Prayer and the Sovereignty of God

By John D. Hannah

[John D. Hannah, Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.]

If God is sovereign, why should Christians pray? This is one of the perennial questions that inquiring Christian minds often reflect on or are naggingly troubled with. If God is sovereign, is not prayer a superfluous activity, or at best an exercise in meditation or some form of inspiring soliloquy? The question of the tension between solicitations to prayer and the presupposition of absolute sovereignty is but a harbinger of numerous other difficulties with the doctrine of prayer. Does prayer limit sovereignty? Does God change His mind? Is it possible that one’s will can prevail over God’s will? Is God obligated to answer prayer?

Prayer is so repeatedly commanded in the Scriptures that its necessity is unquestioned (e.g., 1 Tim 2:8); it is as manifestly evident as that of divine sovereignty. The initial step in resolving the apparent conflict is to define prayer. In the Reformed tradition prayer is viewed as an act of spiritual intercourse of the creature with the creator. According to Dabney, the brilliant Southern Presbyterian theologian, prayer is “the natural homage due from the creature to his heavenly Father.”[1] Charles Hodge states that prayer is “the converse of the soul with God.”[2] He further argues: “It is not therefore prayer as the mere uttering of words, nor prayer as the uttering of natural desires of affection, as when one prays for his own life or the life of those dear to him; but it is prayer as the real intercourse of the soul with God, by the Holy Ghost, that is, the Holy Ghost revealing truth, exciting feeling, and giving appropriate utterance.”[3] Calvin’s discussion of prayer is located in an unusual place in his systematic theology; he prefaces the treatment of election and predestination with a lengthy treatment of the nature and significance of prayer. To Calvin prayer is the vehicle of spiritual exercise whereby the promises of blessing and comfort seen faintingly by the eye of faith are actualized in sight.

To prayer, then, are we indebted for penetrating to those riches which are treasured up for us with our heavenly Father. For there is a kind of intercourse between God and men, by which, having entered the upper sanctuary, they appear before Him and appeal to his promises, that when necessity requires, they may learn by experience, that what they believed merely of the authority of His word was not in vain. Accordingly, we see that nothing is set before us as an object of expectation from the Lord which we are not enjoined to ask of Him in prayer, so true it is that prayer digs up those treasures which the Gospel of our Lord discovers to the eye of faith.[4]

Prayer can be delineated as an act of faith and worship whereby the precious promises of God are brought home to the mind of the believer. In a formal definition the Westminster Shorter Catechism states: “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies.”[5] Charles Hodge defines the action of prayer as that wherein “we manifest or express to Him our reverence, and love for his divine perfection, our gratitude for all his mercies, our penitence for our sins, our hope in his forgiving love, our submission to his authority, our confidence in his care, our desires of his favour, and for the providential and spiritual blessings needed for ourselves and others.”[6] Again Hodge discussed elsewhere the meaning of prayer in this way: It is not simply petition, but converse with God, including therefore, 1. The expression of our feelings in view of His greatness and glory, i.e., adoration. 2. The expression of our feelings in view of His goodness, i.e., thanksgiving. 3. The expression of our feelings in view of our sins and sinfulness, i.e., confession. 4. The expression of our feelings in view of our wants, i.e., supplication.[7]

As the Calvinist approaches the knotty problem of prayer and sovereignty, he does not conceive of them as opposites. Indeed, prayer is valid only when it is foundationed on the sovereignty of God. Prayer is primarily, though not exclusively, an act of communication through worship whereby the “treasures” of God’s promises come to the believer. Prayer is not so much the vehicle of benevolent acquisition as that of worship, adoration, and praise.

The Function of Prayer

While prayer is the subjective response of the rational creature to the benevolent deity, it must be asked, What is the purpose for which God instituted it? It is understood that believers are to pray because He ordered them in His infinite wisdom to do so, thus making prayer a wise function for man, but for what purpose did He leave these instructions? In the Reformed tradition prayer is conceived under the rubric of the “means of grace,” which are “those means which God has ordained for the end of communicating the life-giving and sanctifying influences of the Spirit to the souls of men.”[8] By this means, as well as the Word of God and the ordinances, the saint is drawn to God and matured in spiritual experience. Prayer is a means of the self-disclosure of the great condescending God whereby His creatures are permitted to gain insight and understanding of His ways. A. A. Hodge views prayer as an educational vehicle.

