drunelin

Q3a. How can a wrong understanding of determinism and predestination keep us from the kind of gutsy prayer that Moses prayed? If we think that everything is predetermined then there is no need to pray. We simply need to keep waking up every morning and life will play out like it is supposed to. Q3b. What do you call a belief that our prayers make no difference to God's response? Lack of faith. We are told repeatedly to pray and that if we believe it will happen, then it will happen p/s I don't know if this will help anyone else come to grips with pre-determinism, fore-knowledge and free will, but the closest thing I can think of (in human terms) is chess. If a master chess-player can foresee his opponents available moves and his own available moves up to 3 or 4 or more steps ahead, I'm sure our omnipotent and omniscient God can foresee all the available moves of all mankind through until the end of time. There is one big plan for overcoming evil and redeeming mankind, just as a chess player has one big goal towards victory over his opponent. There are laws of the universe (science if you will) that governs all living and non-living things, as there are rules to the moves chess pieces can make. Sure the moves we humans can make are infinite (to our human minds), but to God, infinite possibilities are nothing. So we are free to move, to sin, to obey, to live, to love and most importantly to pray and ask for intersession, as we see fit, but in His infinite understanding, God can still make his plan work around all the infinite choices that all human kind makes.

Q3. Why do we seek to be independent of asking anyone for help? I've read many great answers to this and I guess pride (don't want to appear weak, think we can do it on our own, don't want to be embarrassed that we've failed etc.) is foremost. 2nd is that people have let us down in the past so we seek to be independent out of "necessity". We just don't trust others. Why do we seek to be independent of God? I wanted to reply to this because I felt that I could contribute an addition perspective from my own struggles: I think sometimes I seek to be independent of God so that I can say to myself that I don't need God. That because I can do it on my own (without his help), I am also free to disobey his commands and disregard what he wills for my life. Choosing to believe that we are NOT dependent on God is a slippery slope leading to self-pride, leading to us exercising our freewill without first asking what does God say about this situation, what is God's will for this situation. Why should we ask God to "give" us daily bread so long as we can earn a living for ourselves? So that we remember that everything we have is God's providence and so that we are constantly reminded to seek God and God's will first before we take any action. Because when we turn away from God, even if we think it's because we don't want to "bother" him for something so small, we may turn away from Him in the bigger things in our lives.