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Partnership with God: a partial solution to the problem of petitionary prayer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2010

NICHOLAS D. SMITH  and
ANDREW C. YIP
NICHOLAS D. SMITH*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon97219
ANDREW C. YIP*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon97219
*
e-mail: ndsmith@lclark.edu
e-mail: ayip@lclark.edu
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Abstract

Why would God make us ask for some good He might supply, and why would it be right for God to withhold that good unless and until we asked for it? We explain why present defences of petitionary prayer are insufficient, but argue that a world in which God makes us ask for some goods and then supplies them in response to our petitions adds value to the world that would not be available in worlds in which God simply supplied such goods without our asking for them. This added value, we argue, is what we call ‘partnership with God’.

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Type
Articles
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Religious Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 395 - 410
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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