I asked ChatGPT the following:
What do Christian apologists say about the unequivocal promises made by Jesus in the Gospels such as "ask and you shall receive," or "ask the Father for anything in my name and he will give it to you"?
ChatGPT said:
Great question — this is one of the classic challenges in Christian theology and apologetics, because the promises in passages like Matthew 7:7, John 14:13–14, and John 16:23–24 do appear, on the surface, to be absolute (“Ask and it will be given to you... whatever you ask in my name, I will do it”).
Apologists — both scholarly and pastoral — have developed several interpretive approaches to reconcile these verses with the reality that many prayers go unanswered. I’ll summarize the main lines of reasoning:
1. Contextual and Conditional Reading
Apologists often argue these statements weren’t meant as blanket guarantees.
Alignment with God’s will
Key argument: “In my name” is not a magical formula but shorthand for “in alignment with my will and character” (cf. 1 John 5:14–15: “If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”).
Example: William Lane Craig argues that prayer isn’t an unconditional promise but a participation in God’s purposes.
Audience and setting
2. Theological Interpretation
The “Already/Not Yet” framework
Some apologists (e.g., N.T. Wright) place these promises within the tension of the Kingdom of God being inaugurated but not consummated. Prayers are answered ultimately, sometimes in unexpected forms, sometimes in eternity.
Spiritual priority over material
Many commentators (Augustine, Aquinas, modern evangelical pastors) interpret these promises primarily about spiritual transformation, moral growth, and empowerment for Kingdom work, not worldly gains.
3. Harmonization with Experience
God answers every prayer, but not always as requested
A common pastoral apologetic: “God answers yes, no, or wait.” The promise is understood as God always responding, but not always granting the specific request.
Faith, persistence, and relationship
Some emphasize passages like Luke 18:1–8 (the persistent widow) and James 1:6 (ask in faith, without doubting). The idea is that prayer is relational, not transactional.
4. Apologetic Defenses Against Skeptics
Hyperbole or rabbinic teaching style
Some apologists note Jesus often used bold, absolute language as rhetorical emphasis (cf. “faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains”), which was not meant to be literal or formulaic.
Selective quotation
Apologists sometimes point out that critics isolate “ask and you shall receive” without considering surrounding teaching on prayer, humility, and the primacy of God’s will.
Representative Quotes
Craig Blomberg (The Historical Reliability of the Gospels): “The seemingly unconditional promises are balanced by qualifiers both in the immediate context and elsewhere in Scripture. They must be understood as promises of provision for God’s work, not carte blanche.”
C.S. Lewis (Letters to Malcolm): “The promise is not that we shall get what we want, but that we shall have what we need in the light of what God sees.”
William Lane Craig (Reasonable Faith podcast): “These are not promissory notes to be cashed at will; they are assurances of God’s responsiveness to prayers offered in faith and in line with his purposes.”
None of that seems outrageously false.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, as I was preparing to preach this week, the thought I had was: God has a purpose in mind for his disciples: to help inaugurate his kingdom on earth. The gifts he gives us should be thought of as furthering that work. It may be that doing that work won't lighten our burdens or allow us to live risk-free, and so prayers for burden-lightening or risk-free living may not be answered as we wish.
I wouldn't go so far as to state that God has an agenda and will filter out any of our petitions which don't correspond with his agenda. I think he listens attentively and graciously when we open our hearts to him and share our fears and anguishes with him.
But neither is he a kindly Santa Claus who asks us what we want for Christmas so he can have his elves build that for us. He sent his son because the world needed some big-time shaking up. He wants us to be the hands and feet of that project.
What I believe about prayers of petition pretty much lines up with what William Lane Craig said.
ReplyDeleteThese explanations seem like ways to rationalize the scripture promises with the fact that prayers of petition are seldom “answered” in the real world.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It sometimes bothers me a bit when there are multiple proposed answers to a difficult question rather than one really good one.
DeleteI admit Jim is correct in saying "none of that seems outrageously false." On the other, in my opinion, none of the arguments taken individually or collectively seems satisfactory.
A few weeks ago I was listening to a Sean Carroll AMA ("ask me anything") podcast in which he briefly commented on the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God. He said the following:
As soon as you open yourself up to being honest about what you would expect the world to look like if God existed, if you're really honest, you find out that the world would not look anything like the actual world that we observe. Most obviously, because God wouldn't treat us like this. [laughter]If God actually cared about us, God would give us much more explicit help here on Earth, even if that help is purely in the form of instructions on how to behave better. God has been very, very cagey, almost as if he doesn't exist.
If I were a Christian living in Gaza at the moment, I'd find it impossible to understand how Jesus could have said, "Ask the Father anything in my name and he will give it to you."
