Michael Zimmerman
The necessity of the existence for a transcendent Force creating and sustaining the universe brought me to belief in God. The historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ caused me to become a Christian. The Catholic Church’s airtight argument for its own authority caused me to become a Catholic. My spiritual journey has largely been a rational one.
But as a Catholic Christian, I am also forced to accept some… very strange things indeed. The existence of angels and demons, and the activities attributed to these spiritual entities. The prospect of a transcendent “soul” that exists separately from the body, intellectual thought and emotions, yet remains bound to and influenced by them. The nature of prayer – both on earth and with the Saints in Heaven – and its role in affecting the course of natural-world events, which itself raises questions about God’s own influence in earthly matters.
Once I heard about Apologetics, I was immediately attracted to the idea since it corresponded to faith in God through reason in the same way I had come to believe in Him. But when it comes to the full implications of this faith, such as the tenets I name above, well… as I seek reason and truth in everything I profess to believe, I don’t know where to start when dealing with such matters. I am seldom able to ask reasonable questions and expect reasonable answers grounded in logic and empirical evidence.
Can you guys help?
Like ·  · February 12, 2013 at 7:03pm · 
  • Kim Kim Quiba and Jonathan Zimmerman like this.
  • New Apologetics Thanks for asking. These questions can be answered to your standard of reason. Where to begin?
    February 12, 2013 at 11:22pm · Like · 1
  • Michael Zimmerman I suppose I will start with the question of prayer and God’s influence in worldly matters, since the answer to that may assist in understanding the rest.

    My first question is, why must we pray? God already knows our needs and desires. As Christ proclaims in Matthew 6:8, God knows what we will pray before we pray it; if this is true, He certainly also knows what His answer will be. I see that the context is in providing a contrast to the heathens (who felt they needed to “wake up” their gods before making their requests); also, as a believer in free will I am willing to attribute this statement to God’s intimate knowledge of our natures, as opposed to predestination. Nevertheless, we are commanded to pray (Philippians 4:6) and are even told “The fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). But effective at what, precisely? I can’t believe that God would allow a legitimate need to go unfulfilled simply because He hadn’t been asked for it enough – it calls to mind those Facebook posts that demand a certain number of “likes” before carrying out some necessary medical procedure.

    I can understand the psychological and spiritual benefits of prayer, perhaps, but I find it difficult to accept that prayer actually does anything to change the course of events. This is especially true when it comes to requesting prayer from other people, notably the Saints: while I can readily accept that praying has psychic benefits for the one doing the praying, these same benefits are removed entirely (or almost entirely) when we ask someone else to pray for us, be they on Earth or in Heaven. I can see that requesting prayer from someone on earth might have some benefit in helping THEM, to give them a selfless reason to get on their knees. But a Saint in Heaven doesn’t require anything of the sort. So what exactly is prayer supposed to accomplish?

    To take this a step further, when we say God answers a prayer, how precisely does He do that? Many of the things we associate with His blessing have a secular explanation for how they all fell into place; miracles are not terribly common anymore. As I said, I accepted His existence out of sheer necessity; the God hypothesis is the best I’ve ever found to explain the existence and consistent, orderly nature of the universe. Had I not been shown the evidence for Christ’s resurrection, I might have been content to become a Deist. So I suppose the best way of phrasing this particular question would be, if you were to explain to a Deist how God continues to carry out His will in the natural world, and you couldn’t use the historical evidence of Christ’s resurrection or other ancient miracles, what would you tell them?

    Finally, on a related note, there’s something else that’s been bugging me: why on earth would God answer a prayer for something comparatively trivial here in the first world, when there is so much need and suffering in the dark corners of the earth? Frankly it seems rather selfish to ask God for satisfaction of our own needs – even needs that are legitimately necessary for the living a Godly life – when there are some whose needs relate to whether they live at ALL.

    I earnestly await your reply.
    February 13, 2013 at 12:09pm · Unlike · 2
  • Psyklonus Atheos These questions can lead you to either agnosticism or atheism. Congratulations!
    February 13, 2013 at 9:10pm · Like
  • New Apologetics Psyklonus Atheos Why do you say so? Consider that there are very good answers to these questions. It would be good if you were to critique the answers when we do give them, just to make sure that we have not overlooked anything of importance.
    February 13, 2013 at 9:59pm · Like
  • Michael Zimmerman @Psyklonus Atheos They can. They almost did. But they didn’t.
    Consider this.
    February 24, 2013 at 1:36pm · Like
  • New Apologetics Michael Zimmerman

    You wrote:
    My first question is, why must we pray? God already knows our needs and desires. As Christ proclaims in Matthew 6:8, God knows what we will pray before we pray it; if this is true, He certainly also knows what His answer will be.

