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[Seraphim]

If God exists, why then when we pray to him IN HIS WILL; (such as outlined in the passage in Luke 11) asking for "an egg" does he always give either nothing or a sorpion?

EG "Give us this day our daily bread" How many starving people pray this each day, only to get nothing...or worse... lose more like their childs life, their health, or what little they have.

Of course I could write my own examples but this one from the third world, heck even the first world runs commonplace.

It is one thing to pray asking God for riches or even "good things" (health, wealth, good job etc) ... but when we pray for the things he asks us to pray for; the things he has taken time to outline and desires us to follow and obey? It seems pretty crazy, downright insane to see nothing in response when God says what his response will be or the opposite reponse!

The result? I can see why people think there is no God. The evidence shows he will not answer the things he says he will answer. The verse appers to be an example of such.

God, if he exists, gives out nothing or scorpians when we ask for the egg.

[jimwalton]

Hi. You've misconstrued the entire text. Here Jesus continues with follow-up teaching after the Lord's prayer. It's a story about an innocent and typical request, meant to teach us about prayer. First, it's a request between friends—always a nice start to the subject of prayer: a relationship of friends who talk and ask freely of each other. The surprise element is that this person goes at midnight—talk about inconvenient! He asks for 3 loaves of bread. In their culture bread was like silverware: they break off bite-sized pieces, dip into a common dish of meat and vegetables, and eat it. The man with empty cupboards was likely asking his friend for a main course as well as loaves of bread, and even that was typical. Somebody—a friend—showed up at his house, and he needs to feed him—a quandary we all understand.

Next surprise: the friend says GO AWAY! Now, a Middle-Eastern audience would have laughed out loud at this lame excuse. No one could ever imagine such a neighbor acting so rudely. Nobody would do that, but that’s the story. Now here’s the deal: the guy, according to the story, feels too ashamed not to give his neighbor bread, since he inconveniently came at midnight and wouldn’t have been so bold unless he was desperate.

The story applies to the Lord’s Prayer, and to prayer in general. God hears our prayers because the very honor of his name is at stake. A couple of vectors at work here:

- We should pray like a salesman with his foot wedged in the door. Show some boldness.
- The man in the story is not like God. He only gives in because he feels ashamed, and the neighbor’s making noise. But God doesn’t have to be wrestled into upholding his own honor.

So, Jesus gives us some lifestyle conclusions:

- God made us to seek Him. We have built-in longings of sundry types: love, understanding, partnerships, fulfillment, success, recognition, and God, among others. So reach out. Be a seeker.
- We all have inadequacies. Be an asker. None of us is complete in ourselves.
- Opportunities surround us. Knock on doors.

Of course, all of this applies to our friendship with God, too. He is accessible, honorable, and reachable. Prayer is mostly getting your head and heart in the right places, honoring the right things, seeking the right things, having the right relationship.

You see, people aren't rubbish. People are men and women made in the image of God. Sure, we’re messed up, and just because we are born in sin doesn’t mean we’re not capable of any good. But we know how to be good.

- The neighbor in the story, even though he was a bit of a jerk, still did a good thing.
- Humans aren't generally like that. We often do good things.
- God is never like that. God always does good things.

Jesus' last statement is very instructive, though. What is the best gift God gives? Answers to our prayers as if he was a big Santa? Nope. What he gives is the Holy Spirit. What matters is the RELATIONSHIP, not the stuff. What He’ll give you is Himself, and that’s what matters in the grand scheme of things. SEEK, ASK, AND KNOCK, but the point is that ultimately what you are asking about and seeking is HIM, not YOU.

You might ask, "Then what is prayer all about?" Here it says it's about the friendship between you and God that makes it so that God is in you. Verses 9-12 are interpreted in lots of different ways, but Jesus tells us in 13 what they’re about: having the Holy Spirit in you.

So you have totally misconstrued the text to thin that in response to a simple request for an egg, God gives either nothing or a scorpion. What the text is really saying is that a good father would never given a scorpion when his son asked for an egg, and neither is God like that. Even the jerk guy in v. 8 gave the asker "as much as he needs." How much more so will your Father in heaven (v. 13)?

