How To Account For Allah Controlling Events When We Know About Natural Laws
1. We know that when our prayer is answered, we don’t see God’s “hand” being extended out of the sky. But our prayer perhaps was fulfilled through the help of a kind-hearted friend. 2. We know that when God guides us, there’s no light bulb that suddenly pops up over our head. But we’re guided to the right path by being convinced perhaps of Ghamidi’s articulation of Islam. 3. We understood from Qur’an that when God sends His revelation, the angels will manifest them to the prophets. Even Musa (AS) when he speaks to Allah (SWT), it was through the burning bush. 4. We understood how God protects the Qur’an from corruption through massive transmission and living tradition. We can clearly establish a fundamental pattern of how God interacts / intervenes with His worldly creations. His divine actions are carried out through the agency of creation(s). The meaning of miracle doesn’t apply to God, it’s all “business as usual” for Him whether that’s answering my prayer or splitting the sea. But in our perspective, these events are both miracles. The only difference is we don’t have enough epistemological understanding of the latter. As for the schoolboy prayer to stop the rain, God can surely stop the rain any time of the day. But why would the boy assume that the only way God can answer his prayer is for God to go against the weather forecast? What’s his objective to ask such prayer? Is it to test God if He can stop or bring rain into a particular region? If the topography of such region is frequented with rain, then surely there are organisms that existed thereof over thousand years that require rain to maintain their habitat. Why would God prefer the boy’s request to stop the rain over the survival of those organisms? If the boy’s purpose is just want to avoid getting wet, then God can provide him with a raincoat through his dad. What’s the difference of prayer-answered between ‘stopping the rain’ and ‘having the raincoat’ if the latter can achieve the objective of the prayer. If I’m the dad I would rather contend that having a raincoat is even a better ordeal for my boy as he can learn a lesson or two that may develop himself in achieving his human potentials by overcoming some kind of trial in his life.
The prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم has made dua for rain. According to your logic we should not make dua for anything because it could be not happening to teach us a lesson. I am asking about the method God enacts to answer our duas not whether he answers our duas or not. You can read my previous reply for where I think that occurs