Why does God not answer 100% of prayers?

you\'re new here? wrote:

Jeff Wigand wrote:

There are many, many children throughout the world who have been repeatedly abused and violated by people around them who should be their protectors. This is happening today and it will happen tomorrow. And you believe that God hears their prayers of anguish and suffering to make it stop and make them safe and you believe that God declines to intervene.

A common response is that “we can’t know God’s will.” That’s an awful cop out. Any upstanding person would intervene, wouldn’t they? We would do whatever we could to protect those children.

This “God’s will” cop out harkens back to the Book of Job, when God allows Satan to torment Job over and over again, culminating with sending a big storm to his home which causes its collapse and kills his whole family. And when Job pleads and begs God for an explanation, God furiously expounds on Job’s insignificance in his grand design.

No thank you. I’m glad there’s no reliable evidence to suggest such a character exists.

We shouldn't blame God for the sins of men. He could destroy the world but chooses not to (yet) "for the sake of the elect"

Jeff Wigand wrote:

Mikeh33 wrote:

Yes, I do believe it makes sense. I don’t believe we’re that much smarter than ancient people.

You’re talking about a group of people who had no concept of an atom or molecule, nevermind a bacterium or biological cell. Their explanations for their observable world were limited by the tools and collective knowledge at the time.

European Christians who first explored the New World were mystified that the indigenous Americans apparently brought rattlesnakes, wolves and bears with them, but didn’t bring any horses or cows when they populated the Americas. What they didn’t know at the time is that humans crossed the Bearing Straight Land bridge many thousands of years before horses were domesticated.

You have to look at Christianity’s origin mythology with the same skepticism as you do to Hinduism or the Greco-Roman religion. These are ancient peoples using their limited tools and knowledge to come up with explanations for the world around them.

Mikeh33 wrote:

Jeff Wigand wrote:

You’re talking about a group of people who had no concept of an atom or molecule, nevermind a bacterium or biological cell. Their explanations for their observable world were limited by the tools and collective knowledge at the time.

European Christians who first explored the New World were mystified that the indigenous Americans apparently brought rattlesnakes, wolves and bears with them, but didn’t bring any horses or cows when they populated the Americas. What they didn’t know at the time is that humans crossed the Bearing Straight Land bridge many thousands of years before horses were domesticated.

You have to look at Christianity’s origin mythology with the same skepticism as you do to Hinduism or the Greco-Roman religion. These are ancient peoples using their limited tools and knowledge to come up with explanations for the world around them.

Sure we know about the cell and quantum physics and rockets that can return to earth and dock themselves. Obviously we have more knowledge of the natural world. But we still insist that a human cell, with its galaxy of complexity, evolved as a product of time plus chance. We embrace political movements that kill people by the hundreds of millions. We cling to bad ideas because we can’t accept the notion of a Creator God that has the final judgment.

Thats why I say we are no smarter today than our ancient forefathers. In fact in some ways we’re quite a bit dumber.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

you\'re new here? wrote:

1) Because he wants to share His joy in Heaven with us.

2) Because of sin. Our first parents turned away from God committing the first sin. God cannot condone sin and Heaven wouldn't be Heaven if sin prevailed there.

3) God wants us to ask for what we need to help strengthen our Faith when H answers our prayers.

4) He doesn't change His mind - of course - but he wants us to ask in Faith so he can answer to show His love. If we receive good things without asking, in the everyday life, do we immediately thank God?

5) God will not give us something we pray for if we should not have it. Ask for greater Faith and He'll give you that.

There are many, many children throughout the world who have been repeatedly abused and violated by people around them who should be their protectors. This is happening today and it will happen tomorrow. And you believe that God hears their prayers of anguish and suffering to make it stop and make them safe and you believe that God declines to intervene.

A common response is that “we can’t know God’s will.” That’s an awful cop out. Any upstanding person would intervene, wouldn’t they? We would do whatever we could to protect those children.

This “God’s will” cop out harkens back to the Book of Job, when God allows Satan to torment Job over and over again, culminating with sending a big storm to his home which causes its collapse and kills his whole family. And when Job pleads and begs God for an explanation, God furiously expounds on Job’s insignificance in his grand design.

No thank you. I’m glad there’s no reliable evidence to suggest such a character exists.

nyuug1 wrote:

TAMUhobbyjogger wrote:

This is a great question! I'd love to provide some help in your understanding! Ashamedly, I am not the best at referencing scripture, but I will add a couple of links to articles with more detail and scripture!