Then why are there so many starving children in the world? Through the Bible, if you study the subject of prayer, you will often see that God used normal people in normal situations to answer lots of prayers. Often children are starving because the West has raped those countries so badly they don't have the resources to feed their people. Governments are corrupt, warlords wreak havoc, and civil war destroys the resources they have. The answer to those children's prayers is working for moral governments, forgiving international monetary debt, the fair distribution of food, and farming education. America is alone capable of producing enough food to feed the world. Why aren't we? Economics is one; but even when we distribute food, corrupt forces disrupt the distribution of it to those in need. God is not to blame for the starvation crisis; corruption, greed, unwillingness and apathy are to blame.

[J Lord]

> you will often see that God used normal people in normal situations to answer lots of prayers

If normal person is helping someone, then how would ever conclude that God has used that person to answer their prayer? If the person has free will to choose then I think it is more accurate to say that the person helped them as opposed to God. And if the only prayers that God ever answers are ones where another person does the actual helping then I don't think you would have any way of distinguishing our world from one where God doesn't answer any prayers. Would there be any discernible difference if God never answered any prayers?

[jimwalton]

> If normal person is helping someone, then how would ever conclude that God has used that person to answer their prayer?

Just like in a friendship or a marriage, the more time you spend with someone, the more you learn how they think, the way they decide, and the patterns of their behavior. It's no different with God. The more time I spend with him, the more I recognize his hand in circumstances.

It also depends on what I am praying about. Let me give you an outrageous, but true, example. I lost my job suddenly about 5 years ago. I was struggling to find another one, without success. Shortly thereafter my car went belly up. Oh, great. Now what am I going to do. No job, no car. I was obviously praying about both situations. A few days later a friend shows up at the door. "I hear your car died." (How did he hear that?? I certainly didn't tell him.) "How would you like mine? I got a big bonus at work, and I'd like to pay it forward. Here are the keys." I kid you not. I had to pick my mouth up off the floor. I concluded that this was an answer to the prayer. It was outrageous, and I can offer no other more reasonable explanation. But I don't need outrageous things to notice answers to prayer. I have learned how God works, and how he thinks. I see his hand in many places.

> If the person has free will to choose then I think it is more accurate to say that the person helped them as opposed to God.

The Bible talks about the Holy Spirit inside of those of us who have offered Him access, and that the Holy Spirit guides us and motivates us to do things. While I always have my free will, I can respond to the nudges of God and cooperate with Him in what He is doing in the world.

> And if the only prayers that God ever answers are ones where another person does the actual helping then I don't think you would have any way of distinguishing our world from one where God doesn't answer any prayers.

These are not the only ways God answers prayer, but just one of the ways. At other times prayers are answered completely apart from the "helping" of a person. I had a friend who at age 19 had a debilitating, life-threatening stroke. He went into the hospital garbling, left-side weakness, the whole terrible scene. The doctors didn't necessarily expect him to live, since they determined the stroke happened in his brain stem. Family was called in and given the dire news. Prognosis unknown and unknowable, but expecting the worst. Many people around the world were impelled to prayer. The next morning he greeted his parents with, "Hi, Mom, hi Dad." I was there. Saw it, heard it.

> Would there be any discernible difference if God never answered any prayers?

Yeah, the difference is discernible. I have experienced God's answers to prayer many times. These two illustrations are two of a truckload of answers. While answers to prayer can never be guaranteed, are not subject to scientifically controlled experiments (too many uncontrollable variables), and are not a ground for my faith (I believe whether there are answers to prayer or not), there would be a discernible difference if God never answered any prayers, definitely.

[J Lord]

> I concluded that this was an answer to the prayer.

So are you saying God forced this person to give you his car? Or told him to? Or was it a totally free choice by that person?

> The Bible talks about the Holy Spirit inside of those of us who have offered Him access

How do you offer him access? And how do you know if it is there?

> While answers to prayer can never be guaranteed, are not subject to scientifically controlled experiments (too many uncontrollable variables)

Why do you think they could not be subjected to controlled experiments? If they produce an objectively discernible difference then they would be detectible through experimentation.

