A Critical Examination of the Efficacy of Petitionary Prayer Based on the Theory of God’s Moral Obligation; With Emphasis on the Views of Jerome Gellman and Scott Hill

Document Type : Original Research

Authors
Amir Rastin Toroghi 1
Vahideh Fakhar Noghani 2
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theosophy, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.
2 Associate Professor, Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.
10.30497/prr.2025.246357.1919
Abstract
The attribute of God’s omnibenevolence has led some philosophers of religion to question the efficacy of petitionary prayer. According to these critics, if God is perfectly good, God’s decision about whether to bring about or refrain from bringing about a certain state of affairs must depend solely on the intrinsic goodness and overall value of that state of affairs, rather than on human petitions. Consequently, petitionary prayer would appear to lack any real efficacy. The approach of “God’s moral obligation toward human requests” seeks to explain the effectiveness of prayer by appealing to a kind of moral responsibility that arises in God in response to human expressions of need and supplication. This study first outlines the challenge to the efficacy of petitionary prayer posed by the doctrine of God’s omnibenevolence and then examines the foundations of the divine moral obligation approach, focusing on the views of Jerome Gellman and Scott Hill. Explaining the efficacy of petitionary prayer through the notion of God’s moral obligation has certain merits: it highlights the ethical dimension of prayer and accords with several key features found in religious traditions - such as God’s invitation to pray, His promise to answer, and the existence of specific conditions for the fulfillment of prayers. However, unless the concept of “God’s moral obligation” is interpreted in a way consistent with God’s absolute self-sufficiency, and the idea of “the desert of answered prayer” is understood in light of human dependence and poverty before God, this approach risks conflicting with the essential nature of prayer as an expression of servitude and humility before Him.
Keywords
petitionary prayer
moral problem of prayer
moral obligations
Jerome Gellman
Scott Hill
Subjects
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