From: Richard Kerr <>


Subject: Re: Why prayer goes unanswered.


Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997

David Brindley wrote:

Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer
reduces itself to this: "Great God, grant that twice two
be not four". – Ivan Turgenev.

Turgenev is asserting that all prayer is ultimately selfish,
that it is solely to provide a benefit to he person praying.

It’s true that many, perhaps most, prayers sound like shopping
lists. I think this reflects immaturity and certainly implies
a "father Christmas" view of God. But I don’t think
you can label all prayer as "selfish".

A trivial counter example would be to pray a shopping list for
somebody else, perhaps even someone you don’t know. I’ve heard
this done plenty of times. At a deeper level I find myself more
frequently praying prayers that reflect the "not my will
but your be done" sentiment that was expressed by Jesus in
the Garden of Gethsemane. In other more mystical traditions of
prayer people don’t even say, much less ask, anything. Instead
they attempt to commune with God for reasons that are difficult
to express, much less point to as examples of blatant selfishness.

You could, of course say that every action is ultimately selfish.
Perhaps Ghandi and Mandela only did what they did because they
wanted to fell good about themselves? If you’re going to take
this extreme position there’s no point in singling out prayer
as a particularly paradoxical activity.

Why do we pray in this fashion? And why do all prayers go unanswered?

I don’t accept that all shopping list prayers do go unanswered,
in fact I’ve seen some pretty spectacular answers to prayer.

I have no idea if many people simply pray shopping lists in private,
perhaps private prayers are more altruistic, but if shopping lists
do carry over it is fair to ask why people continue to pray this
way. I suppose it would be because most people lead unconsidered
lives. If you don’t question what you do, or think deeply about
your beliefs, you may never see that there is anything wrong with
praying exclusively in this way, or even that other ways exist.

I’d like to add that spectacular answers to prayer happen less
often than many people would like and that when they do happen
they don’t seem to bolster the beliefs of anyone except the pray-er.
This state of affairs reflects immaturity on the part of many
prayers that either ask for things or insist on relating to God
in ways that don’t reflect the nature of God.

[snip]


Cure this sickness, save me from death, get me this job or
the loan for that car. Time after time these prayers are made,
and yet not one is answered.

Dunno about that. I broke my arm in a horse riding accident.
Snapped the end off my wrist and pushed it back into the rest
of the bone. The doctors gave me eight to ten weeks in plaster.
I had the initial cast put on and was told to return in two weeks,
after my arm had "wasted", to have another tighter one
put on.

During the interim people prayed for my healing, we didn’t expect
a miracle, just an incident free ten weeks. When I went back to
the hospital they cut off the cast and took more X-rays. After
viewing the slides the doctor told me I could leave. I asked him
about the eight to ten week prognosis and he said "you heal
quickly".

Now I don’t know why God chose to answer that prayer. It’s of
no value of anyone’s faith but mine and I don’t blame you for
being skeptical about it. I still have the X-rays and when I show
them to friends who are doctors they say that the break healed
normally. When I point out the dates they raise their eyebrows,
but that’s about all the story ever does.

We pray for rain to end a drought, for food to end a famine,
for peace to end a war and for justice to end injustice. Yet surely
an omnipotent god would already know of these needs – where that
rain, food, peace and justice are required, without the need for
us to point it out to him.

Jesus points this out immediately prior to the Lord’s Prayer
in Matthew, he said that "your Father knows what you need
before you ask him.".

We have just celebrated the first anniversary of the Port Arthur
massacre, yet where was god when these poor souls when their need
was greatest? Not at home and answering prayers, obviously.

And here’s the rub, right? If God can answer prayers why
doesn’t he heal every scratched knee, much less a pathetic lone
gunman’s twisted mind?

I don’t claim to know all the answers to this, but I do know that
suffering is rarely unalloyed evil. Most suffering leads to growth,
and the truly beautiful people of this world are usually those
who have suffered much.

The "Problem of Pain" is based on the assumption that
the most evil thing in the world is suffering and that any good
God would do whatever it takes to stop suffering. I think we have
gone too far with this, a life that is too easy may be, I would
say definitely is, worse for you in the long run than a life with
no difficulties.

I realise that this is hopelessly brave, but when I look at my
own life I see exactly what I am describing. My own suffering
has produced growth, and if I had the choice I really don’t know
if I would change the difficult experiences in my past. I don’t
know how I would react if my, as yet unborn, child were to be
killed on their sixth birthday while we were on holiday, but I
know that after the fact I would have a deeper character because
of it. I understand that this is of absolutely no help to people
in crisis, but I know it to be true anyway. Many people say that
suffering gives them a deeper appreciation of God’s love, it sounds
weird but it’s true.

Would you want to live in a world in which everybody always gets
what they want all the time? It’s worth thinking about.

So what of prayers of adoration?

No doubt a god that was egotistical enough to create a world
and people it simply so he could feel good about himself would
seek this type of prayer.

See above. I don’t agree with your classification of prayers.
I also think you are anthropomorphising God. You may inadvertantly
be attacking a straw man.

Go back to the old testament and look at the demands god makes
for total devotion, look at the rules for sacrifice and you have
a very clear picture of the type of prayer god requires.

Of course, if this type of prayer is offered, then surely the
prayers seeking favours are unnecessary as a worshipped god will
provide all his creation could desire.

The picture of a vengeful god who needs to be appeased can be
read from some sections of the OT, especially Joshua and that
"bash their brains out" psalm, but it is outweighed
by the picture of God who "requires mercy, not sacrifice".
It should become obvious to you very quickly that, even in the
OT, God is more concerned with who you are than your attention
to the detail of religious law. I suspect that an inhabitant of
the culture we’re talking about would have had a very different
view of sacrifice to the one your describing.

It seems to me that God did a pretty good job of wooing the Jews
out of the Baal worship of the area, but I’ve always been rotten
at second guessing God.

So why do you bother to pray at all?

Shopping lists, intimacy, thankfulness, amazement, desperation,
worship… take your pick, there’s lots of reasons.

— Regards,

Richard Kerr


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