Explaining the Philosophical Problem of Answered (Effective) Prayer based on Answering-by-Disclosure Model (ADM)

Prayer and supplication to God, which is originally a religious concept, has always been a challenge for theologians and philosophers, especially philosophers of religion, from various philosophical, ethical, epistemological, and linguistic perspectives. Focusing on the concept of answered prayer, this article investigates one of its most important philosophical challenges, that is, explaining the compatibility of answered (effective) prayer with the divine attributes of immutability and impassibility by referring to the principles of Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophy. There is considerable potential in this philosophical system for an innovative explanation which can be called the “Answering-by-Disclosure” Model (ADM) and is achieved through an analytical-descriptive method using library resources. In ADM, the divine immutability and impassibility in the process of answering prayers do not require God to change from potentiality to actuality, but is a kind of disclosure and differentiation of His hidden and undifferentiated attributes. In addition, the effect of the servants’ prayers on God’s decision has been explained in terms of their existential poverty and pure need, which play an important role in maintaining the existential distinction between the creator and the creature in its strongest meaning. Enjoying justified rational principles, presenting a model compatible with the common and conventional understanding of answering prayer, as well as providing an explanation appropriate to the divine realm are among the advantages of ADM in comparison to the models proposed by other Muslim and Christian theologians. Being endowed with a powerful philosophical explanation, it can be more resistant to the challenges proposed in the philosophy of religion.