Number 1 Apologist on Earth: We pray so that God’s will may be done. God uses prayers to fulfill his will.
The Prize: So you are saying that God cannot execute his will if no one prays about it? Say God wants to stop a potentially disastrous typhoon that is about to beset Pampanga, if no one happens to pray for the typhoon to be halted, then the typhoon would err… happen?
Number 1 Apologist on Earth: But it is impossible that no one would pray for it. Remember, we Christians always say in our prayers, “Thy will be done”.
The Prize: Interesting. So you are basically just affirming what God wants all along? And this act of affirmation is what triggers God to do some action?
Number 1 Apologist on Earth: Just a clarification. Prayer triggers God’s will to be carried out. If this is what you meant then, yes.
The Prize: That’s what I meant. We have here a God who cannot act or do anything that he wants/wills unless someone utters to him what he is going to do? So God will not save a drowning child he wants to save unless someone tells him directly to save the child or tells him straight in the face, “do what you want to do”?
Number 1 Apologist on Earth: Correction unless true Christians tells him to save the drowning child. He only listens to his children. And you cannot talk straight to God’s face for you will die due to his shining glory.
The Prize: I meant that idiomatically, thank you. Can we all just kneel down and say “Your will be done. Amen” and be done with it? Why spend hours of petitioning God to do our request if the aforestated brief prayer will do the trick?
Number 1 Apologist on Earth: We only not pray for favors to God you know. He is not a genie to fulfill your wishes. He is your God. The reason prayers are long is because we have been spending most of the time praising and worshipping God in prayer.
The Prize: And you don’t make specific request, you merely say “your will be done”?
Number 1 Apologist on Earth: I do say my request. God wants to hear our request, especially if it is align exactly with his will.
The Prize: So the reason why you make petitions is not because you have hopes that God will do what you request for but because God wants to hear you personally requesting, whether hitting or missing God’s will? So it is practically useless in making what you want to happen?
Number 1 Apologist on Earth: It is not useless. It edifies us and pleases God.
The Prize: But it IS useless in effecting what you want to happen?
Number 1 Apologist on Earth: I would say yes. But if what you happen to want is in accordance to God’s will, then what you want WILL happen.
The Prize: But your prayer has nothing to do with it. It just happened to align with what God wants. Besides even if you did not pray, if someone out there prayed, “Thy will be done”, then he will be able to carry out his will, which fortunately aligns with what you want, regardless of you praying for it or not. So basically we have here a God who is practically immobile to do what he wants to do unless tickled to action by his children.
Number 1 Apologist on Earth: No. In order to fulfill his will for your life, you must be the very one to pray for it since it is you who are affeced by that very will of God. Besides, God acts in accordance to his will from time to time independent of our prayers but most of the time, he leaves the power to change the world in his children’s hands.
The Prize: You mean leaving us the power to cause God to do most of what he wants to do. Also, isn’t saying “your will be done”, regardless of who prayed it tantamounts into saying that his will, whatever it may be, shall be done. Why does he have to be selective on what will that he has that he wishes to be done? Who should pray for the storm to subside in Pampanga? The Pampangueños? So the prayers of his children in Manila, Cebu, and other places will not be heard even if they pray for the very thing that God wants to happen?
Number 1 Apologist on the Earth: In cases where we are uncertain of who should pray for a particular thing, God has a way of properly determining who should pray so that a particular will of his will be done.
The Prize: How are we to know whether our prayers for something is effectual then? We are then left in uncertainty and left crossing our fingers hoping that we are whom God determined to be the very ones who should pray for a particular will of his.
The Number 1 Apologist on the Earth: That’s why the Bible says that we should pray unceasingly.
The Prize: You certainly have a err… different view of what a prayer is.
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So now we are left with prayer being reduced to some sort of a “Go” button to make God perform most of his will (aside from its function to boost his ego AKA praise and worship). It was also asserted that God, on occasions, acts his will independent of prayer. When he will act independent of the prayer remote control is , ironically, left to his will.
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