就算我同意你的觀點，承認祈禱蒙回應在理論上是可能的，我仍然會認為這種可能性微乎其微。我壓根兒就不覺得，上帝需要我們人類提供資訊不足（甚至相互矛盾）的建議，來告訴祂該如何管理這個世界。如果祂像你所說的那樣，是無所不知的，難道祂不知道什麼是最好的嗎？如果祂既是全善的，祂不會在我們祈禱之前就行那善事嗎？
這就是反對祈禱的論點，它在過去一百年間，已經讓很多人卻步不前。對此，常見的回應是：這個論點只適用於最低級的那種祈禱，也就是那種祈求事情發生的祈禱。我們被告知，更高級的祈禱，並不向神提供建議；它只包含與祂的"交流"或溝通。而持這種觀點的人，似乎暗示那種低級的祈禱確實是荒謬的，只有小孩子或不文明人才會使用它。
我對這種觀點從未感到滿意。區分這兩種祈禱是合理的；而且我大體上認為（雖然不十分確定），那種不祈求任何事物的祈禱是更高級或更進階的。能夠處於一種與神的旨意如此合一，以至於即使你能改變事件的進程卻想都不想改變的心態，確實是一種非常高超或進階的境界。
但是，如果只簡單地排除低級祈禱，會產生兩個困難。首先，我們就不得不說，整個基督教祈禱的歷史傳統（包括主禱文本身）一直都是錯誤的；因為它歷來都包含了為我們日用的飲食、為病人的康復、為脫離仇敵的保護、為外部世界的歸信等等而做的祈禱。其次，儘管另一種祈禱可能"更高級"，但如果你僅僅因為認為祈求式的祈禱沒用而避開它，並以此來限制自己，這本身並沒有什麼特別"高尚"或"屬靈"之處。如果一個小男孩因為心胸開闊、思想脫俗，不想要蛋糕，所以從不索要蛋糕，那可能是一件很美好的事（但同樣，我不完全確定）。如果一個小男孩因為知道要蛋糕也沒用而不再開口，那就沒什麼特別美好的了。
我認為，整件事需要重新審視。反對（我指的是"低級"或老式的那種）祈禱的論點是這樣的：你所祈求的事，要麼是好的——對你和整個世界都好——要麼是不好的。如果是好的，那麼一位良善而智慧的神無論如何都會去做。如果是不好的，那祂就不會去做。在這兩種情況下，你的祈禱都不會造成任何差別。
但是，如果這個論點成立的話，那麼它無疑不僅僅是反對祈禱，也是反對做任何事情，不是嗎？
每一個行動，就像每一次祈禱一樣，你都試圖達成某種結果；而這個結果必然是好或壞。那麼，我們為什麼不按照反對祈禱者的邏輯來論證，說如果預期的結果是好的，上帝不用你干預也會讓它發生；如果結果是壞的，無論你做什麼祂都會阻止它發生呢？為什麼要洗手？如果上帝想讓它們乾淨，不用你洗它們也會乾淨。如果祂不想，如此，無論你用多少肥皂，手還是會髒（就像麥克白夫人發現的那樣）。為什麼要人把鹽遞過來？為什麼要穿上靴子？為什麼要做任何事？
我們知道自己可以行動，行動會產生結果。因此，每個相信上帝的人都必須承認（撇開祈禱的問題不談），上帝並未選擇親手書寫全部的歷史。宇宙中發生的大部分事件確實是我們無法控制的，但並非所有事件都是如此。這就像一齣戲，場景和故事的總體大綱是由作者決定的，但某些具體的細節留給演員去即興發揮。祂為何允許我們左右現實，這或許是個奧秘；但祂允許我們透過祈禱而非其他任何方式來促成這些事件，並不奇怪。
帕斯卡說，上帝"設立祈禱，是為了讓祂的受造物擁有成為動因的尊嚴"。或許更確切地說，祂為了這個目的，既發明了祈禱，也發明了身體行動。祂賦予我們這些渺小的受造物一種尊嚴，即能夠以兩種不同的方式為事件的進程做出貢獻。祂將宇宙的物质造成為我們能夠（在某種限度內）對其施加影響；這就是為什麼我們能洗自己的手，能餵養或殺害我們的同類。同樣地，祂所制定的祂自己的計劃或是歷史的劇本，也允許一定程度的自由發揮，並且可以因應我們的祈禱而有所調整。
如果在戰爭中祈求勝利是愚蠢和無禮的（理由是上帝應該最清楚什麼是好的），那麼穿上雨衣也同樣是愚蠢和無禮的——難道上帝不清楚你該淋濕還是該乾爽嗎？
我們被允許用來產生事件的兩種方法，可以稱之為工作與祈禱。在這一方面，兩者是相似的——即我們在兩者中都試圖達成某種事態，而這個事態是上帝尚未（或至少目前尚未）看為合適要"主動"提供的。從這個角度來看，那句古老的格言laborare est orare（工作即祈禱）便有了一層新的含義。我們在田地裡除草時所做的，與我們祈求豐收的行為並無本質差異。但仍然有一個重要的區別。
