A Molinist View of Prayer

I've finally finished reading Divine Providence: The Molinist Account by Thomas P. Flint (I started about a year ago). Interesting that it quotes St. Thomas Aquinas on the purpose of prayer:

When considering the problem of the usefulness of prayer, one must remember that divine providence not only disposes what effects will take place, but also the manner in which they will take place, and which actions will cause them... [W]e do not pray in order to change the decree of divine providence, rather we pray in order to impetrate those things which God has determined would be obtained only through our prayers.

- St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae, 83, 2

It appears, then, that Molinism may well be of some help in understanding why it is that our prayers sometimes appear to go unanswered.

At times, what we pray for may depend upon others' free actions, actions which are not in fact forthcoming.

At other times, it may be that God sees via his middle knowledge that we would not benefit should he grant us that for which we have prayed, and so, being a loving father, he doesn't give us that which would ultimately harm us.

Nor should God's activity in the wake of prayer be seen as utterly independent of those prayers, for what is good for God's creatures is in part dependent upon the circumstances in which they are placed, and prayer affects those circumstances.

- Thomas P. Flint, Divine Providence: The Molinist Account

Prayer changes things, not because God depends on our prayers, but because God responds to our prayers!

According to Molinism, middle knowledge is God's infallible foreknowledge (from eternity) of what we would freely do in all possible worlds, while free knowledge is God's decree of what we will freely do in this particular world - the world which God has created and we live in.

From a Molinist perspective, our (freely-prayed) prayers do not change God's free knowledge, which is determined by nothing except God's sovereign choice. However, they do change God's middle knowledge, which is determined by (but not dependent on) our free choices - including our prayers.

Whether God answers our prayers is up to God. Whether we pray the prayers for God to answer is down to us.

Links: Prayer Changes Things (26 Nov 10), Prayer According to God's Will (5 Dec 10)