> At other times prayers are answered completely apart from the "helping" of a person

These prayers appear to be answered at exactly in a random manner consistent with what happens sometimes randomly without prayer. Does this suggest to you that God wants to remain undetectable? If not, why wouldn't he sometimes miraculously heal people from ailments that never randomly get better?

[jimwalton]

> So are you saying God forced this person to give you his car? Or told him to? Or was it a totally free choice by that person?

It was a totally free choice of the person, responding to the prompting of God inside of him.

> How do you offer him access? And how do you know if it is there?

When a person decides to dedicate his or her life to God, there are steps the Bible says to take: repent of sin, confess sins, make a declaration of fealty, and then pursue a love relationship with God. The Bible guarantees that if a person does that in sincerity and humility, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside that person. So in making the dedication to God, a person offers access of his life to the Holy Spirit. The evidences of the Spirit there are a spiritual awareness (experience) as well as evidences in that person's life that the Spirit has taken up residence.

> Why do you think they could not be subjected to controlled experiments? If they produce an objectively discernible difference then they would be detectible through experimentation.

Experimentation is contingent on an ironclad control group. If other factors can come into play in my experiment that I have neither accounted for nor can control, my experiment is lost. Suppose I'm trying to measure descent from a certain height from a parachute. It's a senseless experiment, because I can never control the wind factor. The wind will vary my result every time. Now, it's different dropping metal balls from a high balcony to measure gravity. The wind effect is negligible enough to be a non-factor. But a parachute from the sky is not subject to enough controls, though it's still measurable and discernible.

So also prayer is not confinable to controls that give me a plausible baseline. There are too many factors, some of which can never be known, so that I cannot effectively isolate a control situation with reliability. In other words, my independent variable is not able to be isolated enough for the experiment to be valid. And even though the results may be objectively discernible and reasonably concluded, it is not subject to experimentation. Thus the accusation of confirmation bias is never a legitimate one, because establishing a baseline of a controlled and consistent standard of expectation (independent variable) is impossible. Thus I can never be sure of the baseline, and therefore can never be legitimately accused of confirmation bias. No one knows where the line really is because there isn't even a line to measure.

Let me try another example. Suppose you are sitting in front of me during a lecture, and I'm trying to assess how much my behavior is distracting you from paying attention. At the end of the lecture, it was easy to observe that you were only paying attention some of the time. How much of that can I credit to myself? That's impossible to know, because I can't know how much you would have paid attention even if I weren't there. There's no way to draw a baseline because there are too many variables: the allure of the subject, how interesting a speaker he was, his tone of voice, your interest in the subject, your fatigue, the temperature in the room, what else is on your mind, other distractions around you—there's no way to track down, let alone know, all of these quantities. So it's impossible to know how much effect I had on your attention. Thus I can never be sure of the baseline, and therefore can never be legitimately accused of distracting you. No one knows where the line really is because there isn't even a line to measure.

> These prayers appear to be answered at exactly in a random manner consistent with what happens sometimes randomly without prayer.

We cannot expect prayer to be subject to these categories (and limitations) of logic. For instance, if we knew, KNEW, that God answered the prayers of Christians at a greater rate than of a random sample, it could have devastating consequences: (1) People would start praying with the wrong motives, (2) people would get corrupted by the alleged "power" at their beck and call, (3) God would be obligated to maintain at least a certain "batting average," and (4) our expectations about prayer would become distorted. What a mess.

But, by the same token, if we KNEW that God answered the prayers of people at a rate less than a random manner, well, how insulting would THAT be? If I pray about something, I have LESS chance that it will come about???? What kind of nonsense is that?

But if prayers appear to be answered at exactly in a random manner consistent with what happens sometimes randomly without prayer, there is accusation of "prayer is nonsense." God can't win, can He? If He answers more, it corrupting; if He answers less, it degrading; if He answers at a "random" rate, it's nonsense. Hm. Suggestions?

Actually, Christians see God answering prayer with consistency at a rate far greater than randomness, but since much of it can be relegated by skeptics to subjectivity, it's often not worth discussing except with people who understand how God works. I can't prove it by science, nor can I give you the "rules" about how it works, because there aren't any. Prayer is dovetailed with my relationship with God, and I would never expect an unbeliever to understand all of how it works.

