Catholicism and Persuading God

From the Catholicism and Posthumous Miracles thread:

If you are praying to P for healing you are asking P to talk to God on your behalf. You are believing that P is already in heaven and not in purgatory, and thus is able to converse with God. It is not unlike my going to ark13 and asking him to talk to his father about some matter that concerns me, because I think having him bring it up would be more likely to bring about results than if I just went to his father directly.

Does a perfect God require persuasion to do the right thing?

Is it possible to persuade God? If so, doesn't this mean either that without such persuasion, God would have done the wrong thing, or that subsequent to the persuasion God is doing the wrong thing?

Is it coherent to believe that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent and also to believe that petitioning God, either directly or via deceased intermediaries, will affect God's decisions? For example, is it coherent to believe that such a God would not heal your cancer unless he was persuaded to by a deceased person?

Come on, nobody has a response? What's the deal..afraid of the entailments of the answers to these questions, or what?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
From the Catholicism and Posthumous Miracles thread:

[quote]
If you are praying to P for healing you are asking P to talk to God on your behalf. You are believing that P is already in heaven and not in purgatory, and thus is able to converse with God. It is not unlike my going to ark13 and asking him to talk to his father about some matter that c ve that such a God would not heal your cancer unless he was persuaded to by a deceased person?

I don't look at prayer so much as persuasion of God to do something as I do inviting God to work in certain areas via our free will. God wills that we have free will thus prayer is necessary in inviting God to work in your life. However, God will not work in such a way to violate his own free will just as he does not violate ours. If you are looking to violate God's free will then do it yourself and don't expect him to go along with the endevour. For example, praying for a large amount of money to endulge ones lustful pursuits will probably go unheard because it will not really beneficial to his overall purposes and his will for you. Conversely, if you pray for a large amount of money in the pursuit of spreading the kingdom of God your prayer may be answered. I look at supplication/prayer to God as a joining of wills to accomplish something. As long as neither will is violated, anything goes.

Originally posted by whodey
I don't look at prayer so much as persuasion of God to do something as I do inviting God to work in certain areas via our free will. God wills that we have free will thus prayer is necessary in inviting God to work in your life. However, God will not work in such a way to violate his own free will just as he does not violate ours. If you are looking to vio ...[text shortened]... oining of wills to accomplish something. As long as neither will is violated, anything goes.

Could you answer the questions I posed?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
From the Catholicism and Posthumous Miracles thread:

[quote]
If you are praying to P for healing you are asking P to talk to God on your behalf. You are believing that P is already in heaven and not in purgatory, and thus is able to converse with God. It is not unlike my going to ark13 and asking him to talk to his father about some matter that c ...[text shortened]... ve that such a God would not heal your cancer unless he was persuaded to by a deceased person?

I'm of the belief that the asking of God or the persuasion is more about the relationship that the miracle or desired outcome. We cannot get around the reality that fine people of faith pray every day for a miracle to be cured or to receive some blessing and they die anyway.

Originally posted by kirksey957
I'm of the belief that the asking of God or the persuasion is more about the relationship that the miracle or desired outcome. We cannot get around the reality that fine people of faith pray every day for a miracle to be cured or to receive some blessing and they die anyway.

The point of prayer is the expression of humility and the recognition of the necessity of grace. Praying for this and that is an abomination. I understand this is irrelevant to your question, but I heard crickets in this thread.

Originally posted by bbarr
The point of prayer is the expression of humility and the recognition of the necessity of grace. Praying for this and that is an abomination. I understand this is irrelevant to your question, but I heard crickets in this thread.

Let us not equivocate here. Catholics always resort to "it's not prayer" when others claim that they pray to people other than God. such as Mary or other saints.

Thus, my questions have nothing at all to do with prayer (reader's slip in the cited quote notwithstanding), unless Catholics are willing to admit that they do in fact pray to these dead people. Rather, they are about the coherence of the belief system that would lead somebody to attempt to persuade a dead person to persuade an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God to do something.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Let us not equivocate here. Catholics always resort to "it's not prayer" when others claim that they pray to people other than God. such as Mary or other saints.

