WHY PRAY?

The Basic Question

“Can we believe that God ever really modifies His actions in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it..?”

                                                                                                    C. S. Lewis, “The Efficacy of Prayer”

Prayer and God's Foreknowledge

Matthew 6:7-8 “Don't pile up words for the Father knows what you need before you ask him.” But pray nevertheless (The Lord's Prayer follows this passage).

Matthew 6:32 “Don't worry about food or drink...your Father knows you need all these things.” But verse 11 tells us to pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

The necessity of asking in order to receive is found in James 1:5, James 4:2, Matthew 7:7-8 (parallel Luke 11:13).

“You must not approach your Father with the idea that he is uninformed, totally unaware of your needs, so that you have to explain to him in every detail just what your situation happens to be...Jesus was not condemning the outpouring of the heart to God.” Hendricksen, The Gospel of Matthew

“His prescience does not destroy the point of personal requests which deepen the sense of dependence and gratitude.” New Bible Commentary, “Matthew”

“As a father knows the needs of his family, yet teaches them to ask in confidence and trust, so does God treat his children.” D. Hill, The Gospel of Matthew

“God knows our needs, but he has also chosen to grant some things only when people pray (James 4:2).” Blomberg, Matthew

Prayer and God's Will

God “repents” of His planned action in response to prayer in many Old Testament passages. (see Amos 7:1-6 for example)

“[Prayer is] God inserting man's initiative into the divine plan. It is through prayer that we are made 'fellow workers for God' (I Cor. 3:9).” Ellul, Prayer and Modern Man

“God instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.” Pascal

“The true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God wills.” Kierkegaard, Journals

“Prayer is a co-operation between God and the believer in that it is presented to the Father, in the name of the Son, through the inspiration of the indwelling Holy Spirit.” New Bible Dictionary

C. S. Lewis, “Work and Prayer”

“The case against prayer is this. The thing you ask for is either good or else it is not. If it is, then a good and wise God will do it anyway. If it is not, then He won't. In neither case can your prayer make any difference. But if this argument is sound, surely it is an argument not only against praying, but against doing anything whatever?”

“We know that we can act and that our actions produce results. Everyone who believes in God must therefore admit that God has not chosen to write the whole of history with His own hands.”

“It may be a mystery why He should have allowed us to cause real events at all; but it is no odder that He should allow us to cause them by praying than by any other method.”

“The kind of causality we exercise by work is, so to speak, divinely guaranteed, and therefore ruthless. By it we are free to do ourselves as much harm as we please. But the kind which we exercise by prayer is not like that; God has left Himself a discretionary power. Had He not done so, prayer would be an activity too dangerous for man.”

“Prayers are not always 'granted.' This is not because prayer is a weaker kind of causality, but because it is a stronger kind. When it 'works' at all it works unlimited by space and time.”