SEQUENCE THEORY OF HOW PRAYER IS ANSWERED
If God has all planned then prayer is pointless for he is going to do what he is
going to do. And he is supposed to be tender and loving and fair so he
will always bring good out of the good we do and out of the harm we
do. He is bigger than our sins and mistakes we are told.
Some answer that "when you pray you add a new sequence into nature. So nature
takes a different road without the prayer. That is how prayer works. It is not
doing magic but just putting something natural into nature." This teaching makes
no sense.
If God is bigger than the good and bad we do, it follows that
either way he is doing the right and best thing. So prayer is
answered when no prayer is said!
The sequence notion suggests that the asking and the prayer itself does nothing
at all.
It is not even coherent. Prayer implies that we are at the mercy of the random if we have failed to invite God in to apply his loving care. But there can be no real random if there is a God.
You may as well say that you are trying to use God to control how
the dice randomly falls. Why prayer? Why not say that
throwing the eraser across the classroom does as good of a job? Why not nail-biting? Why not washing your feet, left foot first, on
a Friday? It is pure magic and superstition pure and simple.
If you are thinking of God and the need for help is natural, then if that is how the
sequence comes in that is not prayer working. It is nature working. And what
kind of God will only let good things come if the sequence needs a prayer? Why
can't some good deed such as donating to charity be the sequence? Why can't this
be the only right way? It must not be an alternative to praying for that just
degrades it.
Prayer tends to be somebody just saying a few words to God when God could make anything a sign that you are raising your heart and mind to God. Anything then can be a prayer for another - you can give Toby the unhomed person money as a sign that you want God to help your friend who is very ill in Australia. In fact a genuine religion would not have it any other way and would be doing social work instead of offering Masses and chanting psalms. Philanthropy, if anything, should be your prayer.
If number 6 comes up every time a dice is thrown, and it has been happening a trillion years, that shockingly has nothing to do with proving it will be a 6 the next time I throw. That is the principle and there is no math without it. The argument that bad consequences prove your deed to be evil is a fallacy. So prayer to enhance morality is based on an error.
Even God cannot change the principle. Yet prayer assumes that the dice that would be six the next time should be five if God wants it to be and wants it to be for you asked him.
Even if you think the universe is not entirely without purpose and meaning, it does not mean you have to deny that prayer is coherent and deny that it has the random and the planned all mixed up.
