But if it is possible for God to be moved by those entreaties, what does that say about God's nature?
As I understand Christianity, God is believed to be perfect, all-knowing and all-good. The way I see it, God could not have these attributes and still be subject to the persuasion of any lesser being.
To illustrate, suppose I am facing a crisis. Let's say a serious illness. I could die from the illness, or recover in varying degrees.
God knows all the potential outcomes to this situation and the ultimate good that would come from each outcome. Since God is all-good, if He were to intervene (or choose not to intervene) in my illness He would act so that the best ultimate outcome (the most good) would result. Do we agree so far?
If God could be persuaded, through prayer, to take a different course of action, then that has to mean one of two things:
1. His initial choice was incorrect (not the most good). This means that God is not perfect or all-knowing and that, through prayer, He can be shown the error of His ways.
2. His intial choice was correct (the most good outcome), but He may choose an outcome that leads to a lesser ultimate good at our behest. This means that God can choose the less-good over the most-good. To me, that seems to indicate that God may not be perfectly good.
Either way, if God is subject to our persuasion (or that of the saints or Mary) then it seems to indicate He is capable of making mistakes.
So I guess it could be possible for God to be moved by the prayers of others, but it seems contrary to what is believed about His nature. Is there a way to reconcile this contradiction, or am I misunderstanding the Christian concept of God?