Prayer - Does It Work? How Can We Know?

[SuperBigV (Vlad K. I'm an Agnostic Atheist)]

@Daniel_Fisher

So Luke observes that some people won’t believe even if someone rises from the dead, and John observes that some people didn’t believe even after someone rose from the dead.

I fear that you must be working overtime to contort basic language to find a contradiction there, when Jesus says unmistakenly clearly that that certain people won’t believe even in the face of a resurrection, and you can read that to mean that a resurrection will not and cannot convince anyone?

So, why would Luke’s Abraham not raise the rich man? Some will believe if that were to happen, no? You have admitted this. This is what happens when harmonizing. You inevitably start disagreeing with the storyteller who wrote a version 2.0 or 3.0 in this case.

Luke 16: 30 But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Thanks for clarifying what Luke meant!

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Talk about Chinese whispers.

Luke’s Abraham wasn’t asked to raise the rich man.

The point of the allegory is that if someone listens to, heeds Moses and the Prophets, the social gospel interpreted through the speaker Jesus as in the vision of the Transfiguration, they don’t need someone rising from the dead. If they don’t heed, then what use would someone rising from the dead do? How would it make them heed?

The counter to that is Marley’s ghost of course.