Eleonore Stump writes an article concerning her standing on petitionary prayer. Stump starts her argument by defining petitionary prayer as simply asking God for something through the act of prayer. Stump points out since this is the definition of petitionary prayer, prayers of praise and worship cannot be considered petitionary since they are not making requests but instead displaying a sense of loyalty. Stump responds to an argument by Kant stating petitionary prayer was pointless on the account of God will do what is right regardless of you asking. Kant also states petitionary prayer is, at its worse, an insult to God because it implies the human knows better than God what is right or because the human is asking God to perform an act other than what is considered justice. Stump intends to defend petitionary prayer against the accusations of pointless or insulting. Throughout her article, Stump argues against previous problems associated with petitionary prayer. The problem of petitionary prayer is,
1. If God is all-good, he would this world to be the best of any possible world.
2. If God is omniscient, he would know how to make this world the best possible world.
3. If God is omnipotent, he can make it the best of any possible world.
4. Therefore, it is [assumedly] already the best of any possible world.
5. Petitionary prayer asks for the world to be in another form than it is.
6. But that would make the world less than perfect, which God would never do.
7. Therefore, either petitionary prayer is pointless since it asks for what God is going to carry out anyway, or it is pointless because it asks for God to carry out something he would never do.
8. Therefore, petitionary prayer is rendered pointless.
While Stump d...
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.... Stump states that we should always ask for good things by way of petitionary prayer so that good things will occur in our world. If Stump’s claim is correct, then two scenarios could come into play. If God has the power to put the world in a better state than it already is, but we, humans, aren’t sending him requests by way of petitionary prayer, God can either choose to put the world in a better state than it already is or he can choose to not change the state of the world at all. The consequence of God making the world better is the infringement of the human free will. On the other hand, if God chooses not to make the world better because of the lack of petitionary prayer, human free will is left intact but the world is not made better.
Works Cited
Stump, Eleonore. "Petitionary Prayer." American Philosophical Quarterly. 16.2 (1979): 81-91. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Throughout history and especially since the sixteenth century many Roman Catholic's like Martin Luther, have distinguished ordinary or "acquired" prayer, even if occurring at a super conceptual level of love, adoration, and desire for God, from the extraordinary or "absorbed" contemplation which is entirely the work of God's special grace. Only the latter is mystical in a strict sense, according to this view. Other writers, such as Bonaventure, can apply the terms of mysticism to all communions with God.
God is all loving and wants the best for everyone and as we concluded with DCT, God is not all
"When Jesus said ast and ye shall receive, I don't think He meant us to pray 'Lord, spare my child', or 'make it rain for the crops', or 'don't let my bizness fail'...." In the excerpt from Cold Sassy Tree, Grandpa Blakeslee claims that pleading for the dispersion of troubles or for physical wants is a misunderstanding of the purpose of prayer. Each example listed in the dialogue contains a physical desire. Grandpa Blakeslee uses each example to provide an explanation as to how the
Christian prays for a many reasons and for different purposes one reason they pray is because they are doing a form of serving God and obeying Him. Another reason to w...
Maybe you think like that. If you do, I want to show you that such a prayer is not the self-centered act it might appear, but a supremely spiritual one and exactly the k...
Dierenfield, B. J. (2007, April). The Battle over School Prayer. Retrieved March 12, 2011, from www.kansaspress.ku.edu: http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/diebat.html
This is ironic because Colonel Cathcart is pretty much an Atheist as he wants prayers but wants to disregard God and any religion associated
This paper discusses how the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the United States government interact to allow each individual in a public school freedom to pray while not endorsing any religion.
When you read chapter one of Genesis you have the feeling that God is perfect. God holds all power and control. God turns chaos into order. "God said 'Let there be light.' And there was light, And God saw the light, that it was good" (Gen 1. 3). God's word is action, God's word is law in the universe. When God creates something, he ends it with God seeing that's its good. This is in effect giving support to the perfect nature that is God and the creations God has made. "God does not play dice" (Armstrong 9), God has order and a purpose for what he makes. An important aspect to God is seen while he is creating the world. He separates water from land. Light from Darkens, Day and Night, Male and Female. This shows that boundaries are important to God. We see examples where God put boundaries on mankind with their language by mixing the language up so confuse man and killing off the evil from the good.
Bailey, T. (2010). Analysing the Good Will: Kant's Argument in the First Section of the Groundwork. British Journal For The History Of Philosophy, 18(4), 635-662. doi:10.1080/09608788.2010.502349 Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9f0eb1ba-edf5-4b35-a15a-37588479a493%40sessionmgr112&vid=10&hid=115
Mitchell, Curtis C. 1984. "The case for persistence in prayer." Journal Of The Evangelical Theological Society 27, no. 2: 161-168. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed March 16, 2014).
there is a God he should be able to prevent future evil in the world
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