Saturday, August 30, 2008
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Question of the Day: Does Praying for Someone to Love Us Compromise Their Free Will?
from revelifecrew
A revelifer messaged us with the following question and would like your input...
I believe that God created man with free will to choose to love Him or not. Because if you make something with the ability to only love, it isn’t a choice...and it isn’t really love.
My question is this: I hear people often praying about God to deliver them a spouse, and at times I have prayed for this too... But how does that work? Does it compromise our free will?
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Comments (45)
I don't think it does because I'm sure God would send us someone who he thought he were meant to be with. Why would free will matter if you are with someone who is perfect for you? Besides, if it turns out you really do not like the person, God is not forcing you to stay in the relationship. You can always end it if that's what you want.
No way! We pray for God's will to be done, that He will lead us and lead the right person to the right places at the right times. We're not praying for God to force someone to love us, but to bring us together with the person he's made on purpose to love us and to be loved by us.
People always have free will. Praying for God to place in our path the people he wants in our life does not take away anyone's free will. Praying for someone specific to love us does not, either - because it doesn't work.
If I say to my coworker, "Hey, could you ask Jim to give me those documents he was working on"... does this compromise Jim's free will? Of course not! Jim is certainly still free to refuse to give me the documents if he doesn't want to.
Thus, if Jim gives me the documents, he can say, "I freely gave Eric those documents because he asked me to." My request brought about his free action.
nah ... if we're praying for God's will in our lives regarding a spouse then they will most likely be ready when he let's us meet. or something like that.
There is the saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." I think we are similar cases, and that God leads people on the path of his will, but never forces them into it. For example, your question. You pray for a spouse, offering to God your desire, which is exactly what God wants you to do, to come to him for your every need and desire. When surrender to his will, whether or not it aligns with your desire, accompanies such a prayer, there is a freedom within oneself to accept the outcome with grace and love of God (very important!). There is certainly no compromise of free will here, for it is only when we surrender our will in exchange for his own that we truly have freedom.
Now what about the free will of this spouse that you want God to give you? Will he hypnotize someone into falling in love with you? Nope. Like my earlier quote, "... you can't make it drink." Jesus Christ is the good shepherd, leading us on the path of God's will so that we can choose to drink "from the stream by the wayside," or even "the restful waters." If it is God's will that a woman be married, for example, he will lead a man to her, and the great hope of the woman and I think the hope of God is that the man will be open to loving the amazing gift God puts before him. God will never, ever compromise our free will; he's God and he will work with it, through it and maybe even around it, but never in disregard of it. He loves us too much!
I pray God would give me wisdom and insight in seeking out friendships... and if there is someone who sparks my interest I pray God would be alongside me in those decisions - but I agree with the delima - when we are seeking God's will, it would seem we are giving up own. I believe God's will is usually more general and only at times specific. Sometimes I think God has that one person for us(me) but that we must be on the journey to find that person, other times I think that we make the choice freely and hopefully seek God's guidance and wisdom in choosing someone who fits us and challenges us. Lately, I am leaning towards the second and away from the first.
I think it is first and foremost important to define what it is you mean by "free will".
I like the way Jonathan Edwards defined free will: "that by which the mind chooses anything."
we have a tendency to think of the will as that thing in us that makes choices but rather it is in reality, our mind making choices based on what we think is best.
yes.
in Wicca, all spells and rituals designed to create/cause love in a specific person are considered "black" because it is essentially a control spell. i don't see why a prayer to make that cute guy in class infatuated with you would be any different.
@Doubledb@xanga - You slightly hit on what I was thinking when you said, "Sometimes I think God has that one person for us(me) but that we must be on the journey to find that person..." My only caveat is that I don't believe that God only has ONE person for us to choose from in this life; but that several persons might be chosen from as wonderful mates. Once you choose, all others become Mr. or Ms Wrong, though.
Here's my point: When I pray for anything, sometimes that very act of prayer has me begin to prepare for the answer (of one kind or another). If I pray for a loving spouse, then I am hopefully going to be opening myself up to becoming more like the spouse that that partner would appreciate and enjoy. So, my prayer usually prompts myself more than it does God, I believe.
Other times, I figure it works as @Pass_the_Aura@xanga - said. Not a breach of freewill; but an operative mode of that expression of free will.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - it works differently because Christianity is very different from wicca.
@IMChurchmouse@xanga - how? the intent is all that matters. the method is pretty much irrelevant. besides, i would think a Christian above all others wouldn't be interested in manipulating someone for their own benefit.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - I guess because of the expectancy of the delivery method. Wicca, in the way that I understand you've expressed it, expects a response to a particular request as a yes or no, by following a formula that is expected to work if the formula is followed rightly. There is no further relationship between your request and your object of worship.
With God, He works outside of any box or formula I can construct. His yeses are without limit, but perhaps not without requirements - and probably with many surprises! His first requirement is that the object of our affection not be in any way a substitute for Him. The Creator is always going to be more dynamic, winsome and loving than the Created. Often the process of our relational activity will ensure we have a better understanding of the differences; so that we don't put pressure on our beloved to be God for us. Sometimes, God has that demonstrated for us along the way as that relationship moves along, too.
@IMChurchmouse@xanga - I suppose I try to fight the urge to always over-spirtualize every single decision and choice. I believe God should be the center of our life... but the problem is when say a guy thinks he has found the one girl and then she does not. Who was wrong? The guy, the girl, both, time? Was it God's will for the guy be rejected (or the girl if it is switched)? Maybe? Is it God's will that that friendship has like a 99.9% chance of dying because of the situation? Who knows? Certianly, once people are married they could say in retrospect it was God's will - but before and during the process, I think it can be dificult, strange, or even awkward to claim such things... Does that make sense?
