It is an undeniable fact that there are many times when Christians ask God for things in prayer and do not receive them. This fact is often referred to as the problem of “unanswered” prayer. Antichristian skeptics try to use this problem to argue that the Christian God is not real.
Why Are Many Prayers “Unanswered”?
Some studies that have been done on the effectiveness of prayers for healing have found no measurable difference between the health of people who were prayed for and those who were not. These studies are often cited by skeptics to argue that Christian prayer has no effect at all in the world. However, as I pointed out in this previous apologetics post on miracles, there have been other studies which have found a quite significant positive effect of prayer on those who were prayed for, and, in any case, trying to measure the effectiveness of prayer through controlled, “scientific” studies is inherently problematic. There are many reliable Christian eyewitnesses who can testify that God does indeed respond to some prayers in powerful, sometimes miraculous ways. These testimonies provide good reason to believe that Christian prayer can be a powerful and effective means of effecting change in the world.
Nevertheless, it is certainly true that there are many times God does not give Christians what they pray for. To call this “unanswered” prayer, though, assumes that God must answer “yes” to every prayer, or He has not answered it. However, this is simply not true, since a “no” from God is just as much an answer to prayer as a “yes.”
There are a handful of sayings of Jesus in the New Testament that seem to indicate that His followers will always receive whatever they ask God for in prayer (Matt 7:7-11; John 14:13-14, 15:16, 16:23-24). However, these must be balanced with examples in the New Testament of people praying for things which did not end up happening. For example, the apostle Paul prayed to God to remove a “thorn in the flesh” from him, but God answered no (2 Cor 12:7-9). Rather than jumping to the conclusion that the New Testament contradicts itself regarding this issue, it is more reasonable to understand these texts as complementing each other, and interpret texts that seem to indicate Christians will always receive whatever they pray for as not being absolute.
Why does God sometimes answer “no” to the prayers of Christians? There are a number of good reasons why God might do this:
1) The New Testament indicates that sin in a person’s life may hinder the effectiveness of their prayers (Ps 66:18; Isa 59:1-2; 1 John 3:21-22; 1 Pet 3:7; James 5:14-16). This does not contradict the teaching that Christians are saved by grace through faith, as this is a matter of whether Christians receive specific things from God, not a matter of their ultimate salvation.
2) The New Testament indicates that God will not answer prayers with wrong motives behind them (James 4:2-3). It is significant that every time in the Gospel of John that Jesus tells His followers they will receive whatever they ask God for, He always says they will receive whatever they ask “in my Name” (John 14:13-14, 15:16, 16:23-24). Clearly, this is not meant to be a promise that His disciples will receive anything they pray for at all, just as long as they add the words “in Jesus’s name” at the end. Rather, it is a promise that His followers will receive whatever they need to carry out the mission Jesus has given them, as long as they ask with hearts focused on carrying out Jesus’s agenda.
3) The New Testament indicates that a lack of faith may hinder the effectiveness of prayer (James 1:5-8). This explanation has been criticized as making people feel guilty for not having enough faith whenever God does not answer “yes” to one of their prayers. But this explanation does not have to cause unjustified feelings of guilt, as long as people understand that there are numerous other reasons why God might answer “no” to a prayer.
4) God cannot take away human free will without violating the integrity of His creation. If a Christian prays that other people will do something, those people still have the freedom to choose to do something else. Why do Christians frequently pray for God to change other people’s minds, then? Because, although God cannot control people’s free will, there are various ways God can act to influence people to change their minds and actions. However, the choice is still up to them whether they will be receptive to God or reject His influence.
5) Even if a faithful Christian asks God for something with good motives, it may simply not be according to God’s will. Saying this is not just a “copout.” It is perfectly reasonable to believe that an omniscient God might have a better perspective on things than a finite human being does and have good reasons for allowing something, even if that finite human being does not know what those reasons are.
Other Objections to Prayer
Objections #1: If God is really omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly Good, then prayer should be unnecessary, since He does not need to be informed of anything, and if there is anything good we need, He should already be providing it.
Response: It is true that God, being omniscient, does not need to be informed of what we need through our prayers. Nevertheless, God commands His people to pray for things, and tells them that “the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). Why? Because God wants His people to learn to trust in Him, to regularly communicate with Him, and to grow closer to Him through prayer. If He always gave them whatever they needed or wanted before they asked, they would not be able to do this.
Objection #2: There are adherents of non-Christian religions who pray to God and sincerely believe that He answers their prayers. If they are wrong in their belief that God answers their prayers, then Christians must be wrong in their belief that God answers their prayers as well.
Response: Believing that faith in Christ is the only way to a saving relationship with God does not require Christians to believe that God never answers the prayers of non-Christians. God may sometimes graciously hear and answer the prayers of non-Christians, even though they do not have a saving relationship with Him. There are many examples of God responding in miraculous ways to the prayers of Christians. So, Christians have good reason to believe that their prayers do make a difference, even in cases where the results of their prayers are not obvious.
Objection #3: If Christians really believe that God is eternal and that prayer can change God’s mind about things, then they should pray for God to change really horrible past events. They don’t do this, so they must not really believe that prayer works.
Response: Theoretically, God could change the past. However, if God did change the past, we could never know that He did, because we would have no memory of past events that never happened. And if these events never happened, then we would never have prayed for them not to have happened. This would create a temporal paradox.
Human lives have significance and meaning because the choices we make really do matter. If God just erased past human events, then He would be violating the integrity of His creation. So, there are good reasons for not expecting God to change past events.
Objection #4: Jesus told His disciples that if they prayed with faith for God to throw a mountain into the sea, God would do it (Mark 11:22-24). But Christians do not typically pray for things like this; instead, they typically pray for much more mundane things. So, they must not really believe that prayer works and that God is omnipotent.
Response: As many biblical scholars have pointed out, when Jesus says, “if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them” (Mark 11:23), He is talking specifically about the temple mount; the point of Jesus’s teaching here is not that the disciples can get God to alter earth’s geography on a whim, but that God will empower the body of Christ to be the new temple of God that will replace the temple building in Jerusalem. Jesus is not telling His disciples that God will do absolutely anything at all they pray for, but that God will give them whatever they need to carry out their mission, even though they will experience suffering and hardship, as Jesus Himself will on the cross.
God does answer “yes” to many Christian prayers, sometimes in miraculous ways. But, as long as we live in a world in which most of humanity is separated from God, God cannot just remove every consequence of the Fall. Thus, God must sometimes answer “no” to the prayers of Christians.