As far as help in the form of instructions on how to behave better, actually he did. It's that free will devil again causing all the trouble. Yes if I were a Christian living in Gaza I'd find it pretty hard to understand how a loving God could let it happen. Especially when a lot of people are trying to help with food and medical care, and the PTB aren't letting it through. One can make the case that a loving God is sending help through other people, and the ones blocking it are doing the work of the dark side.
DeleteThe "just war" theory or teaching has evolved with recent popes to the point where there almost is no justification.
I am not so interested in how apologists explain "Ask and you shall receive"; my question would be why do apologists feel the need to explain "Ask and you shall receive"?
ReplyDeleteIstm that the reason this passage is hard to explain is because many Christians assume that God is an anthropomorphic super being who allows terrible things to happen out of indifference, or because we're not pure enough, or because not enough of us are asking.
If we stop thinking of God as a person, but as the as the source of all goodness and mercy that exists out of all time, then we don't really have to ask to persuade God to help victims of evil, want, and pain. God is doing it now, will do it, has already done it outside this plane of existence.
God is tirelessly cleaning up our messes. It's the asking that's necessary for *us* to be better, not God.
But who am I to argue with AI?
AI is not an issue here.
DeleteI am confident that the summary I posted from ChatGPT accurately and succinctly describes prevailing Christian (including Catholic) approaches to interpreting the passages in scripture that seem to assure people they will get what they pray for.
My own view of God (if indeed he exists) is that he is wholly benevolent but, for reasons we cannot hope to understand, seldom if ever intervenes. I see very little room in earthly existence for telling God what we think he ought to do.
Yah, sorry. AI sets my teeth on edge. I will stay away from posts that use it instead of taking swipes at it.
DeleteGenerally, I agree that God is benevolent, but does not intervene in the evils of life and is not much moved by our prayers.
But the whole process of articulating a wish and formalizing it as a prayer may help us to clarify our own thoughts, find new insights, make us more empathetic, and prompt us to take action that helps others.
I do see value in that.
Jean, your explanation makes more sense than the people AI quotes.
ReplyDeleteBut I’m not sure about this
“God is tirelessly cleaning up our messes.” - Not so sure there is evidence for that.
This seems more likely -
“ It's the asking that's necessary for *us* to be better, not God.””
Possibly God takes care of the people we slaughter Elsewhere. It's not here, that's for sure.
Delete"It's the asking that's necessary for *us* to be better, not God.”
ReplyDeleteIf I am interpreting this correctly, it implies (to put it very clumsily) that prayers of petition somehow make us better. I have no argument with that, as long as the understanding is that requests end "not my will but yours be done."
I too don't get "God is tirelessly cleaning up our messes." (And of course God can't grow tired.)
I don't see any hint in anything here that anyone is asking for God to be better.
Yah, sorry, I can't be clearer. I see thru the glass darkly like everyone else. My inklings are probably amalgams of belief in Jesus as divine teacher and Unitarian-cum-Deist notions that God is Force, not Being.
DeleteGod gave us the capacity to save ourselves and live in peace. Collectively, we could answer our own prayers about things like war and climate change and hunger and income inequality. We just don't wanna.
God as Force. I will have to read up on that. I don’t know anything about Unitarian beliefs except that they don’t include the dogma of Trinity. I think of God as Creator which implies Force.
DeleteI too think that humans could save themselves and others from the worst horrors that afflict us, but greed gets in the way. I do think that the scripture that declares that “The love of money is the root of all evil” is on target. I would add “ love of power” also.
Really are no more Unitarians since they merged with the Universalists. We used to go to a Unitarian Church that looked a lot like the Congregationalists. The U-Us have no creed and are pretty much a way station for people who can't swallow traditional Christianity, neo-pagans, and Skeptical Inquired type agnostic/atheists.
Delete"God gave us the capacity to save ourselves and live in peace. Collectively, we could answer our own prayers about things like war and climate change and hunger and income inequality. We just don't wanna.".
DeleteYeah, that's discouraging. Maybe the don't wanna part is our original sin.
Maybe this is getting closer to a reason for prayers of petition
ReplyDeleteJean - “ But the whole process of articulating a wish and formalizing it as a prayer may help us to clarify our own thoughts, find new insights, make us more empathetic, and prompt us to take action that helps others.”
I am sure there is something to the notion that engaging in prayer has some "meta" effects on us: clarifying our thoughts, making us more empathetic, and so on. And I don't doubt that these good outcomes aren't simply internal to us; God is playing a role in our thoughts being clarified, our hearts being opened, etc.