Thus, my questions have nothing at all to do with prayer (reader's slip in the cited quote notwithstanding), unless Catholics are willing to admit that they do in fact pray to these d ...[text shortened]... a dead person to persuade an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God to do something.

What makes you think these people are dead? Aren't there people in Heaven right now with our Lord? Asking these people to pray with you is no different than asking someone in your congregation to pray for you.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Could you answer the questions I posed?

Well, to answer your question I am not sure I am qualified to answer because I am not Catholic. Therefore, I do not pray to other "saints" for anything. If God is the source of everything and all of our needs and all living creatures are subject to him why go to any other source?

Having said that, I was attempting to say in my other post that the only persuasion God requires is seeing that your free will is in line with his own and this is done by reaching out to him in faith. God requires faith and faith is nothing more than aligning your free will with God's will which is made known to us through his word. When it works, it is a beautifal thing. The key, however, is knowing what his will is and seeking his will in the matter and deciding where you fall in the mix in terms of your own free will.

Does this answer your question?

Originally posted by whodey


Does this answer your question?

No. My questions are strictly analytical. That is, you should be able to determine their truth deductively from the terms involved, regardless of your religious affiliation. I'll give you a hint...Of the five that I asked, only one is correctly answered with a Yes.

Once we all agree on the answers, then the next step will be to assess how they apply to determining whether one ought to accept or reject this particular bit of Catholic doctrine. But first things first.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
I'll give you a hint...Of the five that I asked, only one is correctly answered with a Yes.

It's the third one, right? Hooray for logic!

Originally posted by bbarr
It's the third one, right? Hooray for logic!

You bet it is, whether you're counting from the top or bottom. Logic is the [doodoo].

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
From the Catholicism and Posthumous Miracles thread:

[quote]
If you are praying to P for healing you are asking P to talk to God on your behalf. You are believing that P is already in heaven and not in purgatory, and thus is able to converse with God. It is not unlike my going to ark13 and asking him to talk to his father about some matter that c ...[text shortened]... ve that such a God would not heal your cancer unless he was persuaded to by a deceased person?

Originally a miracle was postulated to occur because it demonstrated the validity of a doctrine. For example, in the book of Kings Elijah proves the God of Israel to be superior to the idols of the pagans through the use of a miracle. Jesus' prophetic nature is illustrated through his performance of miracles. Catholics will often identify a miracle as an affirmation of the legitimacy of a doctrine. Say a prominent supporter claimed that Limbo existed and then cured many people of cancer, that may be regarded as a validation of the theory of limbo.

In regards to Saints, I suspect that the Catholic position is that God performed said miracle to affirm P as a model of grace and someone worthy of veneration. God was not "persuaded" as such, but rather showing to person Q, say, that P is someone to reflect on through prayer through a miracle. I imagine that if such Q experienced no miracle then P could not be a saint.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
You bet it is, whether you're counting from the top or bottom. Logic is the [doodoo].

If question 2 is answered "no", then how can question 3 be answered "yes"? Question 3 accepts a "yes" answer to Q2 as a condition precedent (or whatever it's called when the format is "If X"😉.

Originally posted by no1marauder
If question 2 is answered "no", then how can question 3 be answered "yes"? Question 3 accepts a "yes" answer to Q2 as a condition precedent (or whatever it's called when the format is "If X"😉.

How did you ever pass the LSAT with such a poor grasp of elementary concepts in critical thinking? To affirm that an implication is true is to affirm that the truth of its consequent follows from the truth of its hypothetical. The implication is not false merely in virtue of its hypothetical being false. This is very basic stuff.

Here is a remedial example to help you ponder the issue.

Premise 1: It is not raining in Nigeria.
Premise 2: If it is raining in Nigeria, the ground is getting wet.

These may be consistently true premises. Premise 1 denies only the hypothetical clause of Premise 2; it does not deny Premise 2. Applying your analysis to this toy problem, you would have to conclude that it is in fact false that the ground gets wet when it rains in Nigeria.

Even if you did actually think your analysis was correct, why you would post it after two logical giants have already mocked the solution as being so obvious is beyond my comprehension. You had to have known you were in for a beatdown.