無論你對一塊田地做什麼，都無法保證豐收。但你可以肯定，拔掉一棵雜草，那根雜草就不在那裡了。你可以肯定，飲酒過量會損害健康；也可以肯定，繼續浪費地球資源進行戰爭和奢侈消費，幾個世紀下來，將會縮短全人類的壽命。我們透過工作所行使的那種因果關係，可以說是神聖的必然，因此是無情的。
憑藉著這種自由，我們可以隨心所欲地傷害自己。但我們透過祈禱所行使的這種自由並非如此；上帝給自己留下了酌情決定的權力。如果祂沒有這樣做，祈禱對人類來說將過於危險，我們就會面臨尤維納利斯所設想的可怕境地："上天在憤怒中准許的那些龐大的祈禱。"
祈禱並非總是——就其粗淺、客觀的意義而言——"蒙應允"。這不是因為祈禱是一種較弱的因果關係，而是因為它是一種更強的因果關係。當它確實"生效"時，它的作用不受時空的限制。正因如此，上帝才保留了准許或拒絕祈禱的裁量權；否則，祈禱將會毀滅我們。一位校長這樣說並非不合情理：「按照學校既定的規章制度，你可以做某些事情。但有些事情太過危險，不能僅憑一般的規章制度來處理。如果你們想做這些事，必須來我的辦公室提出申請，和我詳細討論。然後——我們看著辦。」
Even if I grant your point and admit that answers to prayer are theoretically possible, I shall still think they are infinitely improbable. I don't think it at all likely that God requires the ill-informed (and contradictory) advice of us humans as to how to run the world. If He is all-wise, as you say He is, doesn't He know already what is best? And if He is all-good won't He do it whether we pray or not?" This is the case against prayer which has, in the last hundred years, intimidated thousands of people. The usual answer is that it applies only to the lowest sort of prayer, the sort that consists in asking for things to happen. The higher sort, we are told, offers no advice to God; it consists only of "Communion" or intercourse with Him; and those who take this line seem to suggest that the lower kind of prayer really is an absurdity and that only children or savages would use it. I have never been satisfied with this view. The distinction between the two sorts of prayer is a sound one; and I think on the whole (I am not quite certain) that the sort which asks for nothing is the higher or more advanced. To be in the state in which you are so at one with the will of God that you wouldn't want to alter the course of events even if you could is certainly a very high or advanced condition.
