The Puzzle of Petitionary Prayer

The fact that our asking God to do something can make a difference to what he does underwrites the point of petitionary prayer. Here, however, a puzzle arises: Either doing what we ask is the best God can do or it is not. If it is, then our asking won’t make any difference to whether he does it. If...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal for philosophy of religion
Main Author: Howard-Snyder, Daniel (Author)
Contributors: Howard-Snyder, Frances (Other)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: University of Innsbruck in cooperation with the John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham [2010]
In: European journal for philosophy of religion
Online Access: Volltext (doi)
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Parallel Edition:Non-electronic
Description
Summary:The fact that our asking God to do something can make a difference to what he does underwrites the point of petitionary prayer. Here, however, a puzzle arises: Either doing what we ask is the best God can do or it is not. If it is, then our asking won’t make any difference to whether he does it. If it is not, then our asking won’t make any difference to whether he does it. So, our asking won’t make any difference to whether God does it. Our asking is therefore pointless. In this paper, we try to solve this puzzle without denying either that God must do the best he can or that petitioning God can make a difference to what he does.
Contains:Enthalten in: European journal for philosophy of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.24204/ejpr.v2i2.367