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If there truly is an omniscient god, then shouldn't it already know what you want it to do?
I often hear of people praying for a sick relative to recover. But if your god is all-knowing then it would have known that you didn't want your relative to get sick. And once they got sick, your god should already know that you want them to recover. So doesn't prayer deny god's omniscience?

2007-02-01 05:05:30 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture Religion & Spirituality

So you (or some of you) are saying that although your god knows what you want, he likes to be asked first? I guess that makes sense, in a cruel, sadistic kind of way.
But what about asking other people to pray for things? Often on this site people ask for others to pray for something, or offer to pray for someone else. Surely God only needs to be asked once, right? Some stranger asking for the same thing couldn't affect your personal relationship with god.

2007-02-01 05:18:35 · update #1

11 answers

Good question, and anyone with a bit of common sense would know that if "God" knows "everything" "God" would also know who has faith — without the need to hear prayers. Christians describe a "God" who isn't terribly bright. Actually, they describe a human god, with all humanity's shortcomings.

2007-02-01 05:16:18 · answer #1 · answered by Sweetchild Danielle 7 · 3 0

No. It's not about informing Him of what you want (becuase you are right that He already knows what you want). I'm sure you've had a situation where you knew what someone wanted but waited for them to ask before you gave it. Like our relationships with other people, if we give them everything without them asking, they will just come to expect it and eventually abuse it. This holds true with God and is demonstrated by the Israelite's ungrateful nature when they were in the desert. God provided them water and manna every day without being asked and after a while, they began to complain about it. We need to ask God for what we want so that we understand His blessings.

2007-02-01 13:15:23 · answer #2 · answered by Crusader1189 5 · 0 0

Read 2 Cronicles 7, Matthew 6, Romans 8, 1 Thessalonians 5 it is all about praying

2007-02-01 13:11:22 · answer #3 · answered by channiek 4 · 0 1

First off, if the person praying isn't saved and is living in sin, God doesn't hear. God can't or won't have any part of sin.

The Bible mentions "in the last days many will cry out I done all these things in your name", and God will answer, "Depart from me, I never knew you.".

2007-02-01 13:14:39 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

No; I believe that God wants a relationship with us, and prayer is part of that relationship. After all, the Bible tells us to pray constantly, and it wouldn't say that if prayer was blasphemous.

2007-02-01 13:10:59 · answer #5 · answered by Andrea 3 · 1 1

You're misunderstanding the purpose of prayer.

God wants us to have faith, and if he never let anyone get sick and never required us to pray for them, we would never need faith in that regard.

The purpose of prayer isn't to let God know that your relative is sick. God has shown a common principle throughout the Bible. He CAN heal anybody, accomplish anything. But he wants us to ask. "ask and ye shall receive." Again, he wants us to show faith.

"YOUR faith has made you whole."
-- Jesus Christ

2007-02-01 13:13:19 · answer #6 · answered by Daniel A: Zionist Pig 3 · 0 1

NO, prayer helps us have a personal relationship with God. He loves it when we pray.

2007-02-01 13:09:55 · answer #7 · answered by lilmama 4 · 0 1

Prayer is NOT blasphemous.

2007-02-01 13:15:41 · answer #8 · answered by Mamma mia 5 · 0 0

PART FOUR
CHRISTIAN PRAYER
SECTION ONE
PRAYER IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

2558 "Great is the mystery of the faith!" The Church professes this mystery in the Apostles' Creed (Part One) and celebrates it in the sacramental liturgy (Part Two), so that the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father (Part Three). This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer.

WHAT IS PRAYER?


For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.1
Prayer as God's gift

2559 "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."2 But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart?3 He who humbles himself will be exalted;4 humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought,"5 are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God."6

2560 "If you knew the gift of God!"7 The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.8

2561 "You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."9 Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!"10 Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.11

Prayer as covenant

2562 Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

2563 The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.

2564 Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man.

Prayer as communion

2565 In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. The grace of the Kingdom is "the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity . . . with the whole human spirit."12 Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him. This communion of life is always possible because, through Baptism, we have already been united with Christ.13 Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is his Body. Its dimensions are those of Christ's love.14

2007-02-01 13:19:37 · answer #9 · answered by Gods child 6 · 0 2

No, its not...thats all I have to say about that.

2007-02-01 13:09:19 · answer #10 · answered by Shellee 2 · 1 2

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