The group of research in Philosophical Theology celebrated in March its first seminar. It focused on Answer to our Prayers: The Unsolved, General but Solvable Problem of Petitionary Prayer and was given by Oxford University professor Martin Pickup.

During the same, the expert presented the treatment of the prayer of petition in the contemporary analytical Philosophy and proposed a way of solution for the problems that usually arise in that area, answering the question of whether, given the existence of a good and all-powerful God, has any relevance or effectiveness the prayer of petition.

To this end, he presented the main lines of his article Answer to our Prayers: The Unsolved, General but Solvable Problem of Petitionary Prayer, in which he presents the difficulties of the most common solutions to the problem, and proposes an alternative solution, similar to some answers to the problem of evil. According to Pickup, a correct understanding of creation and divine providence does not imply accepting the idea that God always creates those goods that have more value, but that God leaves to free human initiative the update of certain goods.

Martin Pickup is a member researcher postdoctoral fellow at The Metaphysics of Entanglement ProjectSchool of Philosophy at the University of Oxford; a Fellow of the New College of Oxford University and founder of the Institute of Art and Ideas. His research covers metaphysical and theological issues from an analytical perspective.