The great design of God in this relation is to effect our education and government as rational and spiritual beings. He accomplishes these ends by revealing to us His perfections, by training our intellects to follow the great lines of thought developed in His plans and revealed in His works, and by training us to action in the exercise of all our faculties as co-workers with each other and with Him in the execution of His plans.[9]

This prayer has been ordained of God as a means of “man’s receiving His spiritual influences.”[10] In what sense then is prayer a means of conveying God’s gracious influences to the soul? The answer is twofold: first, by changing the saint inwardly without changing the saint’s immediate circumstances, and second, by changing external circumstances.

Before delineating the two foci of prayer as a means of grace to the believer, a secondary yet important question should be raised regarding prayer. Does the believer obligate God to answer his requests if he sincerely, honestly, and selflessly pleads? If believers subscribe to the biblical conditions for answered prayer, are God’s promises that He will answer to be considered absolute? Charles Hodge answers this question rather bluntly.

A false doctrine has been deduced from these passages, viz.: that every specific request made with the assurance of its being granted, shall be granted. This cannot be true. 

1. Because it would be to submit the divine government to the erring wisdom of men. 

2. Because it would lead to undesirable or disastrous consequences. Men might pray for things which would be their own ruin and the ruin of others. 

3. It is contrary to all experience. 

4. It is contrary to the desire of every pious heart, as every Christian would rather that God’s will than his own should be done.[11]

Hodge concluded by affirming that the great promises of God do not apply to every case, but “assert the general course of providence. And this is enough for encouragement and direction.”[12]

Prayer and the Believer

Prayer, as a means of sanctifying grace, results in the alteration of the saint, that is, it effects his spiritual maturity. Calvin is eloquent in arguing that prayer changes the one who prays.

The necessity and utility of this exercise of prayer no words can sufficiently express. Assuredly it is not without cause our heavenly Father declares that our only safety is in calling upon his name, since by it we invoke the presence of his providence to watch over our interests, of his power to sustain us when weak and almost fainting, of his goodness to receive us into favor, though miserably loaded with sin, in fine, call upon him to manifest himself to us in all his perfections. Hence, admirable peace and tranquility are given to our consciences; for the straits by which we were pressed being laid before the Lord, we rest fully satisfied with the assurance that none of our evils are unknown to him, and that he is able and willing to make the best provisions for us.[13]

Dabney simply writes, “Prayer is not intended to produce a change in God, but in us.”[14] Calvin continues: “ It was not so much for His sake as for ours. He wills indeed, as is just, that due honour be paid Him by acknowledging that all which men desire or feel to be useful, and pray to obtain, is derived from Him. But even the benefit of the homage which we thus pay Him redounds to ourselves.”[15] To argue that prayer changes the one who prays is most likely not contested ground. It is readily apparent that people change as they spend time with God. But what about the thorny question about the kind of prayer designated as supplication or intercession?

Prayer and Circumstances

A second facet of prayer as a means of grace whereby the knowledge and worth of God is brought safely home to the saint’s experience is that of the providential alterations of circumstance. These, like the comforting of the believer’s soul and mind in the context of sorrow or humiliation, function to cause the believer to experience the reality of faith’s profession. In brief, the Calvinist would reply that God changes not only the invisible and internal, but also He most certainly changes the visible and external. A. A. Hodge confesses:

The Scriptures assure us, and all Christians believe, that prayer for material as well as for spiritual good is as real a means effecting the end sought as is sowing seed a means of getting a crop, or as is studying a means of getting learning, or as are praying and reading the Bible a means of sanctification. But it is a moral, not a physical, cause. Its efficiency consists in its power of affecting the mind of God and disposing Him to do for us what He would not do if we did not pray.[16]

The Reformed tradition argues strongly for the God of history, who sovereignly directs the course of all events. Similarly it is understood that the New Testament finds no conflict between the sovereignty of God and the effectual power of supplication by His people. Charles Hodge notes:

This Supreme Power is roused into action by prayer, in a way analogous to that in which the energies of a man are called into action by the entreaties of his fellow men. This is the doctrine of the Bible; it is perfectly consistent with reason, and is confirmed by the whole history of the world, and specially the Church. Moses by his prayer saved the Israelites from destruction; at the prayer of Samuel the army of the Philistines was dispersed…. This of course supposes that prayer is a power. Queen Mary of Scotland was not beside herself, when she said she found the prayers of John Knox more than an army.[17]