    We reply:
    Indeed he does know. The reason why we must pray is as follows:

    God is pure self-gift, and wills to give us as much glory and importance as possible. He therefore does nothing that is not through each of us. God’s self-gift to every person (collectively) comes through each *individual* person to all of the others. Why? For the *glory* of the individual. The following quote from St. Thérèse is very clear:

    “It is because [God] has so incomprehensible a love for us that he wills to do nothing without us. The Creator of the universe awaits the prayer of a poor little soul to save other souls redeemed like it at the price of all his blood.” 

    We are to pray because God has bestowed infinite significance upon each of us. This significance it is part of our essence, and is the reason why life is worth living. But why such an obsession with our glory? It comes down to divine chastity. God does not hold back his generosity in any degree or for any reason. We have a hard time understanding this because we are so accustomed to self-withholding. You assume that God has some “meaning for creation” in mind *apart* from your glory. It isn’t so. His one desire is your exaltation. The whole thing is for you.

    You wrote:
    I see that the context is in providing a contrast to the heathens (who felt they needed to “wake up” their gods before making their requests); also, as a believer in free will I am willing to attribute this statement to God’s intimate knowledge of our natures, as opposed to predestination. Nevertheless, we are commanded to pray (Philippians 4:6) and are even told “The fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). But effective at what, precisely? 

    We reply:
    The smallest prayer (or action of any kind) of any person changes the entire course of world events irrevocably. God has ordered things this way so that we can be as important as he is (or at least have as much importance as is logically possible for him to give to us). If he logically *could* make us more important than he is, then he would do so. As it is, he pushes the rules with any workaround he can.

    You wrote:
    I can’t believe that God would allow a legitimate need to go unfulfilled simply because He hadn’t been asked for it enough – it calls to mind those Facebook posts that demand a certain number of “likes” before carrying out some necessary medical procedure.

    We reply:
    He doesn’t “allow” legitimate needs to go unfulfilled in the sense of being indifferent or of giving any degree of approval to such an omission. If a legitimate need goes unfulfilled, it is infinitely offensive to God. However, he cannot directly intervene without permanently harming our dignity as persons. Continued in next comment…
    February 24, 2013 at 3:37pm · Like · 1
  • New Apologetics Michael Zimmerman
    Continued from the previous comment:

    For the sake of our participation in the highest possible created dignity that God can bestow, God has given away all power and responsibility that can possibly be given, and has kept for himself only that which cannot possibly be given away (namely, those actions requiring infinite power). We are each infinitely significant to the destiny of every other person, and this importance is irrevocable. Such communal significance is a necessary aspect of our essence as persons, and what God had given, he has given such that no truer giving is possible. God cannot diminish it without destroying an integral aspect of what it means to be a person made in his image. We are integral to the community, and if we do not do our part, then nobody does and everybody suffers. If we were expendable in any degree such that our actions cease to be fully significant, then we are not quite real persons in the sense we are describing. We are all very accustomed to not believing ourselves to be completely real, and we see others as unreal too…

    You wrote:
    I can understand the psychological and spiritual benefits of prayer, perhaps, but I find it difficult to accept that prayer actually does anything to change the course of events. 

    We reply:
    You don’t yet know that God has made it so that everything comes through you just like it does through Mary. It is true without any exaggeration. There is no good thing that God does that is not through exactly what you choose to do. Every decision changes the whole world forever.

    You wrote:
    This is especially true when it comes to requesting prayer from other people, notably the Saints: while I can readily accept that praying has psychic benefits for the one doing the praying, these same benefits are removed entirely (or almost entirely) when we ask someone else to pray for us, be they on Earth or in Heaven. I can see that requesting prayer from someone on earth might have some benefit in helping THEM, to give them a selfless reason to get on their knees. But a Saint in Heaven doesn’t require anything of the sort. So what exactly is prayer supposed to accomplish?

    We reply:
    The unfolding of divine providence can be altered by prayer without in any way entailing that the eternal, immutable God changes his mind. Prayer is not just for the person praying. God eternally wills to bestow his own power to creatures; therefore (without requiring a change in the will of God) the direction of divine providence depends on the prayers and actions of created persons in accordance with the sphere of influence that they have been given. Consequently, it is entirely fitting that, for example, a person could be awakened in the middle of the night by angels to pray for something which God (in his omniscience) already knows is needed. This act of entrusting so much to the prayers of creatures is a gift in keeping with God’s divestiture of all that does not require infinite power. Everything that can possibly depend on the asking of creatures does, in fact, depend on the asking. This is not for our burden, but for our glory.

