Is Matthew 21:22 blatantly wrong?

[Justin108]

Matthew 21:22 - "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."

[Justin108]

As I said, that would depend on if "whatever" is taken in absolute or relative terms. If absolute, whatever while still being subject to the self imposed limits of the asker could well include miracles. If "whatever" is relative the it may not.

What exactly are self imposed limits?

A man vows to his lover "Whatever you want, I'll do for you!" if he was understood to be speaking in absolute terms, he is willing to rape his baby sister, kill the President, kill himself, gut and kill her. If in relative terms there would be implied limits to "whatever".

Putting Matthew 21 in context, this verse follows Jesus cursing a fig tree to never carry fruit again. This implies that the "whatever" that follows certainly includes the supernatural, so there is no reason to exclude limb-regeneration from the context of "whatever" used in Matthew 21. Yet it has never happened.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 41 by Justin108]

Do you know what I mean when I say "relative" or "absolute"? I ask because the terms seem to go unacknowledged as even existing in your responses.

JW

[Strider324]

One popular solution has been to focus on the word "believe"; refused petitions are refused because the petitioner doubted.

I have to hand it to the author. This is a bulletproof clause. If your prayer ever goes unanswered, it's your fault for not believing enough. What makes this especially bulletproof is the fact that belief cannot be measured in a quantifiable manner, so of course you can never prove to anyone that you did sincerely believe during your prayer.

It does make one wonder though... has there never been a single individual in recorded history with enough belief that has prayed for his lost limb to grow back? Is every individual who has ever prayed for such a miracle guilty of not having enough faith?

Of course they are guilty! They have to be guilty in order for the Christian to have an excuse as to why the most valid and meaningful prayers are NEVER answered.

A poster here has stated how 'amazed' he is that words in the bible are expected to mean what they say. For myself, I am amazed that this entire thread ignores the 14 trillion elephants in the room - that's my estimate of the number of prayers that have been ignored. They include the prayers of the 2000 children with cancer who some alleged god allowed to die today. And the 2000 yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that......

They include the prayers of the most devout humans on the planet who prayed for their damaged or missing limbs to be restored. The Christian shrugs their shoulders and claims any number of convenient things - "Well, they just didn't believe hard enough". "They should have asked for peace of mind, not a new leg." "God is Asian and therefore inscrutable!"

And yet some of these same Christians will bubble over with joy to witness to us that this god blessed them and answered their prayer to win $50 on a $5 scratch off ticket. "Praise Jesus!!"

Instead of hiding behind word games from bible verses, I'd like to see Christians here answer a simple question:

Why does your god NEVER answer the prayers of dying children?

The parents, family and loved ones of the 730,000 children around the world that died of cancer just in the last year would like to know. That's thousands of prayers for each child, every day, for the last year.

Please don't tell me that only the children of the disciples were intended to be saved by prayer.....

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 43 by Strider324]

And yet some of these same Christians will bubble over with joy to witness to us that this god blessed them and answered their prayer to win $50 on a $5 scratch off ticket. "Praise Jesus!!"

On a different website I used to frequent, there was a subsection for religious debate, much like here at DC'n'R (but not nearly as well laid out!). One Christian I encountered there made frequent arguments that God helped him find...
balloons.
No, I did not mis-type. He honestly said God had helped him find balloons.
And led him to a gas station a number of times.

[Justin108]

[Replying to post 41 by Justin108]

Do you know what I mean when I say "relative" or "absolute"? I ask because the terms seem to go unacknowledged as even existing in your responses.

JW

Relative excludes a literal "whatever", however, in context of Matthew 21, it would include miracles as this follows Jesus' demonstration of performing a supernatural feat by cursing the tree.

What exactly does "relative" entail in this context? A man who said he would do "everything" for his wife probably restricts "everything" to anything that is not either highly immoral or utterly irrational. What restrictions would God have to "whatever" in the relative sense? We can assume that "whatever" in the context of Matthew 21, assuming God's character as moral, would exclude evil prayers. But a prayer for a man who lost his legs to grow them back is neither immoral nor irrational. So even within a relative interpretation of Matthew 21, why would God not comply to this prayer?

[JehovahsWitness]

What exactly does "relative" entail in this context? A man who said he would do "everything" for his wife probably restricts "everything" to anything that is not either highly immoral or utterly irrational. What restrictions would God have to "whatever" in the relative sense?