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - also, your example was of someone specific, and the question implied just an open request rather than one aimed at a person of interest. There's another difference.
However (thinking a bit more), I still think it's ok for me to pray about that cute guy I've met, and even ask if he is possible spouse material. I just have to be more surrendered to the possibility that God - knowing all the baggage that both that guy and I have and hold dear - will wisely keep that from happening for our own good!
@IMChurchmouse@xanga - well, that type of contract can be seen in Christianity, too. even God's grace has requirements... and if they aren't met, we don't receive His grace.
i should also point out that spells meant to attract love in general (not create it in a specific person) are considered acceptable. but in my opinion, a focus on an individual implies that you know best... why else would you pray to God for someone to love you, if you didn't think they'd be better off with you? and that's quite a bit of arrogance.
@Doubledb@xanga - it does make sense =). The journey through an adventure always has puzzles to solve, doesn't it? I find that the work of solving the different puzzles teaches me things I wasn't understanding before I began the problem solving.
For example: When I date different guys, even if the ones I am most smitten with end up not being interested, I have still gained something positive from them - as long as no abuse has occurred. The worst date experience I had was where some guy got waaay to physical and didn't listen to "no". I left him where he was. We were in public, so he couldn't chase after me and I drove from that restaurant to a store to shop for two hours (Christmas shopping is lengthy) so that I could be certain that he didn't follow me home. I let my voice mail handle his follow up phone calls and they finally ceased after he got the point that I had all I wanted from what he offered.
The positive? I had good coping mechanisms in place - so I could be pleased that I was not a victim. Plus, I had to admit he made me understand that he found me desirable
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It's not compromising their free will. Praying that a specific person will love you is compromising their free will. Praying for a spouse is asking God to put you in the right place at the right time. At least that's how it works in my religion, and I think the concept applies to the Christian religion, too.
For instance, when you pray for a spouse, perhaps you might get the urge to go to a party you might not have gone to, or go to the grocery store on a different day and you run into someone and hit it off. God doesn't magically make the person love you, he just brings you and someone you might like into a good place to meet each other. If you pray that a specific person will love you, you are attempting to exert your will over that person. And if they do end up loving you, you don't know if they would have fallen for you on their own accord.
The first paragraph of the question "I believe that God..." implies that the person asking is asking within the Wesleyan/Arminian theological tradition. That's cool, because that's that tradition from which I answer. So that works.
To the actual question, though, I think we have to wonder how exactly a wise God goes about answering it. You can play metaphysics, like @IMChurchmouse@xanga, and say that God has several viable predestined options, and that once we freely choose among our predestined choices, God reroutes fate so that the others are no longer predestined (or no longer The Right One for us). I've invented similar theories, and much more outlandish ones (including the possibility that a potentially infinite number of worlds exist, one for each choice every person may make in a particular instant, and that only the world that actually comes about continues existing, because God only pays attention to the potential and the actual, not the could-have-been: it was a long night with friends) in the interest of trying to explain both free will and God's sovereignty.
Now, however, I'm arriving more and more closely to an open theist view (see Is God To Blame? by Gregory Boyd), and what I believe is this: God wants us to be happy within the relationships we choose, including our romantic ones. God also wants us those relationships to be healthy ones, and God-glorifying ones; ones with the Kingdom as their focus and base. So long as that is possible with 85 of the 220 girls at my Bible college; or 3 of the 23 girls I work with, those are the ones who are "right" for me. God doesn't particularly care which girl I pick, so long as it is a happy, healthy, God-glorifying marriage in the end.
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But that's far afield of the original question. What does God do in answering a general prayer for a companion/spouse/etc.? Does God prompt the people around me to feel a certain way? Does God make me subtly more attractive to the ladies in my life? (Remember, I don't think it's an option for God to merely direct Miss-so-and-so into going to my college, because she was the one picked out for me in advance.)
I think it's more likely that God will answer my prayer the hard way. God will bring me a spouse by making me more and more into a person like Christ, a person more and more attractive to the kind of woman who will have a happy, healthy and God-glorifying marriage. God isn't overrunning anyone's free will, except what I'm freely giving away in choosing to follow Christ.
Long and rambling, yeah, but that's my thoughts.
-NDSR
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - Hmmm God's requirement for grace (to accept it) is for our salvation process. The rest is just teaching us who He created us to be, which is very different from that.
@IMChurchmouse@xanga - agreed, but that's still a contract. not sure if the same can be said of Wicca, but in the ancient religions the practitioners believed that the god(s) had to fulfill their side of the bargain if the individual did everything correctly. if the deity fell through on the promise, it was either because the individual didn't do something right....... or the god was just plain mean.
the same could easily be said of the Christian requirements for salvation. regardless of what an individual believes, official doctrine calls for a lot more than just acceptance.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - actually, official doctrine doesn't require more. The Bible is the source of that official doctrine, and no church or person can be more authoritative than God's Word. Here's what it says:
Eph 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
Eph 2:9 not by works [not by anything we do to earn it - my insertion], so that no one can boast.
@IMChurchmouse@xanga - the definition of doctrine encompasses all beliefs and standards within a religion, including what may or may not be supported by religious text. for many Christians, rituals such as baptism, the Eucharist or confession are just as important as acceptance.
It absolutely does. If you read what God says about marriage in I Cor., he totally allows for freewill.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - at that point, you are trying to appease people and their organizations as if they are God. You'll always fail at that, because the bar always goes higher (even mine will - as I blush to admit it). That was a lot of Jesus' arguments with the most prominent and most admired religious leaders of his day - the Pharisees.
My humble advice (though you didn't ask me for it): I'd avoid trying to please anyone else other than God. And when they walk away after they are done telling me what THEY want me to do...I stick my tongue out at their backs (giggle).