Difficult Questions • Difficult Questions • Intermediate
Prayer
Primary question: If God is omniscient and has a settled plan, what is the point of petitionary prayer, and why do sincere prayers so often appear to go unanswered?
Argument map
Click any node to inspect it. Expand branches to go deeper.
Common mistakes
Don't say
Suggesting prayer functions like a reliable mechanism that always 'works' if done correctly.
Instead
Present prayer within its biblical and philosophical framework of submission to a wise, sovereign will, which includes the real possibility of denial.
Don't say
Dismissing the problem of unanswered prayer as merely a matter of insufficient faith.
Instead
Acknowledge scripture itself offers multiple, sometimes situational explanations, and that some instances of unanswered prayer may remain genuinely mysterious.
Don't say
Treating empirical prayer studies as either decisively disproving or decisively proving theistic claims.
Instead
Present the mixed empirical results honestly, along with the methodological reasons such studies may not straightforwardly test the relevant theological claims.
What would change my mind? — Christian position
If no coherent philosophical account could be given for prayer's meaningfulness under providence, or if scripture's own teaching on prayer proved internally incoherent, confidence in petitionary prayer's rationale would be undermined.
What would change my mind? — Skeptical position
If a skeptic came to find models like Swinburne's secondary-causation account philosophically coherent, they might grant that petitionary prayer is not logically incoherent under theism, even while remaining unpersuaded that any specific prayer has in fact been answered.
Why does this matter?
The coherence and apparent efficacy of prayer touch directly on lived religious practice and on some of the most emotionally significant experiences of unanswered petition believers face, making this both a philosophically serious and pastorally urgent question.
For further study
Primary and secondary sources on both sides of this question. Reading the strongest opposing case is part of the work, not a concession.
Providence and the Problem of Evil — Richard Swinburne
Develops a philosophical model of prayer as genuine secondary causation.
What Are We Doing When We Pray? — Vincent Brümmer
A focused philosophical study of petitionary prayer's coherence.
A Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) — Herbert Benson et al.
The major empirical study of intercessory prayer's medical efficacy.