> Does this suggest to you that God wants to remain undetectable?

C.S. Lewis described God as "hiding in plain sight." For those with eyes to see, He's easy to detect. For those who don't want to see, he's invisible. Might I make a flimsy analogy to Jason Bourne? For those who know what to look for, they can find him, and fairly easily. For those who don't have a clue, well, they don't have a clue.

> If not, why wouldn't he sometimes miraculously heal people from ailments that never randomly get better?

I have heard of many many cases like this, like the one I mentioned of the 19 year old recovering from the life-threatening stroke. But you can't just pray and assume healing will be the answer. We don't control God.

[J Lord]

> It was a totally free choice of the person

In that case I think it would be more accurate to that the prayer was answered unknowingly by the person, as opposed to saying it was answered by God. Because if you attribute a person's free actions to God, then it would be logical to attribute all actions to God. Like "God dropped off the mail this morning at my door, and then God came over for coffee, etc." Sure you could rationalize that these events only took place because God has made it possible for them to happen, but it would be a misleading use of language to attribute them to God in that way.

> The Bible guarantees that if a person does that in sincerity and humility, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside that person

But observation indicates that this claim is almost certainly false. So it could be that Paul was mistaken in this regard. There are many examples of people who sincerely try to accept the spirit and believe the spirit is inside them but then eventually come to realize that it was just their own brain and wishful thinking causing them to believe this. Some people honestly try to best of their ability to be a Christian but fail.

> Suppose I'm trying to measure descent from a certain height from a parachute. It's a senseless experiment, because I can never control the wind factor.

No, that wouldn't be senseless because you could repeat the experiment thousands of time to get an average, which could be a useful thing to know. This would akin to finding some illness that God sometimes miraculously cures through prayer, and then taking thousands of people with this illness and seeing if the ones who are praying or being prayed for are cured more often than the ones who aren't. On average you would expect the prayer group to be healed more often if God answered prayers and wasn't deliberately trying to conceal himself.

> Christians see God answering prayer with consistency at a rate far greater than randomness

But does this cause Christians to start praying with the wrong motives, get corrupted by the alleged "power" at their beck and call, or allow their expectations about prayer would become distorted? If it does, these clearly aren't "devastating consequences." So why do you think there would be devastating consequences if more people believed that God answered prayer with a rate greater than randomness?

> For those with eyes to see, He's easy to detect. For those who don't want to see, he's invisible.

I should have clarified my question. I should have said "Does this suggest to you that God wants to remain undetectable to some people?"

> I have heard of many many cases like this, like the one I mentioned of the 19 year old recovering from the life-threatening stroke

No, people sometimes recover from life threatening strokes randomly without prayer.

[jimwalton]

> In that case I think it would be more accurate to that the prayer was answered unknowingly by the person, as opposed to saying it was answered by God.

Not necessarily so. I have heard many people saying they felt the tug of God in taking a certain action that turns out to have been the answer to prayer by another person. Sometimes people are quite aware that God is working in their lives, but we always have the choice about what to do about it.

> Because if you attribute a person's free actions to God, then it would be logical to attribute all actions to God.

No, I distinguish between my own actions and when I feel the pull of God. And in addition, there are times when people do things they know to be wrong, feeling the pull of God away from their behavior, and yet they carry through with it anyway. There is often a way to tell the difference between our behavior and God's influence (though not always), and between what I choose to do on my own and what I am choosing to do because I feel directed by God.

> But observation indicates that this claim is almost certainly false. So it could be that Paul was mistaken in this regard. There are many examples of people who sincerely try to accept the spirit and believe the spirit is inside them but then eventually come to realize that it was just their own brain and wishful thinking causing them to believe this. Some people honestly try to best of their ability to be a Christian but fail.

I agree with what you are saying, and have seen it many times myself. There are many factors at play. Jesus' Parable of the Sower is instructive. Possibly I overstated the case with the way I worded it, but what I was saying is still generally true.

> No, that wouldn't be senseless because you could repeat the experiment thousands of time to get an average, which could be a useful thing to know.

