I hate talking to the cloth-eared

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

There's a local radio host with whom I conversate around once a week. He tends to get stuck on a point and won't move from it in any direction. He simply restates the proposition as if the answer was never offered.

To wit: he asked if Tim Tebow's praying was of any effect.

After listening to an hour of the worst theology and philosophy the American public education system could produce I called.

I said that, assuming God is real and involved in His creation, prayer would be effective.

"But if there is such a thing as eternity than the game or anything else is already decided in God's reality."

"Yes," I replied. "Including prayers."

This is the part where I lost him, or rather, he chose to remain lost. He could not consider that the two propositions were concurrent.

Just because God has already witnessed the Ultimate reality doesn't mean His creatures are similarly situated. They are very separate beings from Him. Omnipotence is not moved by a victory gained or a calamity avoided or a rescue affected. Prayers may go to God but they are never for God. They're pointless as far as His personal well-being is concerned. Time, within the boundaries of eternity, plays itself out for the sake of the creature as do their prayers and any subsequent answer.

He agreed to every point but still saw prayer and eternity as beyond reconciliation rather than part of a symbiotic whole. Eternity is the field in which prayer is played-out while prayer decides the disposition of all within eternity.

[MrsSmith]

I don't know how much prayer affects God...but it definitely has a good effect on His children.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I don't know how much prayer affects God...but it definitely has a good effect on His children.

I thought that was what I wrote?

 

[Wineslob]

I thought that was what I wrote?

 

Just not so wordy.

 

[MrsSmith]

I thought that was what I wrote?

 

Just consider me your editor.   

[vesta111]

Just because God has already witnessed the Ultimate reality doesn't mean His creatures are similarly situated. They are very separate beings from Him. Omnipotence is not moved by a victory gained or a calamity avoided or a rescue affected. Quote\

If God knows the ultimate fate of each human, why did God bother to give them free will ?

Pre determination of the humans life takes away any hope or reason to pray.  Brings in the idea that no matter what one does be they very bad or very good---this was how God had decided they had to live and die.

Miracles do or appear to happen to humans every day, so many close calls we all have, who would know that by walking too close to a building a planter will fall on ones head, or a toddler will fall out a window and one just happens to be standing in the right spot at the right time to catch and save the baby.

Then the fact that God has been surprised a time or two when in the Old Testament one of his people went against His wishes and  HE cast down his fury on the disobedient.  Was this because the disobedient was using free will, the very attribute HE gave them ????

They say God helps those who help themselves, this is much different from the fatalistic thought some have they can do nothing for themselves or others, they just depend on God to save them.     
   

[MrsSmith]

Just because God has already witnessed the Ultimate reality doesn't mean His creatures are similarly situated. They are very separate beings from Him. Omnipotence is not moved by a victory gained or a calamity avoided or a rescue affected. Quote\

If God knows the ultimate fate of each human, why did God bother to give them free will ?

Pre determination of the humans life takes away any hope or reason to pray.  Brings in the idea that no matter what one does be they very bad or very good---this was how God had decided they had to live and die.

Miracles do or appear to happen to humans every day, so many close calls we all have, who would know that by walking too close to a building a planter will fall on ones head, or a toddler will fall out a window and one just happens to be standing in the right spot at the right time to catch and save the baby.

Then the fact that God has been surprised a time or two when in the Old Testament one of his people went against His wishes and  HE cast down his fury on the disobedient.  Was this because the disobedient was using free will, the very attribute HE gave them ????

They say God helps those who help themselves, this is much different from the fatalistic thought some have they can do nothing for themselves or others, they just depend on God to save them.     
   

God was not surprised that people disobeyed...and still do.  He does know everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen...forever.  God exists outside time, therefore lives in all our times constantly.  However, His foreknowledge of our choices in no way changes the fact that we are free to choose.  Even humans, with our very limited capabilities, can glimpse the future but still allow free choice.  For example, we know that our 2 year old will take the candy cane on the Christmas tree that he/she can see, but the fact we put it there does not force the 2 year old to take it, the taking is still the child's choice.  If we can allow our children to make choices, how much more can the infinite Being allow His children to make choices?

In the Bible, prayer sometimes seems to change God's mind, at least as far as the authors could tell.  Other times, it seems that God waited for the prayer to deliver, or that He's decided the answer to a prayer will either be "No," or "Wait."

In all cases, the most clearly seen result from prayer (and from many other things God commands), is the changing of the people that follow those commands.  As we change and grow in the Spirit, we become more like Christ, more of a light, and more pleasing to our Father.  God does much of what we see Him do in order to help His Children become the best they can be on this earth.

As for the saying "God helps those that help themselves," that is not in the Bible.  I think the Biblical idea is more like "All things work together for the good of those that love God..." which is in the Bible.  God does expect us to do our part, we all have work to do, but that work is often to help others, not ourselves.