Grace isn’t a deal: God doesn’t negotiate favour

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Many students turn to prayer in times of stress, especially before exams. One popular example is this prayer to St Joseph of Cupertino:

“Great St Joseph of Cupertino, who while on earth obtained from God the grace to be asked at your examination only the questions you knew, obtain for me a like favour in the examinations for which I am now preparing. In return, I promise to make you known and cause you to be invoked.”

This prayer exemplifies a transactional approach to faith, in which divine favour is requested in exchange for promoting devotion.

It amounts to the instrumentalisation of religion, treating prayer as a tool to secure worldly success.

It implies that God can be bargained with or even manipulated, reducing divine grace to a reward for a promotional pledge.

For students under pressure, this may offer comfort. But it also risks distorting the nature of the divine, suggesting that success is granted not through study or fairness but by securing favour with a saint.

This instrumentalisation may, in fact, operate in two directions:

  • Institutional religion may misuse its spiritual authority to exploit anxious believers, promising intervention in exchange for devotion, obedience, or public promotion.
  • At the same time, believers accustomed to commercial life may see no issue with approaching God like a business partner—one who can be persuaded into a mutually beneficial deal.

At its heart, this worldview imagines a transcendent God who intervenes selectively, granting success to a student simply for agreeing to promote a saint’s cult.

It portrays God as resembling flawed human authority: open to flattery, partiality, and backroom deals.

Scripture clearly contradicts such a view.

  • “For the Lord your God is the God of gods, showing no partiality and taking no bribe.” (Deuteronomy 10:17)
  • “For there is no favouritism with God.” (Romans 2:11)
  • “Now I truly understand that God doesn’t show favouritism.” (Acts 10:34)

Jesus himself taught this principle, saying:

“For God makes his sun rise on the good and the bad alike and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil.” (Matthew 5:45)

These verses affirm the universality and impartiality of God’s blessings.

Divine grace does not depend on human attempts to please or negotiate with God. Instead, it reveals a goodness that is freely given, non-judgmental, and unconditional.

Yet this does not render us passive.

Created in the image of God, each person possesses infinite, intrinsic value and is called to be a co-creator with the Spirit in shaping the world.

Our human existence must hold together both our dependency on grace and our creativity in action. Each is an expression of faith rightly understood.

As St Irenaeus, the second-century theologian, expressed it so well:

“The glory of God is the human being fully alive.”

Against Heresies, Book 4.10
  • Brendan Butler is a former secondary school teacher who specialised in teaching Religious Education. His postgraduate degree was in theology from the Antonianum University in Rome. In 1979, he co-founded “The Irish El Salvador Support Committee” and later “The Ireland Algeria Solidarity Group”. He was the co- ordinator of “The N.G.O. Peace Alliance” which was active in the Irish peace movement. He helped to revive the Catholic Church reform movement “We are Church Ireland”, of which he was joint co-ordinator and spokesperson for several years.
  • He published: My Story by Jesus of Nazareth, As narrated by Brendan Butler.
  • Brendan is also active in contributing articles, letters to Irish Newspapers on Church and human rights issues.
  • Flashes of Insight is an international publication. The editorial policy is that spelling reflects the country of origin.

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