Whether it is wrong to pray that a book will end a certain way?

[yellow8yellowM]

It sounds to me that the poster is attempting to say that prayer is futile.
Won’t work here on CAF, where most everyone believes in the power of prayer, and rightly so.
Instead of trying to debunk something that has been around for millennia, why doesn’t the OP try prayer,In a reverent, and proper fashion instead of engaging in futile arguments that really don’t even make a point.
Debate is one thing, silly premises are quite another.

I beg you to judge the question itself an not the heart of the poster. I beg you to give the benefit of the doubt. One might have thought,

“I wonder if the poster is simply trying to start a health discussion.”
“I wonder if there is somebody in the world that this discussion might help.”
“Maybe there are people who pray for very frivolous things who do not realize it.”

 

[yellow8yellowM]

My two cents:

1. St. Thomas wrote in the Summa newadvent.org/summa/3083.htm#article6 about “Whether man ought to ask God for temporal things when he prays?” He answers, quoting St. Augustine, “that it is not unbecoming for anyone to desire enough for a livelihood, and no more…” Therefore I say that praying that the book will end differently is wrong.
2. Even if God could change the past, it would be quite selfish to ask God to change the past to entertain one’s desire that an imaginary story would end a certain way. It would be a grand miracle. God would have to remove the free will of the author and then eradicate the memory of the original ending from every person’s mind.

 

[PolarGuy]

The question seems silly because the question is silly. Some things are exactly as they appear to be. Further, you don’t make a silly question non-silly by throwing references to “St. Thomas” and “Summa” into your posts.

I heard a sermon recently about the need to “pray big prayers,” i.e., to not limit God to the mundane. Such a prayer is even less than merely mundane.

What on earth is important about the sort of prayer you are postulating? Nothing.

How will the world be better if your prayer is granted? It won’t.

Will viewers who read these sort of posts think Catholics are sin-obsessed loons? Or think Catholics are intelligent people? I won’t answer that one. One post was wastage enough. Now you’re wasting even more time responding to everyone else.

Look, if you want to waste your God-given time praying that a book ends a certain way, or answering each poster who disagrees with you, I can’t stop you – but that doesn’t make such prayer any less a waste of time and a frivolity than it really is. Further, it doesn’t transform this inanity into “deep moral theology,” which it most assuredly is not.

Pray for world peace…or that God whisper to lawmakers to end abortion…or a million other “big prayers.” Want to be individual? Pray that God give you courage to stand up to evil everywhere…or that He give you wisdom to help others and do God’s work on planet earth. That a book end a certain way? Come on.

 

[clem456]

I see a couple of problems.

Prayer is not simply petition/result. To see God this way makes him a puppet in your eyes. In effect you are putting your will above God’s and asking for his compliance. And no, this does not mean God does not value our petition. He tells us to ask him. There is a difference.

Since prayer is a relationship with God and we have limited time and resources, praying about such a frivolous matter wastes time, effort, and attention that is due to God and our fellow man.

I know you are asking a hypothetical question but the subject matter makes it a non starter.

 

[yellow8yellowM]

The question seems silly because the question is silly. Some things are exactly as they appear to be. Further, you don’t make a silly question non-silly by throwing references to “St. Thomas” and “Summa” into your posts.

The question I posted is basically a combination of two exact questions that St. Thomas asks in the Summa, the only difference being that I chose a practical example instead of something purely theoretical. If you would like to call all three questions silly, then I will take it as a compliment.

What on earth is important about the sort of prayer you are postulating? Nothing.
How will the world be better if your prayer is granted? It won’t.

I humbly beg you to read the original post again. I did postulate anything. Finally, I answered saying that I disagree with praying for something like that. We are in agreement.

The purpose of the post is to flush out discussion, using an every day example. I guarantee you there are many people who pray to God for a book to end in a particular way. I guarantee you that there are many people who pray that God will grant them a big bonus so they can buy that Corvette. We would better off charitably helping these people learn to pray as God intends it rather than insulting them by calling them silly.

 

[GEddie]

While this specific example is certainly minor and, one could say, frivolous, the premise is a serious one: can prayer work backward into time?

For a decisively nonfrivolous version of the same, consider someone praying, after a school exam has been taken, that they can pass.

Or let’s say someone having had hospital lab-work done, praying for good results. The blood or tissue is already out of the body. No frivolity there.

This scenario probably occurs 10,000 times a day.

ICXC NIKA

 

[PolarGuy]

You certainly flushed out discussion, OP: lots of people thought the question was silly (it was).