God is perfect and sufficient, not lacking anything. Yet even through this, He desires a relationship with us, his creation. (If this doesn't make sense to you, join the club!) This is a display of His perfect love for us! In His desire for a relationship with us, He wants us to bring our wants, doubts, and fears to Him. Being the perfect and loving God, His plans are for our good and for His glory- the perfect God deserves all glory and praise, after all! Bringing our prayers to Him, whether requests or praises, is a way that we can submit to Him, acknowledging that He is the only One with the power and ability to meet/grant our needs. While we have the opportunity to bring these things before Him, He is still working for our good and His glory. Being an all-knowing and omniscient God, He knows what things are truly for our best in the long-run (no pun intended), and what things are not for His glory. He answers all prayers, though sometimes he answers "no" or "not yet." While that seems harsh, this is again an opportunity we have to submit to Him as a loving God and trust that He truly does have our best in mind. As "55 YO" mentioned earlier, and you may be able to relate too, there are many things we look back on where we thought there was something that we absolutely needed to happen, but now we can see that it's a good thing that prayer didn't get granted! Also, as we spend more time getting to know Him through prayer and reading scripture, along with other disciplines, we begin to be aligned more like His character and our desires better reflect His desires. Since He is a loving God that wants the best for us, when we reflect His desires, our wants become more aligned with His and those begin to be the things we bring to Him. This is the reason for Jesus saying "You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it." The more "faith" you have, the more your heart aligns with His, which means you are more likely to ask for things that He wants to provide!

I know this may seem confusing and maybe even contradictory... 1) I'm an imperfect human. Even though I intend to explain God's character clearly with this post, I can't confidently say that I was successful haha! 2) I would encourage whoever reads this and wants to learn more to look into the following links, and even continue searching the GotQuestions website with more questions concerning Christianity, God, and the Bible! It's a great resource! Thanks for reading this long message!

"Why Pray" -

Link:www.gotquestions.org/why-pray.html

"How Can I Have My Prayers Answered By God?" -

Link:www.gotquestions.org/prayer-answered.h...

None of this makes sense. You said so yourself. Let's break down some of the contradictions:

1) If God is perfect and all-powerful, why does he desire the worship and relationship of his creations? Is he insecure?

2) Why would God create humans on Earth if he desires a relationship with us? Why not just keep us closer, in Heaven? What purpose does it serve to send his creations to another realm, to hopefully rediscover a relationship with him (if we're lucky)?

3) If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then prayers are a waste of time. The dye is cast - your destiny is already decided by God. Praying for another outcome is not going to change that.

4) If praying in fact could change God's mind, why would he listen to us? He knows infinitely more than us, so he should already know what's best for us. If God changes his mind based on a single prayer, maybe his grand design wasn't all that great?

5) If you pray really hard and are a devout Christian, yet still don't get what you want, is God punishing you? Were you not enough? Was 50 prayers to few, and 52 prayers would have done the trick?

The modern conception of "prayer" as you've outlined above seems to be a grown-up version of Santa Claus, asking for things you want from a supernatural being. When Jesus said "You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it" he probably meant "Prayer orients your mind and attitude towards a particular thing, and if you focus enough on that thing you'll get it." An ancient version of positive thinking and cognitive-behavioral alignment.

Look, I understand that faith requires you to suspend logic at times, but there are things are just so self-contradictory with modern Christianity that it falls apart at the slightest scrutiny. It's really hard to take seriously.

calfshrug wrote:

Most people shrug their shoulders at seemingly undeserving people facing hardships

The idea is that God does this to test us, basically because in the long run, this experience on earth is an infinitesimally small span.

I wrestled with faith a lot age 7-15 and then called myself an atheist 15-22, then came back fairly devoutly 26-28, and now at 29, I am once again a lot more on the fence. But I do say now, I believe enough to say that I believe, but I mainly do so because I like the idea of there being a loving God who created a horcrux of himself, for lack of a better term, to face the sin of man himself, since of course, an omnipotent God doesn't have to enflesh himself and face the suffering and sin he allowed to happen to his creation. That's Jesus, of course.

i still have hard feelings about faith. I have problems with Christians telling me that life is essentially masochistic, embracing pain, living entirely for something outside of ourselves. We are inherently subjective, biological, self-motivated beings, so the thought of living entirely for God is not only an impossible bar to reach, but also it brings into question the goodness of God, it seems, that he would expect that of us

55YO wrote:

calfshrug wrote:

Most people shrug their shoulders at seemingly undeserving people facing hardships

The idea is that God does this to test us, basically because in the long run, this experience on earth is an infinitesimally small span.