Thus Calvin’s conclusion at this point is entirely appropriate: “It is very absurd, therefore, to dissuade men from prayer, by pretending that Divine Providence, which is always watching over the government of the universe, is in vain importuned by our supplications, when, on the contrary, the Lord himself declares, that He is ‘nigh unto all that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth’ (Ps CXLV.18).”[18]

While the Calvinists extol, even celebrate, the power of prayer, it must not be conceived that the power of prayer is unlimited. It is not conceived as valid that Christians can do or receive anything by simply praying correctly. To bring the problem into a sharper focus, this question may be posed: Does prayer change God’s mind? Sproul writes, “When we are talking about God’s sovereignty, do we think for a moment that if there is a conflict of interests between the will of God and my will, that my will could possibly prevail?”[19] Prayer then functions as a moral not a physical stimulus to God; it is limited by the will of God, which always takes precedence over the will of His creatures. Sproul concludes, “You cannot manipulate God. You cannot manipulate Him by incantations, repetition, public utterances, or your own predictions. God is sovereign. So when you bring your requests to God he may say yes, and he may say no.”[20]

Thus prayer is viewed as an action of man wherein God has ordained to reveal Himself by internal and external comfort with the result that the one who prays is encouraged to deepen his walk with God. Prayer, like the Word of God and the ordinances, is a means of grace, that is, a vehicle by which God so condescends to the mind of the believer as to reveal His person. God’s intent in prayer is ultimately the strengthening of the saint and the extension thereby of His will on the earth.

The Tensions in Prayer

While it might safely be argued that prayer is a means of the believer’s sanctification, that it changes both the believer and the believer’s circumstances, the doctrine of prayer is not without difficulties related to the character of God. It may be granted that “He commands it because He has seen fit to ordain it as the appointed means for reception of His blessings,”[21] yet the finite mind is perplexed to answer some of the issues that can be raised. One argument emerges from the infinitude of God: it would appear inconsistent with His dignity to suppose that He concerns Himself with the trifling affairs of men. Hodge replies: “It assumes that his knowledge, power, or presence is limited; that He would be distracted if his attention were directed to all the minute changes constantly occurring throughout the universe. This supposes that God is a creature like ourselves, that bounds can be set to his intelligence or efficiency.”[22]

Does infinitude dispense with prayer? No; instead infinitude establishes prayer. Another argument of the same type deals with the relationship of God’s omniscience to prayer. If God is all-knowing, then why should believers inform Him? Calvin argues that Christians pray because it is a commanded means of grace.

But someone will say, 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. Those who argue thus attend not to the end for which the Lord taught us to pray. It was not so much for His sake as for ours.[23]

Thus these objections to pray are not so difficult that an immediate reply cannot be marshalled. But what about the problem which theologians call concurrence, the relationship between the ultimate providence of God and man’s desires and activities. While it can and should be argued that prayer is a wonderfully powerful instrument, that it changes outward circumstances and inward turmoil, what is the relationship of the prayers of the saints to the determinate counsel of God? What is the fundamental relationship between secondary and primary causality?

Prayer and the Fixity of Natural Law

In order to approach an intelligent consideration of the relationship of secondary cause (i.e., prayer) to primary actualization, it must be understood that God has sovereignly, and without conflict or incongruity, established both. A. A. Hodge writes:

In order to accomplish both these ends at once, the education of our thought and the training of our faculty by active exercise, God has established a comprehensive and unchangeable system of laws, of second causes working uniformly, of fixed consequences and established methods, by which he works, and by which he can train us to understand his working and to work with him. This careful adherence to the use of means, to the slow and circuitous operational second causes and established laws, is surely not for God’s sake. It cannot be necessary to Him. It is ordained and rigidly adhered to only for our sake.[24]

The argument has been raised that if God has constructed a machine which is so perfect and so completely His, then to modify that perfect machine (i.e., the natural laws) would be to break it. Therefore, prayer cannot be even a secondary cause for natural change because God’s creation cannot be altered even by Himself. To so argue would imply that God established such laws as to exclude Himself and His own purposes. Dabney is more specific when he writes:

Now only postulate that desire, prayer, and the answers to prayer are among these general laws, which as a complex whole, have been assigned to regulate nature, and the uniformity of nature only confirms the hoped answers to prayers. Has the philosopher explored all the ties of natural causation made by God? He does not pretend so. Then it may be that among the unexplored ties are some subtle and unexplained bonds which connect prayer with their answers as natural causes and effects.[25]

Does natural law govern the universe? Does God govern it by natural law? The answer to these questions must be that men err with the idea that law is a power, whereas it is simply the method of power.[26] A. A. Hodge concludes:

This great permanent framework of second causes and natural laws is, of course, incomparably more flexible in the hands of God than it can be in the hands of man. We know these laws partially and imperfectly: God acts upon them intemally. We act upon them at a few isolated points: God acts upon every point of the infinite system at the same time. Surely, therefore, while God can act through nature in a supernatural manner, He can also, like us, only infinitely more perfectly, act through nature and in accordance with natural law in accomplishing His purposes.[27]

Thus with regard to the accomplishment of God’s purpose through the agency of natural law, He not only wills an end but also the proper secondary causes productive of that effect. God does not violate natural law but natural law is not an immutable god; God alone, not His creation, is God. To effect an end God also ordains the proper arrangement of secondary causes (i.e., prayer).

Prayer and the Doctrine of Sovereignty

The relationship between divine sovereignty as primary cause and prayer as a secondary cause raises the tempo of the question of the relationship of causes. While one might agree that prayer is a divinely given constituent of natural law, it may be more difficult to conceive the direct relationship of absolute sovereignty to human petitioning. If God has absolutely decreed all that can and will come to pass to the smallest detail in the lives of every human being, does prayer change things? Or do believers pray because God has yet to determine His will for them? To state the issue theologically in the words of Turrettine, the famous professor of theology at the Academy of Geneva, “How can the concourse of God be reconciled with the contingency and liberty of second causes?”[28] Turrettine discusses the difficulty of this question.

The providence of God concurs with all second causes and especially with the human will, and yet its own contingency and liberty remain unimpaired. But how these two things can consist with each other no mortal can in this life perfectly understand. Nor should it seem wonderful since He has a thousand ways, to us incomprehensible, of concurring with our will, insinuating Himself into us, and turning our hearts, so that by acting freely what we will, we still do nothing besides the will and determination of God.[29]

One Calvinist who has most recently raised the issue of primary and secondary causality concludes with the answer, “I do not know! I have not a clue.”30 While this answer is blunt, it does speak to the inadequacy of finitude when confronted by infinitude. Dabney, however, adds these comments:

The familiar old answer applies here, that God’s decree embraces the means as much as the end. Whenever it was His eternal purpose that anyone should receive certain graces, it was His purpose equally that he should ask. In a word, these objections are just the same with those of the vulgar fatalists, who object that “what is to be will be,” therefore it is of no use to make any effort…. To be consistent, these rationalists who refuse to pray should also refuse to plow, to sow, to cultivate, to take medicine when sick, to watch against danger, etc.[31]

A. A. Hodge speaks to the same point.

Prayer is only one means appointed by God for attaining our ends. In order to educate us, He demands that we should use the means, or go without the ends which depend upon them. There are plenty of fools who make the transcendental nature of eternity and of the relation of the eternal life to God to the tome-life of man an excuse for neglecting prayer. But of all the many fools in the United States, there is not one absurd enough to make the same eternal decree an excuse for not chewing his food or for not voluntarily inflating his lungs.[32]

The Calvinist would argue for the truly effectual character of both primary and secondary causation, yet the exact relationship of the causative agencies is bluffed in the complexities of conceiving infinitude from the vantage point of finiteness. Turrettine argues:

God so concurs with second causes that although He previously moves and predetermines them by a motion, not general only, but also special, still He moves them according to their own nature, and does not take away from them their own proper mode of operating. The reason is because the decree of God is occupied not only about the determination of things which ought to be done, but also the means according to which they are to be, relatively to the nature and condition of each; so actual Providence, which is the execution of this decree, not only secures the infallible futurition of the thing decreed, but also its taking place in the very manner decreed, to wit, consentaneously with the nature of each, that is, necessary things take place necessarily, free and contingent things, however, freely and contingently.[33]

Conclusion

Thus prayer is understood as primarily a means of grace, a vehicle of progressive sanctification. Prayer is essentially an act of worship wherein homage is given to God alone through praise, adoration, confession, or request. The purpose of prayer, while it points alone to God as the source of all benevolences, is a help for the saint to strengthen Christian experience. Calvin argues that the action of prayer is a Christian necessity.