But if one simply rules out the lower kind, two difficulties follow. In the first place, one has to say that the whole historical tradition of Christian prayer (including the Lord's Prayer itself) has been wrong; for it has always admitted prayers for our daily bread, for the recovery of the sick, for protection from enemies, for the conversion of the outside world, and the like. In the second place, though the other kind of prayer may be "higher," if you restrict yourself to it because you have got beyond the desire to use any other, there is nothing specially "high" or "spiritual" about abstaining from prayers that make requests simply because you think they're no good. It might be a very pretty thing (but, again, I'm not absolutely certain) if a little boy never asked for cake because he was so high-minded and spiritual that he didn't want any cake. But there's nothing specially pretty about a little boy who doesn't ask because he has learned that it is no use asking. I think that the whole matter needs reconsideration. The case against prayer (I mean the "low" or old-fashioned kind) is this. The thing you ask for is either good—for you and for the world in general—or else it is not. If it is, then a good and wise God will do it anyway. If it is not, then He won't. In neither case can your prayer make any difference. But if this argument is sound, surely it is an argument not only against praying, but against doing anything whatever?
In every action, just as in every prayer, you are trying to bring about a certain result; and this result must be good or bad. Why, then, do we not argue as the opponents of prayer argue, and say that if the intended result is good, God will bring it to pass without your interference, and that if it is bad, He will prevent it happening whatever you do? Why wash your hands? If God intends them to be clean, they'll come clean without your washing them. If He doesn't, they'll remain dirty (as Lady Macbeth found) however much soap you use. Why ask for the salt? Why put on your boots? Why do anything?
We know that we can act and that our actions produce results. Everyone who believes in God must therefore admit (quite apart from the question of prayer) that God has not chosen to write the whole of history with His own hand. Most of the events that go on in the universe are indeed out of our control, but not all. It is like a play in which the scene and the general outline of the story is fixed by the author, but certain minor details are left for the actors to improvise. It may be a mystery why He should have allowed us to cause real events at all; but it is no odder that He should allow us to cause them by praying than by any other method.
Pascal says that God "instituted prayer in order to allow His creatures the dignity of causality." It would perhaps be truer to say that He invented both prayer and physical action for that purpose. He gave us small creatures the dignity of being able to contribute to the course of events in two different ways. He made the matter of the universe such that we can (in those limits) do things to it; that is why we can wash our own hands and feed or murder our fellow creatures. Similarly, He made His own plan or plot of history such that it admits a certain amount of free play and can be modified in response to our prayers. If it is foolish and impudent to ask for victory in a war (on the ground that God might be expected to know best), it would be equally foolish and impudent to put on a mackintosh—does not God know best whether you ought to be wet or dry?
The two methods by which we are allowed to produce events may be called work and prayer. Both are alike in this respect—that in both we try to produce a state of affairs which God has not (or at any rate not yet) seen fit to provide "on His own." And from this point of view the old maxim laborare est orare (work is prayer) takes on a new meaning. What we do when we weed a field is not quite different from what we do when we pray for a good harvest. But there is an important difference all the same.
You cannot be sure of a good harvest whatever you do to a field. But you can be sure that if you pull up one weed that one weed will no longer be there. You can be sure that if you drink more than a certain amount of alcohol you will ruin your health or that if you go on for a few centuries more wasting the resources of the planet on wars and luxuries you will shorten the life of the whole human race. The kind of causality we exercise by work is, so to speak, divinely guaranteed, and therefore ruthless. By it we are free to do ourselves as much harm as we please. But the kind which we exercise by prayer is not like that; God has left Himself a discretionary power. Had He not done so, prayer would be an activity too dangerous for man and we should have the horrible state of things envisaged by Juvenal: "Enormous prayers which Heaven in anger grants."
Prayers are not always—in the crude, factual sense of the word—"granted." This is not because prayer is a weaker kind of causality, but because it is a stronger kind. When it "works" at all it works unlimited by space and time. That is why God has retained a discretionary power of granting or refusing it; except on that condition prayer would destroy us. It is not unreasonable for a headmaster to say, "Such and such things you may do according to the fixed rules of this school. But such and such other things are too dangerous to be left to general rules. If you want to do them you must come and make a request and talk over the whole matter with me in my study. And then—we'll see."
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