It is only when the testimony of the Bible and the experience of Christians are set aside that difficulties appear which seem very formidable.
One of the chief objections urged against God hearing and answering prayer is the discovery of the widening sphere of what is called natural law in the ordering of the universe. Where God was formally looked upon as directly controlling in certain things, it is pointed out that we now can plainly state the causes and the working of the laws which produce certain results. According to one theory God is shut out of His universe; and according to another, He is shut up in His universe; on either hypothesis the direct control is out of His hands. Hence, "why pray?" when our prayers even if they reach God cannot be answered.
This objection from the domination of law annuls the freedom of God. It is like looking at a great piece of complicated machinery, and having it explained how part depends upon part and, because the dependence is plainly shown, being asked to believe that the maker and controller is under its power. We are asked to-day to concentrate our attention upon the levers, the springs and the pulleys and all the machinery of the universe rather than upon the first great Cause and Ruler of all.
It is assumed in this objection that much more is known of the laws and forces which govern the universe than really is. Prof. John Fiske says in his lecture on "Life Everlasting," I once heard Herbert Spencer say, "you cannot take up any problem in physics without being quickly led to some metaphysical problem which you can neither solve nor evade." Again he says, "The more things we try to explain, the better we realize that we live in a world of unexplained residua."
Widening knowledge is throwing back into the lumber room many much vaunted theories of origins. Many wrong conceptions of the order of nature have in recent years been radically changed. It is freely acknowledged to-day by the foremost men of science that no man fully understands the order of nature. Under the present limitations of human knowledge God cannot be shut up in or out of His universe. Further research may show that such shutting up to be impossible; for in the end we are to depend not upon our ignorance but upon our knowledge of the universe for God's free control of all things.
Already the light begins to dawn when it is seen that all the natural forces and matter itself are beginning to reveal their origin and control in one Great Master Force. But in this we but return to the biblical statement "In the beginning God" (Genesis 1:1).
We are perfectly justified in believing, in the intelligence of God when we see so many evidences of intelligence in the world, and the freedom and personality of God, when we note the freedom and personality of man; for however we may argue that man is not free or personal we believe that he is and act upon this belief in all the practical affairs of life. The created thing is not greater than its creator or the law greater than the lawgiver. God is greater than the universe or man. God as all powerful, and as intelligent and personal can be approached by man and comes near to him through his communion in prayer with Him.
It is perfectly possible for God, in His providential wisdom and power, to answer the prayers of His people. It is an every-day occurrence for man to deflect the beams of the sun and make nature's laws do what they would not have done if left to themselves. We know men to be personal and to be changed by petitions to their mercy and entreaties to use their power in certain directions. We believe that God, infinitely greater than man, can be entreated and will use His power for the benefit of the petitioner. It is not unreasonable for men to pray for material and spiritual blessings. While the sphere of prayer may be narrowed in certain directions by what we know of nature's processes, it has been greatly widened in other directions.
THE MODEL PRAYER
This is the Lord's Prayer which Christ gave His disciples when He preached the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:9-13) and when one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord teach us to pray" (Luke 11:2-4). "It is the prayer of prayers. It is the best and most beautiful, the simplest and yet the deepest, the shortest and yet the most comprehensive of all forms of devotion. Only from the lips of the Son of God could such a perfect pattern proceed. It embraces all kinds of prayer—petition, intercession and thanksgiving; all essential objects of prayer, spiritual and temporal, divine and human, in the most suitable and beautiful order."