I ask the believer: pray to your deity to perform for me, for the unbeliever, an action. Pray for such an action as will eliminate the majority of my doubts. Or to be more specific, pray for this action, in this detail: that I am quickly transported to some remote planet, where I can yet breathe and sustain as I am here; that I am then met by one hundred ravens, who speak my language and with them, I converse for a while; that I am then taken back to this planet, and this spot.
The believer speaks, “Your proposed miracle is absurd and frivolous.”
“What miracle? I have only spoken of actions that do not seem to break any known natural law. Is such an action miraculous? I thought miracles were actions that broke natural law. I assume, of course, such a thing called ‘natural law,’ and furthermore, that if such a thing or things exist, in a still indefinite sense of ‘exist,’ that I know of every one of them.”
“Somewhere in your suggestion a physical law is violated. But for the sake of your argument, let us posit that you are asking me to pray for a miracle. In that event, I should tell you that God does not operate in that manner.”
“In what manner?”
“God grants miracles according to His will and His plan; he is not a personal magician, nor are his miracles without a function—ultimately, the function of salvation; moral and historical purposes are included.”
“What of my salvation? Is there a miracle for my salvation—a miracle fashioned to that end?”
“Yes, and…”
“No, I should not hear of its content!”
“What do you mean by this?”
“Either I recognize the miracle, or I do not. Correct?”
“To what span of time do you refer? You may not recognize it in this year, but recognize it in the following year.”
“Alright, I will refer to two separate time situations. First: at the moment the miracle is performed. Second: all time thereafter. My earlier either/or condition applies to both. Correct?”
“I assent, but feel unsure of it.”
“Can you articulate your reservation?”
“Not at the moment.”
“If it comes to you later, we can return to these premises. However, returning to prior things: if I recognize the miracle when it is performed, then will I be saved? Or at any other time: if I recognize the miracle at all, will I be saved?”
“It is not guaranteed; it is your choice at that point of recognition.”
“What would hold me back? If I truly 'recognize' the miracle, which I take to mean, 'I acknowledge and believe it is a non-natural action of your deity,' then what reasonable grounds would I have to refuse the conclusion? Or, perhaps, there is sufficient leverage in the demonstration whereby it may be explained otherwise, and so one might reject a theological explanation. And if this is the case, then is the miracle sufficient for my salvation?”
“Define ‘sufficient’ in your usage; or better, conceive of such a ‘sufficient’ miracle.”
“Yes, I played loosely with that term. Let me instead substitute that word with this condition: an event that guarantees my belief in your deity, without abrogating my free will. Now, first things first: I could ask: ‘What is free will?’ Or: ‘What restriction, moral or otherwise, applies to your deity, such that your deity cannot save me contrary to my free will?’ And other implicit queries stir in these waters. Nonetheless, since your convention requires ‘free will,’ and since I think it most entertaining to rupture convention from within—that is, having a thing defeat itself—I will keep ‘free will’ in my condition.”
“I too am savvy enough to keep ‘free will’ in a provisional column. However, I will indulge your condition. Such an event, or miracle, assuming that it is coherent, and assuming thereafter that it can occur, is not within my human power to deliver.”
“Is it in your human power to pray? And when you pray, is it within your human power to pray for this?”
“Yes to both of your questions, but it is within my conscience to refrain. Jesus commands that you should not test God.”
“Then what is prayer? You pray for the protection of friends, the safety of your snacks, the smoothness of your road trips. Are you not testing your deity? Are you not petitioning for the abrogation of the course of natural law, by petitioning for extra-natural intercession?”
“Those are not tests; they are not demands for proof, upon which God’s existence is to be accepted or rejected. Rather, they are comparable to requests. I do not ask for these favors with the intention of disproving God, as your request does—and so your request is a test.”
“Quite, that is why I asked you to petition on my behalf. If I make the request, it is a test. If you make the request for me, you are merely requesting a favor without the ‘intention of disproving God.’ I wonder though: will your deity refuse your request on account of my intentions?”
“I would imagine that such a spiritual round-robin would say something of my intentions; namely, that my intentions are petty or profane. On this possibility my conscience gets snagged.”
“Your intention is for my salvation.”
“That is what I may humor myself with, but is it really so? And another concern I have is that you must pray for yourself—that I am in no special position to ‘deal out’ miracles, as it were.”
“First, and again, you request safety for your friends and family. You request healing for the ill and injured. Why not request something arguably more important: the salvation of a fellow sinner?”
“I do, but you are asking for something unusually specific.”
“You would rather pray for my salvation in the general?”