Wherefore, although it is true that while we are listless or insensible to our wretchedness, he wakes and watches for us, and sometimes even assists us unasked; it is very much for our interest to be constantly supplicating him: first, that our heart may always be inflamed with a serious and ardent desire of seeking, loving, and serving him, while we accustom ourselves to have recourse to him as a sacred anchor in every necessity; secondly, that no desire, no longing whatever, of which we are ashamed to make him the witness, may enter our minds, and thus pour out our heart before him; and, lastly, that we may be prepared to receive all his benefits with true gratitude and thanksgiving, while our prayers remind us that they proceed from his hand. Moreover, having obtained what we ask, being persuaded that he has answered our prayers, we are led to long more earnestly for his favour, and at the same time have greater pleasure in welcoming the blessings which we perceive to have been obtained by our prayers.[34]

Prayer then is not so much asking favors as it is a worshipful intercourse that includes request. The fruit of answered prayer is most importantly the deepening of one’s spiritual life. This is accomplished as God graciously quiets the turbulent saint without altering external circumstances, or as He changes the course of history, or as He does both. The end of prayer is not so much tangible answers as a deepening life of dependency and love that can come to the saint only through this means of grace. While the age in which the evangelical church finds its current place in history is both materialistic and narcissistic, it would be a mistake to conceive of prayer in such a denigrating fashion. The call to prayer is a call primarily to love, submission, and obedience; it is a call to God who entreats the believer to a life of adoration.

While prayer has paradoxes, it should not drive the believer to uncertainty. It is because God is absolutely sovereign that the believer for his own sake must heed God’s invitation to bring his petitions and praises to Him. Not only does God invite the child of God to His presence in prayer; He also has provided a Mediator who constantly carries the believer’s weak, stuttering petitions to His throne of grace (Heb 7:25). Furthermore, with the invitation comes the assistance of God’s Spirit, who knows the secret counsels of the Father and who aids the saint in prayer (Rom 8:26–27). While the relationship of prayer to the sovereignty of God cannot be fully comprehended by the finite mind, prayer can assuredly be enjoyed by the saint as the avenue of sweet, intimate, and intense fellowship of the soul with the infinite Creator.

Notes

1. Robert L. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology (1878; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972), p. 715.
2. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975), 3:692.
3. Charles Hodge, Princeton Sermons (1879; reprint ed., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1979), p. 292.
4. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveredge, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), III.20, p. 146.
5. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1966), 3:698.
6. Hodge, Systematic Theology, p. 708.
7. Hodge, Princeton Sermons, p. 291.
8. Hodge, Systematic Theology, p. 708.
9. A. A. Hodge, Evangelical Theology: A Course of Popular Lectures, (1890; reprint ed., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), p. 85.
10. Dabney, Lectures, p. 716.
11. Hodge, Princeton Sermons, p. 294.
12. Ibid., p. 295.
13. Calvin, Institutes, III.20, pp. 146-47.
14. Dabney, Lectures, p. 716.
15. Calvin, Institutes, III.20, p. 147.
16. A. A. Hodge, Evangelical Theology, p. 91.
17. Hodge, Systematic Theology, p. 709.
18. Calvin, Institutes, III.20; p. 148.
19. Robert C. Sproul, “Does Prayer Change Things?” Tenth: An Evangelical Quarterly 6 (July 1976): 53.
20. Ibid., p. 55.
21. Dabney, Lectures, p. 717.
22. Hodge, Systematic Theology, p. 700.
23. Calvin, Institutes, III.20, p. 147.
24. A. A. Hodge, Evangelical Theology, p. 85.
25. Dabney, Lectures, p. 719.
26. Ibid.
27. A. A. Hodge, Evangelical Theology, p. 88.
28. Francois Turrettine, “Institutio Theologiae Elencticae,” trans. George Musgrave Ginger, typewritten manuscript (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Theological Seminary, n.d.), p. 175.
29. Ibid.
30. Sproul, “Does Prayer Change Things?” p. 58.
31. Dabney, Lectures, p. 718.
32. A. A. Hodge, Evangelical Theology, p. 93.
33. Turrettine, “Institutio Theologiae Elencticae,” p. 177.
34. Calvin, Institutes, III.20, p. 147.