ReplyDeleteBut I also would insist the plain meaning of the texts under discussion are that God does more than this; he listens to what we're telling him, and he responds with good gifts (which may or may not be precisely what we asked him for).
Yes, yes, I know my ideas do not pass muster with you. I posted this over on the other thread. Here's a time when all my prayers were answered. Was it God?
DeleteI remember a terrible moment when The Boy was 18 months old and docs were concerned he might have leukemia.
I sat in the waiting room and mentally asked God to make him OK, I asked God to give it to me instead, and I asked God what I was supposed to do if he had leukemia.
All three prayers were answered:
Kid had allergies, but it took two pediatric specialists to figure it out and give us the all-clear.
I got chronic leukemia 13 years later.
In that waiting room, I got an immediate answer to "what am I going to do?" That one came thru almost as if spoken aloud: "You will pull your sh*t together, you will not cry until you are alone, and you will be the best damn parent for this kid that you know how to be."
Unfortunately, I really can’t buy the literal interpretation of those passages. I can’t because they imply a transactional God who favors certain groups of people. If there is a God, and God is love, it’s not transactional or conditional love.
DeleteI think that Jean’s explanation of how these prayers work on us makes more sense and is more in keeping with the belief that God is equally loving to all, not just those who pray for gifts.
Jean, your reaction to what will you do seems to me to be totally in character of what we have learned about you over the years here. But I don”t believe that God gave you leukemia. If that is true, then God is not someone I wish to be with for all eternity.
That's the problem with prayers of petition. It's often hard to know exactly how--or even if--prayers were answered. And I'm not proselytizing my ideas or denying the Catholic teaching that Jim defends. Just saying that how prayer.works is a mystery, and I can only say that prayers of petition make me better. I have no idea if or how they work on God.
DeleteJim, you say, "But I also would insist the plain meaning of the texts under discussion are that God does more than this; he listens to what we're telling him, and he responds with good gifts (which may or may not be precisely what we asked him for)."
DeleteI would say that the plain meaning of the texts is that if you ask, God will give you what you ask for. Period—full stop. And sometimes the sayings go even further. For example, we are told not to worry about what we will have to wear or eat (the lilies of the field, the birds of the air). We don't even have to ask. And yet I still have to get my laundry done and go grocery shopping!
I would say that the Evangelists almost certainly did not intend such words to be taken literally. But your interpretation seems to be that God always answers prayers in some way or another, either granting what we ask or something even better. It is difficult to look around the world today and be convinced that people praying for world peace, for example, are getting something even better.
DeleteTo further complicate the whole matter, we have Matthew 6:8:
“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Indeed, being omniscient, God not only knows what you need before you ask, he knows what you will do in response to whatever he grants. Setting aside the issue of determinism, God knows that if you pray, for an example, for the strength to free yourself from a sinful habit or an addiction, and he grants X amount of strength, but you still fail, he knew ahead of time that you were going to fail. So why did he not grant more strength?
I miss Father Komanchak.
I have had similar questions all my life.It seems to me that much of this implies that if God runs everything, plans our lives, grants prayer wishes in some way, etc, that we really are just puppets - no free will.
ReplyDeleteI still believe that the prayer works on us and these various scriptures should not be taken literally. God does not need us to go to church either - it’s for us, not God.
DeleteRejoice! Here comes AI Magisterium! I can see a million ways this can go sideways. But here's a snip from Wash Post's report this morning:
ReplyDeletePope Leo XIV has emphasized in his early papacy that artificial intelligence, specifically generative AI — which creates text, images and video from nothing — could harm human dignity.
“In the end, authentic wisdom has more to do with recognizing the true meaning of life, than with the availability of data,” Pope Leo said at an AI conference last month.
But some Catholic leaders have expressed cautious optimism that AI could serve the church. Maryland’s bishops wrote last month in an open letter that while they have concerns about artificial intelligence, they also believe it could contribute to the common good.
“Like the printing press, radio or the internet, AI is a tool and tools can be directed toward holiness, healing and human development,” the bishops wrote.
Later in the story it tells about Catholic Answers using an AI program it called Father Jake or something. It started absolvings sins and telling people they could use Gatorade for Baptism.
DeleteApparently AI Magisterium is already out there for a monthly fee and clergy with access are using it to write sermons.
Not exactly relevant, but a few days ago I asked Alexa what countries had names of only one-syllable. She answered: "Spain, France, Greece, and Monaco." It's actually Chad, France, Greece, Spain, and Laos.
DeleteLaos, when pronounce correctly, is only one syllable, rhyming with blouse. It's not LAH-ohs.
Re Laos: You go far enough South, and those diphthongs become full-fledged syllables. My sister in law will turn a "blouse" into a "blay-owse" every time.
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