An average can be a useful thing to know, but that's different from science. That's just a mathematical norm, not a scientific fact. Science can tell me that when I pour one specific chemical into another, I can guarantee the result. Every time. In contrast, science cannot predict my exact moment of touchdown when I leave a plane via parachute because there are too many mitigating factors. The best to be hoped for is a statistical approximation (and a safe landing!).

> This would akin to finding some illness that God sometimes miraculously cures through prayer, and then taking thousands of people with this illness and seeing if the ones who are praying or being prayed for are cured more often than the ones who aren't. On average you would expect the prayer group to be healed more often if God answered prayers and wasn't deliberately trying to conceal himself.

It might be nice if it worked that way, but there are still too many factors at large for science to dabble in this equation, as I explained before. The Bible also speaks of God not answering certain prayers because people ask with the wrong motives (James 4.3), because it's not His particular will in this particular case (Lk. 22.42), or because it's better for you not to get it (2 Cor. 12.8-9). With all of these uncharitable variables, concocting a control group and isolating variables is simply impossible.

I was watching the football game last night. For some foolish reason while watching the game I was thinking that despite all of their plays and plans, practice and intent, just about every play turned into mush within seconds, and players were ad libbing , adjusting, responding, and making split-second decisions to get the job done in an extremely dynamic situation. The number of possible choices and variables at any given nanosecond is exceptionally large. It, too, is beyond the reach of science because controlling (and therefore predicting) the variables at work is simply too demanding, and quite impossible to encompass. After the ball is snapped, each player is diagnosing and modifying to achieve the desired result. It's a totally fluid environment, though all within the constructs of the field (a literal place) and the rules (an overarching objective standard governing their actions). Just musings, but it relates to prayer. It's not true that "On average you would expect the prayer group to be healed more often if God answered prayers and wasn't deliberately trying to conceal himself." The situation is too dynamic.

> So why do you think there would be devastating consequences if more people believed that God answered prayer with a rate greater than randomness?

Because power corrupts us humans. If we start to think we have a hotline to heaven, it changes most people. Not everyone. There are some Christians that are known as prayer warriors, who are cognizant of the power but not taken in by it. Like Frodo and the ring of power. Other people couldn't handle it, but he was able to.

> I should have said "Does this suggest to you that God wants to remain undetectable to some people?"

Good question. Jesus said in Matthew 13.10-16: "10 The disciples came to him and asked, 'Why do you speak to the people in parables?' He replied, 'Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand." In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them." But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.' " F.F. Bruce explains, "It sounds as if Jesus doesn’t want people to understand him. But that’s not the case. The reference is Isaiah 6.9-10, where the point is clearly that people will hear but refuse to accept the message. For those who refuse to see, every word he spoke may as well have been shrouded in mystery and riddle. For those who understood, his parables were stories with expanding life in them. It’s the point of the parable: some soil is receptive and promotes growth, and some soil either inhibits or prohibits growth." So it's not that God wants to remain undetectable; it's that some refuse to see.

> people sometimes recover from life threatening strokes randomly without prayer.

Of course they do. It's a theology called "common grace." God has made the world such that rain falls on the just and the unjust, that all human bodies (not just of the godly) have self-healing capabilities, that all of life is dynamic, not static, for all of us, and that we all reap the benefits and bear the tragedies of the consequences of that dynamic environment coupled with human free will. Many people recover from strokes without prayer, but that doesn't necessitate that prayer doesn't help anyone recover. That many recover without prayer has no effect on the truth or falseness of the effectiveness of prayer for others.

[J Lord]

>I have heard many people saying they felt the tug of God in taking a certain action that turns out to have been the answer to prayer by another person.

Yes, you've heard that sometimes. But my point is that unless you know that to be the case in a given instance it would be dishonest or inaccurate to say that it was God answering the prayers.

> In contrast, science cannot predict my exact moment of touchdown when I leave a plane via parachute because there are too many mitigating factors.

Doing an experiment to get an average doesn't make the experiment non-scientific.

> With all of these unchartable variables, concocting a control group and isolating variables is simply impossible.

