An atheist's argument against prayer; Unanswered prayers prove that prayer is false hope for the masses
Evil is not the end but only the penultimate, God is our end and this means we can have faith and hope in Him despite unanswered prayers
Prayer is part of Christian life. There are various types of prayer and different ways of expressing prayer. We also see prayer differently as Catholic or Protestant, different views on prayer. Many Catholics will recite prayers vocally such as the Our Father, the Apostles Creed and the Hail Mary as their form of prayer. The protestants pray as well for the same things as Catholics such as health, healing and other petitions. Usually the protestant does a more free flowing prayer that almost always starts with the words “Father God…” and ends with “in Jesus’ name we pray.” There are other forms of prayer as well such as intercessory prayer, prayers of adoration and blessing, prayer of thanksgiving, prayers of praise, and prayers of petition. There are different expressions of prayer which include vocal, meditative and contemplative. We won’t cover all these since this rebuttal to the question “why pray?” will focus mainly on the prayer of petition because that is the only prayer that atheists think we pray. They don’t understand what prayer is or why we do it. Besides not realizing there are other forms of prayer and different ways to express prayer they like to point out that not all prayers are answered. Yes, our prayers do go unanswered at times and despite our best efforts the opposite of what we asked for can happen. I pray for my team to win but sometimes the other team wins. Sometimes we pray for things and nothing goes according to plan. So, the question becomes does prayer do anything if our prayers go unanswered or if the result of praying is different from what we asked?
I recently saw a Tik Tok video by atheist and creator Eve WasFramed where she laments a Christian Tik Tok trend about the song “My God did not fail me.” In this song, Evangelicals share their testimony and claim their God is powerful and answers their prayers. Their God didn’t fail them, they say. Eve WasFramed claims that God doesn’t always answer our prayers and that He doesn’t always cure, heal or save those who call on Him. She also claims that when Evangelicals claim their God didn’t fail them they fail to take into account all the times God didn’t answer prayer; that Evangelicals are blind to reality. This sort of false belief, that prayer is effective, is “a carrot on a stick for those in need,” she says. According to Eve, Evangelical Christians falsely promise hope to those in need but in reality many people have their prayers unheard and unanswered. People die of cancer even if their loved ones prayed for healing. People die in accidents even if we pray for their protection. Disaster strikes, wars continue and in the end our prayers really aren’t answered by God. Some of us make it through, some of us don’t. Eve continues to state that the privileged will have their prayers answered more readily than the poor because the privileged have the means to get help whether it be freedom from addiction or medical care. These arguments by Eve WasFramed seem to make sense at first glance. Sometimes it does seem that prayer is not effective and if we are not careful, we lose hope.
If what she says is correct then there really is no need for prayer. But what is prayer? We have some misconceptions about prayer such as that prayer is merely a psychological endeavor. It is something we do to fill the void. Some might see prayer as incompatible with science and the material world. When we experience failure in prayer we also think there is no point to doing it. These obstacles beg the question: “what good does it do to pray” (Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), paragraph 2728)?Unanswered prayers are “scandalous” to us because they make us doubt the reality that prayer is a conversation with God and that He will answer our prayers. We experience another sort of scandal due to unanswered prayers because people like Eve WasFramed use this argument to evangelize atheism and draw people away from their faith. Eve WasFramed says she too was an evangelical Christian for twenty-five years until she learned the truth: there is no God. She proves this through unanswered prayers. In a series on prayer in 2021, Pope Francis agrees and sympathizes that unanswered prayers do cause scandal and make us wonder if there is any use to it at all.
There is a radical objection to prayer which derives from an observation that we all make: we pray, we ask, and yet sometimes our prayers seem to go unheard: what we have asked for—for ourselves or for others—is not fulfilled. We have this experience very often… If the reason for which we prayed was noble (such as intercession for the health of a sick person, or for the end of a war, for instance), the non-fulfillment seems scandalous. For example, for wars: We are praying for wars to end, these wars in so many parts of the world. Think of Yemen, think of Syria, countries that have been at war for years, for years, ravaged by wars, and we pray, but they do not come to an end. But how can this be?
