Theopedia

Prayer and the sovereignty of God

The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.

— Psalm 103:19

Definition

Prayer and the sovereignty of God names the classic objection that petitioning God is pointless once he has already, unchangeably, decreed everything that will happen, prayer’s outcome included, along with the Reformed answer to it. God’s decree of an end includes his decree of the means to it, and prayer is one such means.1 On this account, prayer matters because God has ordained it as one of the means to the ends he has decreed.

Confessional Witness

The Second London Baptist Confession devotes its third chapter to God’s decree: “God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”2 The same confessional family requires prayer of all men as “one part of natural worship,” to be offered “according to his will,” for “all sorts of men living, or that shall live hereafter.”34

No chapter of the 1689, or of the wider Reformed confessional family, poses the decree and the duty to pray as a question needing reconciliation. Chapter 3’s exhaustive decree and chapter 22’s comprehensive duty to pray are each stated as true on their own terms, with no sense that the one needs squaring with the other.

Biblical Basis

Scripture repeatedly shows the godly praying for outcomes God had already made certain by his own word. Elijah, already assured by God’s own word that rain was coming (1 Kings 18:1), still “cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees” and sent his servant seven times to look toward the sea before the rain came (1 Kings 18:41-45). Daniel, reading in Jeremiah’s prophecy that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years and perceiving that the appointed time was nearly fulfilled, did not treat the prophecy as excusing him from prayer; he “set his face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting” for the very restoration the prophecy had already announced (Dan. 9:2-3). Paul affirms in the same letter both that God has hardened part of Israel for his own purposes (Rom. 11:7, 25) and that “my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved” (Rom. 10:1). None of the three treats the certainty of God’s purpose as a reason to stop asking.

Historical Development

Calvin states the objection precisely before answering it: “Does he not know without a monitor both what our difficulties are, and what is meet for our interest, so that it seems in some measure superfluous to solicit him by our prayers, as if he were winking, or even sleeping, until aroused by the sound of our voice?”5 His answer relocates the purpose of prayer: “It was not so much for his sake as for ours.”5 He points to Elijah, who, “being assured of the purpose of God,” still “prays anxiously upon his knees”: his assurance of the promise did not excuse him from asking, since asking remained his own appointed duty.5

The English Puritan Stephen Charnock takes up the sharper version of the objection, framed from God’s immutability rather than merely his foreknowledge: “if God be immutable, why should we worship him, why should we pray to him? good will come if he wills it; evil cannot be averted by all our supplications, if he hath ordained it to fall upon us.”6 Charnock answers with the analogy of an earthly prince whose promise, once given on stated conditions, is more reason to seek him the more unchangeably it is fixed, not less: “would any man reason thus? because it is unchangeable we will not seek to him… Who would not count such an inference ridiculous?”6

The Genevan pastor and theologian Benedict Pictet, in his own dedicated chapter “Of Prayer and Oaths,” states the same answer catechetically: “although God knows what we need, he yet chooses that we shall ask; he requires this homage of us, by which we express our humility and faith, and acknowledge the majesty, truth, all-sufficiency, omniscience, and inexhaustible goodness of the Lord.”7

Modern Reformed writers extend the same answer to God’s exhaustive decree specifically. Piper reads Paul’s own practice in Romans as the test case: Paul teaches that God has hardened part of Israel (Rom. 11:25) and, in the same letter, prays for their salvation (Rom. 10:1); the hardening itself, on Piper’s reading, “is not an end in itself, but is part of a saving purpose that will embrace all the nations,” so praying against a foreordained hardening asks God to accomplish that purpose rather than reverse it.8 Sammons states the point in contemporary terms: “If God could not do all things and was not in control of all things, then prayer would be illogical… God has determined to use your prayers as a means to bring about His plans. The means are just as important as the ends to God.”9

Opposing Views

Arminianism denies that every outcome, prayed-for outcomes included, is settled by an unconditional decree; God’s own electing will, on this account, “must wait to see (foreknowledge) what his free creatures will do” before it is settled.10 Open theism presses the same commitment further. Barrett traces how a number of Arminian theologians, unable to “reconcile exhaustive foreknowledge with libertarian free will,” concluded not that libertarian freedom should go but that God’s foreknowledge itself must not be exhaustive.11

Objections and Responses

If God already knows what we need, prayer only tells him something he already knows, and so serves no purpose. Calvin denies that prayer’s purpose was ever to inform God: “It was not so much for his sake as for ours.” God commands prayer for the pray-er’s own benefit, to acknowledge that every good desired is derived from him, and Elijah’s example shows that being assured of an outcome is no reason to stop asking for it.5

If God has immutably decreed the outcome, prayer cannot change it, and is therefore pointless. Charnock answers that God’s unchangeableness is the ground of confidence in prayer: an earthly prince’s unchangeable promise gives more reason to seek him, not less, since the outcome he has bound himself to grant is exactly what asking secures.6 Sammons makes the same point from God’s omnipotence rather than his immutability: a God genuinely in control of all things is precisely the God whose ordained plan includes prayer as one of its means, which makes his exhaustive rule the reason prayer is sensible.9

Why pray for an outcome God has already decreed against, such as the salvation of those Scripture says he has hardened? Paul’s own practice in Romans answers this in the sharpest form the objection takes: he affirms Israel’s hardening (Rom. 11:25) and immediately prays for Israel’s salvation (Rom. 10:1) without treating the two as contradictory. Piper’s reading of Paul’s argument dissolves the apparent conflict: the hardening itself serves the wider purpose of mercy to the Gentiles and, in the end, to “all Israel” (Rom. 11:26), so that Paul’s prayer asks God to bring about the very purpose the hardening already serves.8

Related Doctrines

References

  1. See “Includes the means” in Decrees of God, citing Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), chap. 10, “Decrees of God.” ↩

  2. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 3, “Of God’s Decree,” para. 1. ↩

  3. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 22, “Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day,” para. 3. ↩

  4. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 22, “Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day,” para. 4. ↩

  5. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845-46), book 3, chap. 20, sec. 3, 147: “But some one will say, Does he not know without a monitor both what our difficulties are, and what is meet for our interest… It was not so much for his sake as for ours.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  6. Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, ed. William Symington, 2 vols. (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1853), vol. 1, “Discourse VI: On the Immutability of God,” 349. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology, trans. Frederick Reyroux (London: R. Watts, 1845), book 8, chap. 10, “Of Prayer and Oaths,” 344-45. ↩

  8. John Piper, “Are There Two Wills in God?” in Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace, ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 116, quoted in Matthew Michael Barrett, “Monergism, Synergism, and the Will of God,” in “Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 429n42. ↩ ↩2

  9. Peter Sammons, The Forgotten Attributes of God: God’s Nature and Why It Matters (Fort Washington, PA: CLC Publications, 2023), chap. 11, “Omnipotence,” 232-33. ↩ ↩2

  10. Matthew Michael Barrett, “Monergism, Synergism, and the Will of God,” in “Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 412. ↩

  11. Matthew Michael Barrett, “The Inadequacy of Arminian Synergism,” in “Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 335n61. ↩