No, because over a large sample size you would see the average result of all these variables at work. And you would see the net result. It would either be that prayer has some discernible impact or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then the question would be why.

> It's not true that "On average you would expect the prayer group to be healed more often if God answered prayers and wasn't deliberately trying to conceal himself."

I don't see why not. Pointing out all the variables at play does nothing to change the fact that a large enough sample size would show you the net effect of all such variables.

> If we start to think we have a hotline to heaven, it changes most people.

So are most Christians corrupted due to their belief that God answers prayers at a rate that is distinguishable from random chance? If not, then why would anybody else become corrupted from holding this belief?

> So it's not that God wants to remain undetectable; it's that some refuse to see.

Maybe some people consciously refuse to see. But there are other people who honestly evaluate the evidence to the best of their ability and conclude that God probably doesn't exist. These are the people I'm talking about. The fact that such people exist demonstrates that God doesn't want everyone to believe he exists.

> Many people recover from strokes without prayer, but that doesn't necessitate that prayer doesn't help anyone recover.

No, but my point was that prayer doesn't ever work for the types of situations that cannot resolve themselves through random chance. So cancer, strokes, things that sometimes spontaneously get better, these are the only things that prayer ever works for. Losing an arm, getting your head cut off, losing an eye, etc., these are things where God never answers the prayer. If God wasn't trying to remain hidden, then the type of problem being prayed about shouldn't matter and we should occasionally see prayers being answered in all similarly bad situations, regardless of whether it is a situation known to sometimes get better at random.

[jimwalton]

You and I have talked many times, so I don't mind being totally open and honest with you. The only possible healing of amputees ever was Jesus. He healed lepers (Mt. 4.23-24; Mt. 8.2), and though no specific mention is made of missing limbs being restored, lepers in those days often did have missing body parts. We can't justifiably argue from silence, though. There’s no reason to doubt that Jesus made limbs grow back, since he could easily have done it, but it’s unfair to assume from silence that he did, since no mention is every made of it. So we just don’t know about Jesus.

It’s also unfair to talk about amputation from Bible perspective, because people who lost limbs in Bible times died. Without modern medicine, antibiotics or surgery, losing limbs was too often a fatal situation. So I don't really expect to see amputee grow-back situations in biblical times.

But it's fair to ask the question, "Why doesn’t God heal amputees?" Here's the Bible's answer.

1. Most of the time life just goes along its course. Even when we see God intervening in the Bible, it's with the flow of life and not something off the charts. In Abraham's 175 years, he only spoke with God maybe 5 times. Even in the birth of Jesus (Matthew 2-3), God works within the flow of life rather than dramatic, Hollywood kind of stuff. The life of Paul is no different. David (King David of old) never once had a vision of God or heard a voice from the Lord.

2. When we look at the Bible about what God answers prayer about, most of the prayers God answers are about inner things, not outer things. It's about attitudes, inner fortitude, etc., and not about stuff and circumstances.

3. When we get right down to brass tacks, in the biblical record, God hardly ever heals. God is most really not in the business of healing. During the ministry of Jesus there were hundreds, but other than that, Scripture only tells us about 10 healings in a 1500-year stretch. Ten. Aside from Jesus and those 10 or 12, there are no recorded healings. He is not in the business of healing any more than he’s in the business of producing food out of the air to fee starving people. He uses natural processes, natural avenues of production and delivery, etc.

If God were to just pop pop pop healings all over the place or food out of the air, all our notions of science (cause and effect, regularity, predictability, etc.) would go out the window. Science would almost cease to exist. Hey, if things can spontaneously generate because I say the word, science walks away. It's just not how God generally does things. But that doesn't mean God doesn't exist or that all Christians are delusional. It's just that God partners with normal people, often using normal means to accomplish his purposes. There have been only two times in all of history when there was more of a "show": The Exodus, and Jesus. But since any skeptic who wasn't there disparages both of those eras/events, it comes down to other factors that determine whether or not one believes the events of the Exodus and of Jesus actually happened the way they are recorded for us. It's not just a simple blind belief, but a complex weaving of many evidences and persuasions, combined with certain presuppositions, that form what each of us believe about these things.