“Some even stop praying because they think their petition is not heard” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2734). But if God is Father, why does He not listen to us? He who has assured us that He gives good things to the children who ask Him for them (cf. Mt 7:10), why does He not respond to our requests? We all have experience of this: we have prayed, prayed, for the illness of a friend, of a father, of a mother, and so it went. But God did not grant our request! It is an experience we have all had. Pope Francis, “Why does it seem like God doesn’t answer our prayers sometimes?” May 26, 2021
Pope Francis says “some even stop praying because they think their petition is not heard” and that seems to be the goal of Eve WasFramed. She wants to draw people away from their faith because it is the opiate of the masses, it goes against science and it doesn’t actually do anything. But, if there is a God, and we can pray to Him and our prayers can be answered then there must be an explanation as to why our prayers go unanswered.
As Father Puech says below perhaps our prayer goes unanswered due to lack of faith.
Perhaps our petition was not granted, because we did not have enough faith. Jesus demanded faith from those who were asking a miracle from him, the father of the epileptic demoniac, for example. "If you can believe," Jesus said, "everything is possible for anyone who has faith" (Mt. 13,58).
When he visited his home town, Nazareth, "he did not work many miracles there, because of their lack of faith" (Mt. 13,58). “Unanswered Prayer” by FR. LEONARD M. PUECH, O.F.M.
Perhaps it isn’t God’s will. We consider the Our Father. We pray “thy will be done.” Do we see God as our Father or as our genie in a bottle? Do we serve Him or does He serve us? Our prayers may seem unanswered but they also might just be delayed or an unanswered prayer might bring God’s will in an unforeseen way. An unanswered prayer might also build our faith or maybe just test it. But we don’t lose faith because all our prayers aren’t answered the way we want them to be answered. We can also consider that if prayers were answered all the time we could have whatever we want and of course two opposing teams can’t both win the same game. As I said before, I pray for a win all the time and sometimes I get a loss instead. But how can two people both have their prayers answered if they prayer for opposites? By default, one person’s prayer will go unanswered.
Perhaps an unanswered prayer isn’t the end even if it seems to be.
Remember this as well. Evil is never the lord of the last day, no: the penultimate, the moment when the night is darkest, just before the dawn.
Then, on the penultimate day, there is temptation, when the devil makes us think he has won: “Have you seen? I have won!” The evil one is the lord of the penultimate day: on the last is the Resurrection. But the evil one is never lord of the last day: God is the Lord of the last day. Because that belongs to God alone, and it is the day when all human longings for salvation will be fulfilled. Pope Francis May 26, 2021
When we pray prayers of petition and ask for something we remember that God does not serve us; that He is not a magician; that others have free will and God will not take that away. We remember that we must be persistent and have faith. That a delay in an answer means we must remain hopeful and faithful that God will answer our prayer in time. The sources of prayer are the Liturgy, the bible and the virtues of faith, hope and love (CCC 2661). With the word of God we read about God’s love for us and we answer with our prayers of thanksgiving. We pray for answers and we hear the answers that speak to us through the bible (CCC 2653-4). As we grow we also learn to pray for God’s will because we understand His will better and as we better understand, we pray is what He would want. An example of prayer that may go unanswered is prayer for the self e.g. “God, make me rich!”. However, when we pray for others in ways that is good for them, such as “God, please help this family.” we may see our prayers answered more readily.
Prayer is a struggle. We already have many things going against us. The catechism says lack of faith and laziness (or acedia) are two of those things. We have the temptations of the world drawing our attention away. We have distractions. We also have dryness which is when we feel nothing. That is when you know you are doing well because now you are continuing to pray in faith and you are building strength. When we contemplate God who became man we focus on what is really important and that is we are loved and our God will not fail us despite perceived unanswered prayers. We know this because evil is not the end but the penultimate.
We have enough struggles, we don’t need yet another atheist telling us not to believe. The world does that enough for us.