How does God answer prayer without affecting free will?
Since God doesn’t interfere with free will, how then does He answer prayer? I’m just trying to understand how the power of prayer works. It just seems the only way to change any event is to directly interfere but this is against God’s word, so how then would He answer a prayer? Just curious on other’s thoughts..
Free choice can only be made on the condition that the Creator does not show himself to us and thus we are created in a condition of His absence from our perception. If we had a perception of Him we would be unable to stop our self from cleaving to the pleasure that emanates from Him thus the condition of complete separation without the influence of His force gives us the chance to independently arrive at the desire to approach Him and cleave to Him.
Prayers that ask for a change in events that are happening in the world or to fix problems are not the ones that get a response because these are things He created specifically to prepare us for turning to Him and request to approach Him. The Creator will answer your prayer if it relates to spiritual advancement towards understanding and knowing Him. This kind of prayer asks for changes within you that will lead to spiritual ascent. This ascent leads to happiness and closeness to the Creator and in this regard the Creator can and will do anything for you. This is the reason prayer is called "the work of the heart" because we work to direct all our desire to be for the Creator. I hope this helps.
Here is a video on prayer to explain further:
http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/kabbalah-video-clips/prayer
And here is vieo with a very good explanation on the complex topic of free will:
http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/kabbalah-video-clips/free-will
Apparently, when you get down to it, the only thing you are really allowed to pray for is that God’s will be done. If you pray for anything else, it doesn’t count. So, if it is is not in God’s will to intefere with our free will, then you are not allowed to pray for it to happen.
Personally, I don’t know of the scriptural support for either concept – that is, where in the Bible it says God doesn’t interfere with free will, and where its says you can only pray for God’s will to be done, but both of those concepts are referenced often in support of numerous religious positions.
EDIT: I am amused by the lack of answers, especially when I get a thumbs down. If you give a thumbs down, aren’t you obligated to provide a BETTER answer?
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Did God give me free will? Assuming there is a God who dispenses free will — I point to the fact that I gave no consent to my conception and birth. If I knew I’d be risking eternal punishment by being born, I never would have consented. That doesn’t mean I don’t have free will. It only means (as I’ll explain, below) there is no God who dispenses free will.
If I were raised by parents who allowed me to draw my own conclusions about God and other supernatural beings (Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, leprechauns, magic unicorns, etc.), then my conclusions would be MY conclusions: the information and experience I evaluate would determine my honest decision. If part of that information and experience included God (somehow) communicating his intentions for me, I would do what God wants.
But God does NOT communicate his intentions to anybody, me included. God is supernatural and nobody knows anything whatsoever about the supernatural. Never have and never will.
The Bible is allegedly a supernatural book: divinely inspired and holy. In it are ancient ignorances, contradictions and ungodly bloodshed, slavery, and subjugation of women. The God of the Bible is vengeful, jealous and genocidal.
And he allegedly loves us.
Keep that kind of love away from me: it’s not worthy of emulation; much less worship!
Adam and Eve, Original Sin and the crucifixion of Jesus are excellent examples of what I mean . . .
. . . Adam and Eve and all their offspring (i.e. all of humanity) were cursed with death because of the “Original Sin” they committed by eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But if all sins are disobedience to God and if all sins are the same to God, then eating the apple was just a pedestrian sin to God. I’m no more guilty for Eve’s sins than I am for Hillary Clinton’s or yours.
But cursing mankind with mortality was not enough for God. No sir! He later decided to wipe out all life (human or not) except whatever could fit on Noah’s ark.
But that didn’t work any better than cursing mankind with mortality. Humanity repopulated itself from Noah’s incestuous ark and – surprise, surprise – was no better than before.
What’s a God to do? Start over? Give up? Quite a conundrum God put himself in, no?
God tried again. This time, instead of genocide, God chose suicide. He came to Earth personally, as Jesus, to act out a script he divinely inspired, in biblical prophesy, that ended with his own trial, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension back home to heaven.
Why did God do this? Original Sin. Because of Original Sin, we can never be innocent enough for eternal life. Basically, God had to “save” us from the curse (mortality) he imputed upon us to begin with. A sort of “spiritual entrapment”. I’m amazed that so many people don’t see through this preposterous charade. Perhaps the pretzel logic is too convoluted for most to unravel. The Bible would have us believe – and doctrine upholds – that we are all miserable wretches who will be granted eternal life only if we love the crucified and resurrected Jesus.
But the only thing we know about Jesus comes from the (supernatural) Bible. If Jesus is God, then God is still bound by the reprehensible Bible. If there is a God who wants me to believe in him and worship him, he wouldn’t have divinely inspired a book with the opposite effect. He would have given me reason to believe.
Because he gave me free will.
Right?
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God doesn’t exist and if he did he would be a prick. got a problem with it email me.
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common sense
Free choice can only be made on the condition that the Creator does not show himself to us and thus we are created in a condition of His absence from our perception. If we had a perception of Him we would be unable to stop our self from cleaving to the pleasure that emanates from Him thus the condition of complete separation without the influence of His force gives us the chance to independently arrive at the desire to approach Him and cleave to Him.
Prayers that ask for a change in events that are happening in the world or to fix problems are not the ones that get a response because these are things He created specifically to prepare us for turning to Him and request to approach Him. The Creator will answer your prayer if it relates to spiritual advancement towards understanding and knowing Him. This kind of prayer asks for changes within you that will lead to spiritual ascent. This ascent leads to happiness and closeness to the Creator and in this regard the Creator can and will do anything for you. This is the reason prayer is called "the work of the heart" because we work to direct all our desire to be for the Creator. I hope this helps.
Here is a video on prayer to explain further:
http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/kabbalah-video-clips/prayer
And here is vieo with a very good explanation on the complex topic of free will:
http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/kabbalah-video-clips/free-will
References :