The Paradox of Intercessory Prayer

 Wikipedia says this about the Grandfather Paradox:

the time traveller went back in time to the time when his grandfather had not married yet and killed him. As a result, the time traveller was never born when he was meant to be. If he was never born, then he is unable to travel through time and kill his grandfather, which means the traveller would be born after all, and so on.

The same Wiki entry on the Grandfather Paradox also explains the "Novikov self-consistency principle [which]

expresses one view on how backwards time travel could be possible without a danger of paradoxes. According to this hypothesis, the only possible time lines are those entirely self-consistent—so anything a time traveler does in the past must have been part of history all along, and the time traveler can never do anything to prevent the trip back in time from happening, since this would represent an inconsistency.

…

Seth Lloyd and other researchers at MIT have proposed an expanded version of the Novikov principle, according to which probability bends to prevent paradoxes from occurring. Outcomes would become stranger as one approaches a forbidden act, as the universe must favor improbable events to prevent impossible ones."

Stephen King's outstanding book 11/22/63 echoes that expanded version as he changes the past and the present resonates in destructive harmony with the changes.

I love time travel shows. I love the paradox and how I have to wrap my mind around something I cannot possibly understand. In most movies and books, the time traveler manages to change what happens and then "lives happily ever after." They pretty much ignore the Grandfather Paradox, perhaps relying on the parallel universes option.

The most notable exceptions in movies, of course, are still poignant because the present couldn't be altered. The Time Traveler's Wife and Somewhere in Time remain my favorites for that reason.

Even if the Present could be altered, then the altered Present would be the only Present. That's a good tee-shirt slogan.

The Altered Present is the Only Present

You see the conundrum, of course. If the only present exists then it wasn't altered.

The Wiki goes on to say

"It might be argued that the ordinary concept of human "free will" is equivalent to this sort of time-travel paradox, for if one could travel back in time to change a future relative to that past space time interval, then how would that be distinguishable, in principle, from the everyday choices and decisions considered to be freely made within any space time frame taken as the "present"?"

Hard to grasp, isn't it? It's the eternal argument of "predestination."

Bear with me. I'm getting to the point.

We have an eternal God of the Universe who knows how everything turns out, for each and every person. If He didn't then He wouldn't be omniscient, and therefore no longer fits the definition of "God" so we wouldn't be talking about the same Being. Just so we're clear, let's define God as omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. Let's also ignore the question whether God can create a boulder He cannot lift. The fact is, He could, but then He'd lift it. I can't explain it, but that's just the way it is.

So God knew that my friend Tim was going to die, when he was going to die and how he was going to die. Hundreds of people prayed for Tim to be healed, but he died.

We call that God's will. It's the way it works out and God, because He is omniscient, knew it would happen that way.

Let me diverge for a second. I'll come back.

In Horton Hears a Who, the entire little world that Horton carries around with him is about to be destroyed. Everyone on the little planet is yelling as loud as they can, but destruction is imminent. Until one little JoJo adds his "Yopp" and suddenly the planet is audible and everyone is saved.

And I had to wonder: is that how prayer works? If you don't get the right number of prayers or the right quality of prayers or the right volume of prayers then the thing you're praying for doesn't occur. If you do, you win!

No.

A million times No.

Even if it did work that way, God already knew ahead of time whether you'd get the right number. He already knows what happens.

So then I wondered: what is the purpose of (intercessory) prayer if God already knows what the outcome is (omniscience)?

I prayed for my friend Tim and he died. Tim would have died even if I didn't pray.

 

What points do I have so far?

1. Accept that God is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. That's pretty much the definition.

2. God's will is always manifested, though we don't have to understand it or like it (and often don't). *

3. God never says "Gee, I wish I'd thought of that" and is NEVER surprised. (See #1)

4. Prayer is a required task. After all, God wants us to talk with Him.

5. We all have free will, which means we can make our own choices.

 

 

* Footnote: We tend to forget that "God's will" also encompasses things like water, air, sunlight and good things. We usually only think of God's will when it conflicts with our own.