Thank you, finally you acknowledge the existence of relativity. Yes, relativity implies that a word be it "everything", "anything" or "whatever" may have unspoken clauses that restrict the application and effectively result in "everything" (or anything) NOT meaning anything/everything possible but anything allowable according to a given set of restrictions not necessarily explicitly stated at the time.

My point is (given the above) that when Jesus said "whatever" you ask, he was speaking in relative and not absolute terms which must at least theoretically be a possibility.

What restrictions would God have to "whatever" in the relative sense?

That is a whole theological discussion and not everyone will agree on what those possible restrictions might be, but I suggest they might include that which (to quote your good self) anything apart from that which is " highly immoral or utterly irrational"


JW

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

THE BIBLE , HERMENEUTICS* and ... BIBLICAL LITERALISM

* bible interpretation

[Justin108]

That is a whole theological discussion and not everyone will agree on what those possible restrictions might be, but I suggest they might include that which (to quote your good self) anything apart from that which is " highly immoral or utterly irrational"

And limb regeneration is neither, so why has it never been done?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 46 by JehovahsWitness]

What restrictions would God have to "whatever" in the relative sense?

That is a whole theological discussion and not everyone will agree on what those possible restrictions might be, but I suggest they might include that which (to quote your good self) anything apart from that which is " highly immoral or utterly irrational"

Curious. There are many fine folk I've talked to who say that anything God does is by default moral and/or rational. I've heard from people who say God was just, moral for things like Noah's flood, commanding Abraham to kill Isaac, etc.
So my response to that (and you) would be what could be immoral or irrational in that sense? Where is the line drawn, for what God will give you?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 47 by Justin108]

Well my point is not to discuss what those restrictions would be but to acknowledge the possibility that there ARE restrictions. This is to address the "whatever means whatever" crowd, for whom the assumption that Jesus was speaking in absolutes leads to the conclusion that Matthew 21:22 is "blatanently wrong". Once this has been eliminated the defense can be made that Matthew 21:22 is not negated by the fact that every Christian prayer is not automatically granted.

As for what those restrictions might be, the list might be extensive. While the irrational and immoral no doubt are factors included therein, there may well be other factors that restrict the "whatever", some of which theoretically affect the "new limb" catagory of prayer.


JW

[Justin108]

Well my point is not to discuss what those restrictions would be but to acknowledge the possibility that there ARE restrictions.

Unless you have a good reason to exclude limb-regeneration from your list of prayers-god-will-grant, simply saying "there are limits" is not enough. My OP still stands.

P1 - Matthew says you will get "whatever" you pray for.
P2 - There is no reason to exclude limb-regeneration from "whatever"
C - Matthew is lying

Unless you can argue for why P2 is wrong, the conclusion is that Matthew is lying

Once this has been eliminated the defense can be made that Matthew 21:22 is not negated by the fact that every Christian prayer is not automatically granted.

Your argument concludes that there are exceptions to Matthew 21:22, but this does not excuse every single instance of unanswered prayers.

We have reasoned that God will likely not grant
- evil prayers
- irrational prayers

Unless you can add to this list, we can conclude that God ought to grant every non-evil and non-irrational prayer as long as the individual has enough belief. Limb-regeneration is neither evil nor irrational

As for what those restrictions might be, the list might be extensive.

Then Matthew was misleading at best when he said "whatever". I can accept a less-than-strictly-literal "whatever" but if the exceptions are "extensive" as you say, then the use of "whatever" is highly misleading.

Let's use the example of the man who would do "anything" for his wife

Wife: Would you murder your parents for me?
Husband: Ok that I won't do
Wife: Would you rob a bank?
Husband: Also, no
Wife: Would you eat a dead rat
Husband: No...

So far the husband is being reasonable, but once it starts to look like this...

Wife: Would you do the dishes every now and then?
Husband: Oh I hate doing the dishes
Wife: Would you take me out to dinner?
Husband: I kinda prefer eating at home..
Wife: Would you take me to the hospital if I get sick?
Husband: Those places creep me out...

If the husband starts sounding like the lower half, then the fact that "anything" was not meant to literally include "anything" is not good enough. A husband that says "anything" but says the above is frankly lying.

Unless you can give me a reason for why limb-regeneration falls outside the scope of Matthew 21:22, then Matthew was lying just as the husband above was lying.