Why Pray For Someone Else's Salvation?

One challenge that Calvinists issue to others is that only a Calvinist can consistently believe that prayer for the conversion of unbelievers is effective. As James White has argued when debating Michael Brown, non-Calvinists believe that God is work as hard as he possibly can in order to save as many souls as possible. If this is the case, why pray for someone else's salvation?

At first glance, this might look like a challenge. The problem is that ironically, it is Calvinism that cannot provide an answer to this question, while non-Calvinists have at least one way out.

Remember that one of the five pillars of Calvinism's TULIP is Unconditional Election. Monergism.com explains:

The doctrine of election refers to “that eternal act of God whereby He, in His sovereign good pleasure, and on account of no foreseen merit in them, chooses a certain number of men to be the recipients of special grace and of eternal salvation.” In order to emphasize the fact that God’s election or choice of certain sinners to be saved is not based upon anything that the sinner himself does, Reformed theologians refer to election to eternal life as unconditional election. 

Virtually all modern evangelicals and fundamentalists emphatically reject the biblical doctrine of unconditional election. They teach that election is based not solely upon God’s choice or good pleasure but upon God’s foreknowledge of man’s exercise of faith.

The key here is that unconditional election is a much stronger doctrine than many people realize. It is not only the case that people are divided into two categories (saved and damned) before the foundation of the world. This in itself is not problematic. The problem arises when we realize that this election is not in any way dependent upon the things that we will do or would do. If it was, then election would be conditional.

On this view, it makes no sense to pray for the salvation of anyone else. If the election of others is dependent upon whether or not you pray for their salvation, then election is conditional (conditional upon whether or not you pray for them). If election is unconditional, then your prayers are not a factor in it.

How might a Calvinist respond? An easy way out is to go for theistic determinism. This is to say that God determines each of our acts and choices. This would restore the compatibility between unconditional election and the effectiveness of prayer. God determines that your friend will be saved, and then determines that because of this, you will pray for your friend's salvation. So long as God's decree of election is logically prior to the means he ordains, then it is unconditional.

The problem is that this solution works too well. Under this definition, any system of salvation is compatible with unconditional election. God could ordain that we are saved by means of the Roman Catholic sacramental system, and it would still qualify as unconditional election (assuming theistic determinism). We can do even better. Rabbi Akiva taught that we are saved by works. If our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds, then we can go to heaven. Even this system can qualify as unconditional election, so long as God determines that your friend will be saved, and then determines that because of this, he will commit more good acts than bad acts.

What's even more ironic is that the non-Calvinist has ways out of this. If election is conditional, then God's knowledge of your prayers may have an influence on God's decree of election. The Calvinist may retort "Isn't God already working at 100% effort in order to save as many as possible?" The non-Calvinist can bite the bullet and say that this is not the case. However, the non-Calvinist has another solution as well.

God does all he can do without undue intrusion. When we pray, we affect what counts as an undue intrusion. Perhaps it would be unacceptably heavy-handed if God messed with an atheist's brain chemistry to make him more open to theism. However, if enough people prayed, such an act might no longer be heavy-handed.

Think of police involvement in civilian affairs. There are cases when police involvement is unacceptably intrusive if the police take the initiative, but not intrusive if they are called. Domestic disputes and noise complaints fall into this category.