How do we explain the fact that God never answers impossible prayers?
There is the "God must remain hidden" argument. But, as mentioned in chapters 5 and 6, a hidden God would never incarnate himself, or publish a Bible, or part the Red Sea, or put rainbows in the clouds, so obviously God has no need or desire to hide.
There is the "you are misinterpreting Jesus and taking his statements out of context" argument. But, since Jesus is God, and God is omniscient, Jesus would account for that. Jesus would know that when he says, "nothing will be impossible to you," normal human human beings would interpret it to mean, "nothing will be impossible to you." This is not rocket science. If Jesus did not mean that, he would not have said it.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Sunday Exercise: Why won't God heal amputees?
This appears to me to be a website designed, in part, to talk you out of your faith, in full, to destroy it. But I would be interested in hearing what answer Christians would give to the obstacles posed, say, on this particular page of it:
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14 comments:
Have you seen the video?
Proving that prayer is a superstition
It is even worse.
8:07 AM, July 16, 2006
I'll have a look.
“How do we explain the fact that God never answers impossible prayers?”
Never? Not at any time, not in any place anywhere in the universe? And how does this person know that? The only way to know this with absolute certainty is to be in all places at all times simultaneously. If this person is claiming this type of knowledge, then he is claiming to be in all places at all times. He hasn’t proved that there is no God, he has proved that there is a god, and it’s him.
The above is with apologies to Peter Kreeft for stealing his argument :)
Peter won't mind.
I think what he (the anti-Peter) is saying is that if God answers impossible prayers, you'd think we'd have seen at least one amputee healed. But (he says) none ever have been. Likewise, if you have faith enough you can move mountains, so how come no one's ever done it?
Read John 14:12-14:
"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."
Note the words "anyone", "anything", "I will do whatever you ask", "I will do it". Clearly, Jesus misspoke. Why would a perfect being misspeak?
I see the devil's disciple has joined us, and is enjoying the publicity. If you post anonymously again, I'll delete your remarks.
I'll take a stab.
First, regarding this:
There is the "you are misinterpreting Jesus and taking his statements out of context" argument. But, since Jesus is God, and God is omniscient, Jesus would account for that.
Jesus is God, but he "took on the form of a slave". It's obviously a contentious question as to how much of Christ's divine knowledge was set aside while on earth. He did not know when the end of the world would come, for example. But the larger issue that comes through is simply the desire of the interlocuter to insist that God lay out everything in perfect clarity when God desires that we trust him even in our darkened, fallen state. Scoffers at the Cross said: "if you're God, then get down from there". The equivalent is, "if you're God, then why shouldn't every Scripture verse make sense to me?".
Regarding the Scripture quoted, note the clauses: "has faith in me", "whatever you ask in my name", "so that the Son may bring glory to the Father". They're not insignificant. The whole purpose of miracles is not to heal for the sake of healing, or to move mountains because we'd like to see dirt move in order to test Christ's words. It's for the glory of God.
The Trinity is three individual persons with individual wills and yet one substance and one will, and this is the model for Christian since eventually the idea is for our will to track closer and closer to God's will. To pray in Christ's name, which was mentioned in that verse, suggests we pray in unity with Christ and his will. Padre Pio once said that if God wanted him to pray for someone, God would recollect that person to St. Pio. In other words, Pio only asked things that God asked him to ask Him. Love causes the inclination of the will of two people to twine so close that they begin to act with one will.
There is the "God must remain hidden" argument. But, as mentioned in chapters 5 and 6, a hidden God would never incarnate himself, or publish a Bible, or part the Red Sea, or put rainbows in the clouds, so obviously God has no need or desire to hide.
God has no need or desire to hide but he does have the desire to love human beings, expressed in a desire to father us. That means that hiding is not necessary except and to the extent it fosters growth in faith, hope and charity in human beings. When we see God in Jesus, in the Bible, we are seeing God condescending to us.
As far as Christ saying, "He will do even greater things than these" you have to ask yourself what God considers greater. If there is a purpose in moving a mountain and it's His will, He will grant it. Curing an amputee is not greater than having a sinner repent. Not even close. So think about it: Jesus gathered a small band of converts. His apostles went out and converted the world. Which was greater in God's eyes?
I would recommend Ronald Knox's book Miracles. There is much to say on this subject and I dare not paraphrase Knox given that I don't have the book on me and read it years ago. So what precedes was completely my own perspective.
Pretty good stuff, TS. Some of it's great. I like your reminding us of the sceptics at the foot of the cross.
Arguments like those at the site in question always strike me as having two enormous flaws: 1) an absolute, ahistorical, simple-minded literalism, and 2) a sophomoric "if... then... GOTCHA! (smirk smirk)" chain of logic. Not the investigative approach of a serious thinker by any stretch.
I lay partial blame for this atheist fashion at the feet of Protestantism. The notion they popularize that one can grab a Bible in a state of ignorance, read it literally, and figure out flawlessly what it "really says" is a major cause of this.
I like your first point, especially. The second one I'll have to think about, unless you mean certain forms of it create an atmosphere which facilitates the sceptic's gotcha game.
Good to see you Varenius.
Bernhardt has got a point in that some denominations so emphasizes the Bible over the Christian community that it encourages this "out of contextism".
The Bible was never read outside the liturgy with the early Christians, thus non-believers would hardly have any more access to the Scripture than they would the Eucharist. The gospels were originally intended for believers, not unbelievers.
Yes, you're both right, but I think the more essential problem here is the atheism of the referred website. It's not that he can't believe in miracles, but in God. Without Him, there are certainly no miracles. So he gulls Christians into trying to answer questions once removed from the most important one of all. It's like boxing with a shadow.
I guess I'd better find out if old Bernhardt is posting again.
Bill: "The second one I'll have to think about, unless you mean certain forms of it create an atmosphere which facilitates the sceptic's gotcha game."
That's pretty close. I have basically two things in mind with this. On the one hand, this approach to the Bible encourages skeptics to believe they can approach it without any background knowledge, and that their offhand judgments are actually robust ones. (The online Skeptic's Annotated Bible is a prime example of this silliness.) On the other hand, it leads believers to give too much credit to the skeptic's scoffing and be shaken too easily by his arguments, since they seem to be "proven."
In case exactly what I have in mind isn't clear, here's a caricature:
Skeptic: "Hmmm, let's see here... [flips pages]... 'If any man come to me, and hate not his father...' Aha! Look, Jesus preached hate!! What you think of that, Christian?"
Believer: "Uh, well, I don't think that's really what He..."
Skeptic: "What do you mean? Look for yourself, it says 'hate.' This is God's error-free word, right? You're not calling God a liar, are you?"
Believer: "No, of course not... but... I don't know why it says that..."
The entire site is chock-full of this sort of thing. Just look at the title banner: The amputee question is the "most important" question we can ask about God? Really? More important than "Does God exist?"? It's quite the dishonest setup!
(And sorry to disappoint you, Bill, but my blog is still in hibernation.)
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