expect healing. But God might heal me miraculously because of prayer. God told Moses that he intended to destroy the Israelites, Moses interceded, and the Lord did not punish them. The interaction was real. Moses’ plea is the reason God relented. But the Lord always knew and willed that this would happen. God is not a human we can talk into improving his strategy.

Our prayers and deeds can make a difference! We can even pray for the salvation of someone who does not love the Lord. God might answer by giving that person a new heart—spiritual rebirth. He might even use our words and deeds as means of change! Salvation is due to God’s sovereign grace alone, not our prayers, words, or deeds. But surely God wills to use them to build his church and bring his kingdom. Predestination does not render our prayers and actions pointless. If God wills the end, he also wills the means.

Our prayers and our deeds do make a difference! May the Lord teach us to pray effectively, according to his will.

Hi POW-

Thanks for the post. How we understand prayer is important. Did my master’s thesis on it, and I continue to be interested in how different churches and worldviews explain prayer. I like what Pope Clement I said: lex orandi est lex crendendi; “the rule of prayer is the rule of belief.” In other words, prayer is the primary existential stage upon which any theology may be examined and judged. We just cannot divorce the question of what God is like from the question of how we pray.

You asked for comments. And you know how painfully honest I sometimes am. Hehe. But I’ll be honest. What you posted is representative of the Reformed-Calvinistic view on prayer, for sure. As such there’s nothing new. And there really is no other way they can construe prayer. But in my opinion the article shows how utterly bankrupt Reformed theology is on this subject. Of course the right rhetoric is there. Everybody SAYS we relate to God “as persons,” and “in personal ways.” Everybody SAYS prayer “makes a difference,” etc. Who is going to say otherwise? Nobody. We’re all making that claim. But when you reduce individual prayers down within that deterministic worldview, they turn out to be just the unconditionally decreed means of achieving unconditionally decreed ends. And that—in my opinion—bankrupts the view in terms of being a truly mutual, inter-personal enterprise where we shape outcomes through our prayers and participate with God as persons in achieving his goals. I know there are Reformed folk who swear to finding this view of prayer personally satisfying and enriching. All I can say is that I'm happy they're happy and they're praying.

Tom

This links to a debate between calvinists and orthodox back in the 17th century -- Acts and Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem (A.D. 1672)

http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/calvinism-as-heresy/#comment-30340

I'll just post here a clumsy definition of predestination by the Orthodox, fighting with the Calvinists...

DECREE III.

We believe the most good God to have from eternity predestinated unto glory those whom He hath chosen, and to have consigned unto condemnation those whom He hath rejected; but not so that He would justify the one, and consign and condemn the other without cause. For that were contrary to the nature of God, who is the common Father of all, and no respecter of persons, and would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; {1 Timothy 2:4} but since He foreknew the one would make a right use of their free-will, and the other a wrong, He predestinated the one, or condemned the other. And we understand the use of free-will thus, that the Divine and illuminating grace, and which we call preventing grace, being, as a light to those in darkness, by the Divine goodness imparted to all, to those that are willing to obey this — for it is of use only to the willing, not to the unwilling — and co-operate with it, in what it requireth as necessary to salvation, there is consequently granted particular grace; which, co-operating <115> with us, and enabling us, and making us perseverant in the love of God, that is to say, in performing those good things that God would have us to do, and which His preventing grace admonisheth us that we should do, justifieth us, and maketh us predestinated. But those who will not obey, and co-operate with grace; and, therefore, will not observe those things that God would have us perform, and that abuse in the service of Satan the free-will, which they have received of God to perform voluntarily what is good, are consigned to eternal condemnation.

But to say, as the most wicked heretics do and as is contained in the Chapter answering hereto — that God, in predestinating, or condemning, had in no wise regard to the works of those predestinated, or condemned, we know to be profane and impious. For thus Scripture would be opposed to itself, since it promiseth the believer salvation through works, yet supposeth God to be its sole author, by His sole illuminating grace, which He bestoweth without preceding works, to shew to man the truth of divine things, and to teach him how he may co-operate therewith, if he will, and do what is good and acceptable, and so obtain <116> salvation. He taketh not away the power to will — to will to obey, or not obey him.

But than to affirm that the Divine Will is thus solely and without cause the author of their condemnation, what greater calumny can be fixed upon God? and what greater injury and blasphemy can be offered to the Most High? For that the Deity is not tempted with evils, {cf. James 1:13} and that He equally willeth the salvation of all, since there is no respect of persons with Him, we do know; and that for those who through their own wicked choice, and their impenitent heart, have become vessels of dishonour, there is, as is just, decreed condemnation, we do confess. But of eternal punishment, of cruelty, of pitilessness, and of inhumanity, we never, never say God is the author, who telleth us that there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. {Luke 15:7} Far be it from us, while we have our senses, thus to believe, or to think; and we do subject to an eternal anathema those who say and think such things, and esteem them to be worse than any infidels. <117>

Ron?

Tom?

Post Edited (Tom) : 7/12/2009 12:47:19 AM (GMT-5)