I’ll say it again in big bold letters, just because I can: SILLY.

A silly and frivolous activity does not lose those qualities because many people engage in that activity.

OP, you are doing a wonderful job of making Catholics look bad with your insistence that this inanity is deep moral theology.

I’m leaving. This is as bad as me trying to reason with the “catholic potsmokers” I took on last week, and merely validates how hard it is to reason with anyone on a webboard.

 

[7_Sorrows]

You certainly flushed out discussion, OP: lots of people thought the question was silly (it was).

I’ll say it again in big bold letters, just because I can: SILLY.

A silly and frivolous activity does not lose those qualities because many people engage in that activity.

OP, you are doing a wonderful job of making Catholics look bad with your insistence that this inanity is deep moral theology.

I’m leaving. This is as bad as me trying to reason with the “catholic potsmokers” I took on last week, and merely validates how hard it is to reason with anyone on a webboard.

I agree.

and with that I am also unsubscribing!

 

[yellow8yellowM]

Or let’s say someone having had hospital lab-work done, praying for good results.The blood or tissue is already out of the body. No frivolity there.

This scenario probably occurs 10,000 times a day.

ICXC NIKA

This is a great example. Let’s narrow it further, though. You have had the law-work done, and the results come in the mail. Your wife reads the letter in front of you, but in her head only. At this moment, would it be wrong to pray that the lab results came out clean?

I think this also would be a misuse of prayer, a lack of trust in God’s providence. It would be better to pray, “God, if I am healthy, keep me healthy. If I am sick, cure me, or give me the grace to suffer well.”

 

[clem456]

This is a great example. Let’s narrow it further, though. You have had the law-work done, and the results come in the mail. Your wife reads the letter in front of you, but in her head only. At this moment, would it be wrong to pray that the lab results came out clean?

I think this also would be a misuse of prayer, a lack of trust in God’s providence. It would be better to pray, “God, if I am healthy, keep me healthy. If I am sick, cure me, or give me the grace to suffer well.”

I think you just picked a poor example for subject matter in your question.

 

[GEddie]

I think you just picked a poor example for subject matter in your question.

They may have. Or not.

But from these questions, one sees how rapidly the issue of prayer and time goes into Schrodinger’s–cat territory.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

They may have. Or not.

But from these questions, one sees how rapidly the issue of prayer and time goes into Schrodinger’s–cat territory.

ICXC NIKA

Every time I read this thread, I pray that the op’s question is different…

 

[clem456]

They may have. Or not.

But from these questions, one sees how rapidly the issue of prayer and time goes into Schrodinger’s–cat territory.

ICXC NIKA

I’m coming at this with this assumption:
Prayer is the expression of a relationship, not the simple manipulation of a gumball machine.

It also matters what you are talking to God about. The subject matter of the OP is frivolous, as has been noted.
The same question the OP asks can be applied to things meaningful, as in the outcome of a test which affects a person profoundly.

These kinds of questions are asked a lot, and it seems the one thing that is forgotten is… that God is not “in time” like we are.
He already knows the outcome of human events. In prayer, we may ask for something to happen according to our desires, for better or worse. God already knows “the outcome”.

At the same time our prayer can be efficacious. God asks us, tells us, to pray. Miracles happen. In miracles reality changes. We attribute miracles to prayer, and to the intercession of saints. This implies that God is changed by man. But God is unchanging.

God wants us to desire the good of others and ourselves, and tells us to ask for it, yet he is the Unchangeable One.

Prayer is the mystery of a relationship. In prayer we enter a deep mystery, not a transaction. God is not a gumball machine, subject to our coin.

 

[thistle]

This is a great example. Let’s narrow it further, though. You have had the law-work done, and the results come in the mail. Your wife reads the letter in front of you, but in her head only. At this moment, would it be wrong to pray that the lab results came out clean?

I think this also would be a misuse of prayer, a lack of trust in God’s providence. It would be better to pray, “God, if I am healthy, keep me healthy. If I am sick, cure me, or give me the grace to suffer well.”

Misuse of prayer is the stupidity of praying for a different ending to a book which has already been written and published.
Such a thing is making a mockery of God.

 

[Bonnie]

Misuse of prayer is the stupidity of praying for a different ending to a book which has already been written and published.
Such a thing is making a mockery of God.

I finally remembered why this question seemed familiar. It’s very much like the question that was tossed around when I was a child, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth: Can God make a rock that is so heavy He cannot lift it?