I wrestled with faith a lot age 7-15 and then called myself an atheist 15-22, then came back fairly devoutly 26-28, and now at 29, I am once again a lot more on the fence. But I do say now, I believe enough to say that I believe, but I mainly do so because I like the idea of there being a loving God who created a horcrux of himself, for lack of a better term, to face the sin of man himself, since of course, an omnipotent God doesn't have to enflesh himself and face the suffering and sin he allowed to happen to his creation. That's Jesus, of course.

i still have hard feelings about faith. I have problems with Christians telling me that life is essentially masochistic, embracing pain, living entirely for something outside of ourselves. We are inherently subjective, biological, self-motivated beings, so the thought of living entirely for God is not only an impossible bar to reach, but also it brings into question the goodness of God, it seems, that he would expect that of us

Man, you posed some good theological questions. Let me try to address them as best I can, but I know I will fail to explain it to you in a way that is sufficient since the internet often is a difficult medium to convey thoughts.

1. Is life masochistic?

let me start by saying that life is hard, but harder for some, yet easier for others. A lot of that is genetic, but some is environmental. I won't go far into the nature/nurture argument, but let me say that life can be good for anyone, whether they are a believer or not. In the days of the early church, it was certainly difficult, due to persecution. The apostle Paul wrote about the sufferings and said they were like a momentary light affliction compared to the joys of eternal life with God. So, a person with faith lives a life in a way that seeks the spiritual nature, and not the carnal. In doing so, a lot of the difficulties in life will not arise (environmental causes lessened) and when there are difficulties, they get through them easier because they are focused on the life to come. This does not mean that there will not still be some environmental issues, because a life before coming to Christ may have set in motion physical ailments that cannot be reversed. What I am saying is that the new life should be such that they will not be compounded.

2. Is the bar God is asking us to reach too high?

I will start by saying the bar was set high under the Old Law, and Jesus raised the bar when He gave the Sermon on the Mount. However, that is the bar that was set in order to earn salvation. Nobody can earn it, because it is the free gift of God, offered by sending His Son to take our penalty of sin (death) upon Himself so the wrath of Gd would be satisfied. I know that concept is difficult to understand, but it was done because of His love for us.

Now, the bar is to believe that Jesus came to die in our place, that He was buried, and that He rose on the third day, which is our assurance of a future resurrection, either to life or to death. The ones who accept this free gift will rise to be with Him, and those who want no part of it will not take part in eternal life. Explaining their eternal punishment is hard to do, because the Bible uses terminology that we can grasp in human terms, but it might be incomprehensible to our fleshly minds.

3. Is God good when He asks us to live a certain way?

In answering the previous question, I hope I have explained that He is good, because He knew we could not do it, so He sent Jesus to do it, and to pay our penalty. That love is why we should live for Him now. Further, we live a certain way, not to earn anything, but as an expression of gratitude for what He has done for us, and for what He has promised us.

Ruxton Towers XC wrote:

Mikeh33 wrote:

Yes, I do believe it makes sense. I don’t believe we’re that much smarter than ancient people.

I agree that we as individuals aren't smarter (in terms of mental capacity) but as a society we do know a lot of things the ancients didn't. For example:

• We understand deep time (billions of years).
• We understand the microscopic world of the cell, bacteria, and even the atom.
  
• Chemistry and biology are very well understood by scientists all over the world. We are not just "guessing" about the nature of the world around us.
• We know about geography, including lands far, far away from Israel where everything is different (and which don't appear in the Bible).
• We understand comparative linguistics and know how different cultures use metaphor differently.
• We understand the forces of geology and how the world was shaped over millions of years by things like plate tectonics and erosion and so on.
• We've studied logic and brilliant minds like Bertrand Russell can create paradoxes that even God can't resolve. We are not easily confounded by the "wise men" of Biblical eras.
• We value equality in the eyes of the law and strive to treat all people fairly, not just our own tribe of co-religionists. We all agree that in a good society, justice should not be based on your tribe or religion like it was in the Bible.
• We understand how genetics and DNA work, and as such know how to map the origins of humanity back for thousands of generations.

So in some ways were are a lot smarter than superstitious, ancient people who had no way to know the world other than through stories. They could have never known that science would eventually answer the questions that they thought were "God's mysteries."

Why would you think any specific ancient tribe of Native Americans, Africans, Europeans, Asians, or Middle Easterners would have a story that correctly describes humanities place on Earth for all time? And why would one of those stories be correct and all the other stories and Gods be fake? Why would the Judeo-Christian God do that?

Thought experiment: If human-like aliens appeared from another planet and tried to communicate with us, would you try to explain to them that their planet and all of their people were bound by the limits of these ancient Jewish texts?