FIRST
Classical Theism (e.g., Aquinas):
God eternally wills both the ends and the means—including our prayers.
Prayer is effective, but only as part of God's unchanging, eternal plan.
Open Theism / Relational Theism:
The future is not fixed; prayers can genuinely influence what
happens.
[If God is unsure of the future, the basis for trusting God’s
promises and faithfulness weakens. Why does He need to be told to
help?]
God responds dynamically to our choices and prayers.
Popular Christian Thought (e.g., pastors, theologians):
Prayer is how God chooses to involve us in His work.
It’s a real instrument for change, not just a symbolic gesture.
Criticisms and Challenges
Redundancy Objection:
If God already plans everything perfectly, prayer seems unnecessary.
Why ask for what God will already do?
Problem of Divine Immutability:
God is said to be unchanging. Can He “respond” to prayer without
changing?
False Analogy Concern:
If prayer is just another natural input, why not substitute anything
else—like dancing or flipping a coin?
Epistemological Problem:
How can we know prayer caused the outcome and not coincidence or
nature?
Moral Problem:
Why would a loving God only do good things if someone prays for
them?
Does prayer make God’s love or justice conditional?
THE ARGUMENT
If God has it all planned, then prayer is pointless, for He is going to do what He is going to do. And He is supposed to be tender, loving, and fair, so He will always bring good out of the good we do and out of the harm we do. He is bigger than our sins and mistakes, we are told.
So why pray?
Some ask, "Why bother feeding the poor if God's ends will be achieved?"
The answer is supposed to be that God includes us in the plan. We are part of the sequence of events that fulfill His ultimate will. When we pray, we add a new sequence, a new direction, into nature. So nature takes a different road than it would without the prayer. That is how prayer works. It is not doing magic but letting ourselves be instruments of God.
So God only lets things happen if they will be for the best in His plan, and yet if we don't pray, something against His will may happen? It is not even coherent. Prayer implies that we are at the mercy of the random if we have failed to invite God in to apply His loving care. But there can be no real randomness if there is a God.
Why pray? Why not say that throwing the eraser across the classroom does as good a job? Why not nail-biting? Why not washing your feet—left foot first—on a Friday? It is pure magic and superstition, pure and simple.
Prayer tends to be somebody just saying a few words to God. But God could fuse prayer and action. Who says prayer has to be mere words? You can give Toby, the unhoused person, money as a sign that you want God to help your friend who is very ill in Australia. In fact, a genuine religion would not have it any other way and would be doing social work instead of offering Masses and chanting psalms. Philanthropy, if anything, should be your prayer.
People link prayer to morality. They say it is letting God's grace in to make you more respectful to people and just.
Believers hold that morality—or some of it—is absolute. They say wrong is wrong in itself. They say adultery is wrong not because of the bad results but is just wrong. They add that the bad results don't make it bad but only happen because the act was bad in the first place.
If number 6 comes up every time a die is thrown, and it has been happening for a trillion years, that shockingly has nothing to do with proving it will be a 6 the next time I throw. That is the principle, and there is no math without it. The argument that bad consequences prove your deed to be evil is a fallacy. So prayer to enhance morality is based on an error. Why? Because we don't really have as much wisdom and power to determine that say adultery is evil as we say.