    In light of this, prayers to saints and angels for their intercession and intervention are entirely compatible with the worship and honor due to God. To say otherwise is to contradict God’s essence as absolute self-gift. The intercessory roles that they have been given in the unfolding of divine providence are a gift from God, and it is an honor to God’s generosity to recognize this and act accordingly.

    You wrote:
    To take this a step further, when we say God answers a prayer, how precisely does He do that? 

    We reply:
    In keeping with divine chastity, if it pertains to events in the world that can possibly be influenced by created powers, he does it through creatures by leading those who choose to allow themselves to be led by him into the right situations to help those praying as quickly as possible. If the prayer has to do with one’s relationship with God in a way that cannot possibly be mediated, then it is answered directly as it is logically impossible to legitimately involve an intermediary in what is essentially a marriage relationship between the soul and God.

    You wrote:
    Many of the things we associate with His blessing have a secular explanation for how they all fell into place; miracles are not terribly common anymore. As I said, I accepted His existence out of sheer necessity; the God hypothesis is the best I’ve ever found to explain the existence and consistent, orderly nature of the universe. Had I not been shown the evidence for Christ’s resurrection, I might have been content to become a Deist. So I suppose the best way of phrasing this particular question would be, if you were to explain to a Deist how God continues to carry out His will in the natural world, and you couldn’t use the historical evidence of Christ’s resurrection or other ancient miracles, what would you tell them?

    We reply:
    God carries out his will in the world through leading those who are willing to be led into positions where the prayers of others can be answered through their actions. God does not say “no” in response to someone’s prayer. Rather, it is the network of “noes” given by people all over the world to God that causes the apparent “holes” in providential care that we all feel. If there were not such a network of refusals, then we would have a very different experience of our prayers being answered continually and without delay.

    Continued in our next comment…
    February 25, 2013 at 7:38am · Like
  • New Apologetics Michael Zimmerman

    You wrote:
    Finally, on a related note, there’s something else that’s been bugging me: why on earth would God answer a prayer for something comparatively trivial here in the first world, when there is so much need and suffering in the dark corners of the earth?

    We reply:
    A great question. It has to do with the entirely unfair patterns of disorder in the world. The disorder caused by the ripple-effect of sin falls where it will without any regard for justice or human dignity. It makes no sense because it is the amplified consequence of smaller events that are unjust and irrational. These consequences cause “deserts” of a sort in terms of God’s ability to act in the world as we and he would like.

    In human experience, there are often coincidences that suggest that some kind of divine providence is at work. It sometimes seems that the smallest needs of people are given attention by God, and we have evidence of our maximal importance. In contrast, there are experiences of tragic suffering that suggest that we are totally unimportant and that there is no providence at all. This juxtaposition of apparent providential care and senseless tragedy is stark and scandalous. It seems that God helps a person with small problems in answer to prayer, while an earthquake on the other side of the world brings devastation to an entire nation. To attempt to make sense of this disparity, some have said that all things are God’s will, and that the events that seem like horrible violations of human dignity are really sent by God to bring about a good beyond human comprehension. Alternatively, others say that we are without help in the universe, and what appears to be divine providence is merely a psychological illusion. On this view, the coincidences that seem to imply supernatural intervention are really just a matter of our interpretation of reality according to wishful thinking. Neither of these opposing views is correct.

    The truth is that God wills our good in every way (small and large), but because of the disorder that has been caused by sin, the world is no longer operating in obedience to God’s perfect will according to the original order of creation. As sin is against God’s will, so it is that the far-reaching effects of sin are also against God’s will. These effects of sin are universally broad, and they affect everyone negatively in different ways. Because they are incompatible with the providence that we rightly expect from God, these amplified consequences of sin cause the world to seem as if God does not exist. We suffer because we have the experience of finding ourselves in a world that has no concern for us. However, in the midst of this apparent non-existence of divine providence are instances of answered prayer and the visible providence of God in those situations where the effects of sin have not totally overwhelmed the proper order of things. Both senseless disaster and solicitous providential care are happening at the same time. One must not be set against the other if we are to stay in the truth.
    February 25, 2013 at 7:38am · Like · 1
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