If you pray for God to change something, aren't you basically telling him that he screwed up?

Answer 1

Ancient prayer, if I remember my theology courses from years ago never had anything to do with requests. There was only a declaration of god's greatness and wisdom, and from this greatness and wisdom would come the "answer" or "response" one would be looking for, according to how god would desire the outcome. One may pray for something but ultimately it is god who decides the finality of any prayer.

Nevertheless, your question is a good one and as far as I can see, god does nothing but screw pretty much everything up. So what's the point of praying when nothing is going to be fixed, anyway.

Answer 2

God, if you believe in God, is assumed to be omniscient, to know everything including the future. So God knows even before the event happened, and before you pray, that you will pray to reverse or modify the event. There is no reason why God should not do just that in response to your faithful prayer. No idea of God's having 'screwed up' comes into it. God's plan may be to let the event happen and then, when your faith has been shown through prayer, to alter it. But then, isn't your prayer pre-determined by God's foreknowledge that it will happen ? Nope : You can freely pray even though God foresees it; just as your partner can freely help you even though you can predict that they will.

And hold your horses, yo'all. Don't get any false ideas about my religious beliefs - I'm agnostic. I'm just saying that, as far as I can figure it out, petitionary prayer needn't involve pointing the finger at God for mistakes. The theology of prayer is a bit more complex than that.

I've taken a view. I've offered an argument. If you don't accept or follow the argument, say so and why. Anonymous thumbs down responses without explanation don't help anyone's understanding, including mine if I've got things wrong.

Answer 3

If I ever have a question about prayer I go to the prayer the Master himself gave us, the "Our Father". At the beginning of this prayer we ask God that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This line alone can teach us many things. One of them is that rather than asking God to do something, we should ask that his will be done. Whatever that may be. We are too stupid and sinful to really know how things should unfold. The other thing it teaches us is that while God's will is always done in heaven, it is not always done on earth. If everything that happened on earth was God's will why would Jesus have asked us to pray for this? Certainly God does not will that we should sin, and yet we sin all the time. Perhaps if we all stopped sinning, God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. We can only hope and pray that such a day will come.

Answer 4

I think it depends on how you pray it.. Kind of like it's not what you say it's how you say it. The book of Job is a good example. If I say, " Lord, I'd really like ____, but You're will be done." Remember, God doesn't screw anything up.. He does sometimes allow us to be human, however. That's the way I look at it anyway.

Answer 5

I like this explanation of prayer -

"As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are his children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part (Matt. 7: 7-11). Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work, and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings. "

Answer 6

Not exactly. When you pray, you are opening your mind to the universe. Opening it up to let in hope. God (however you understand Him) has given us free will. He does not control our every action. SO, when you pray to God to change something, you are asking for help, guidance and hope.

We get ourselves into all sorts of messy situations.

God is not a micromanager.

God guides peoples actions so when you ask for God to change something, you are really praying for the strength and for God's guidance to help YOU change it.

See? Good point though. Good critical thinking. Think a little more about the role that God plays in your life and what YOU think about it.

Answer 7

i don't think so much we ask for Him to change something as much as we ask God to change our screw ups or someone else's. Good question though. God never makes a mistake. God is perfect, God is omnipotent.

Answer 8

No. People pray to make something that just came up in there life better. They did not pray and say God you messedup. They are praying for more happyness.

Answer 9

From what I understand of christianity/catholocism, it's not that god screwed up, it's that god allows humans to make choices. God wants us to choose good over evil.

Answer 10

No. He made it that way. If you suffer, thats the way he wanted it to be (in theory, of course). I love thinking about theology, but I don't denominate myself towards a religion. It's mostly cultural. But I do believe there is something out there. Everything happens for a reason. Think about this: if one person suffers, another person is at comfort, as unfair as it may seem.