“Perhaps, yes. The more general, the less narrow. The less narrow, the more opportunities for salvation. You would have me petition for only one shot at salvation, whereas I should prefer innumerable chances. Even more, I should prefer to leave that process to God.”
“Are you saying that if you pray for this one very important thing at this one time in this one specific way, that you are taking your deity’s power away from it? Or that you are prematurely stopping all the many other opportunities your deity will provide for my salvation? The first is impossible. The second is, if we are to maintain in your doctrines, implausible. Why is it implausible? If someone else were to pray that you see the Virgin Mary in your shoes and thereby accept the truth of the deity, would this curtail all your future opportunities at salvation? Such a conclusion seems misplaced in your system.”
“What becomes of the man who prayed for my salvation in that foolish manner?”
“Are you more interested in your salvation, than the salvation of others? ‘What greater love is there than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends?’ Here is one suggestion: that a man lay down his immortal soul for his friends. Or better: that a man lay down his immortal soul for his enemies.”
“Do you mean: eternal damnation of one’s soul in order to procure eternal life for the soul of one’s enemy?”
“Precisely. Is there any greater love than this?”
“The love of God.”
“Your deity has nothing to lose.”
“Should we get back to the main point, or change the subject?”
“Alright, the main point: you fear praying for my salvation by these terms. You feel something is amiss in such a prayer; as if you were forcing the holy hand of your deity into an unholy pocket.”
“Yes.”
“Why not simply make a genuine effort? Why not simply try?”
“That is your problem: I do not feel genuine in asking for such absurd actions. Your miracle would not come because my heart was not in the prayer. It would be a sham—a sham of the most irreligious sort.”
“Are you implying that, if your heart were into such a prayer, then your deity would become my ‘personal magician’?”
“Not your personal magician—your savior.”
“The dividing line is thin nowadays. Jesus improved my health. Jesus helped me get this promotion. Jesus prevented me from getting into that car crash. These are personal actions.”
“Magic is trickery; it is not real. Moreover, magic cannot do some of these things.”
“Where magic cannot do these things, natural reality can. But, obviously, that should not be our first answer.”
“Facetious unbelief. You are an entertaining man. I do pray for your salvation.”
“Hold on. Stop that. If you pray for my salvation you are not leaving ‘that process to God.’ And worse, you are giving me ‘only one shot at salvation.’ Are you punishing me for my joke?”
“I am requesting God for a successful process, and to provide you with innumerable shots.”
“Will you change your deity’s mind, or by requesting that I be saved, make it redouble its efforts?”
“I have heard this kind of contention before. It goes something like, ‘If God is perfect, then why pray for him to do something differently?’ Here is my response: God takes into account your request. That is, his plan includes your request. Being outside of time, God’s plan integrates your prayers.”
“If I do not pray to your deity, will its plan be the less perfect?”
“No, but your life will the less fulfilling.”
“That does not sound like the effects of a perfect plan.”
“We human beings do not know God’s perfect plan; how could we know the effects?”
“How could you know if your prayer, therefore, contributes to these effects?”
“God promises such.”
“What if that promise is false? What if your deity permitted this false promise to be circulated amongst men? It might be part of your deity’s master plan.”
“God does not lie.”
“Ah, but men do. And men can prevaricate on the subject of theology; or worse, misunderstand and champion error. Think of all those adherents of all your ‘false’ religions. The theistic ones might as well defer to your kind of defense when championing some article of their faith. ‘Allah promised mankind X, and Allah does not lie.’ Does this seem reasonable to you. Is there not something viciously self-contained and circular in this premise?”
“There are other evidences that the God of the Bible is the true God. There is the well-documented account of the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. There are the biblical prophecies that were realized. Etc. Etc.”
“I must conserve one of your beliefs for you: the unknown perfect plan of God. What if this bible is full of error, that its characters fiction, yet your deity, in accordance with some unknown feature of its unknown schedule, made it seem manifestly true. Perhaps by some comedy of errors, or by some remote launch of causal dominoes, everything you take as proof was fixed and/or permitted by this deity to mask a tremendous set of misunderstandings. What if…? A whole host of speculations may follow.”
“The argument defeats itself. If the Bible is full of error, then how can I know if God’s plan is unknown?”
“You are ahead of me. This is your dilemma, not mine. If God’s plan is unknown, then it may be the case that his plan requires a mistake-ridden Bible to seem ‘well-evidenced’. But if the Bible is mistake-ridden, then how do we know if God’s plan is unknown, or that there is a God at all?”
“How far have we drifted from the shore? I believe we were first discussing absurd miracles.”
“Now we are discussing absurd beliefs in general.”
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