ACC ~ John 9 v31

IS IT TRUE THAT GOD DOES NOT LISTEN TO SINNERS?

ORIGEN: But if so important a doctrine were true, that is, that the sinner is not heard by God, it would not have been passed over in silence but would have been spoken by someone deserving to be believed, for example, by the servant [Moses] or one of the prophets. But how, if God did not hear a sinner, were the sinners taught to say, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive our transgressors”? Whom then does God hear? He hears those who turn to him in repentance, even if they have not yet ceased from being sinners. If God did not hear sinners, our Savior would not have been eating and drinking with publicans and sinners. But if those needing physicians because they were sick were not being heard, he would not have healed them. Therefore, as if the prayer of those who have sinned but no longer altogether disbelieve attained its object, it is said, “If you mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” [1] But perhaps the blind man is speaking not about any ordinary thing in the prayer of the sinner but of the kind of great works that Jesus was doing. For when God is petitioned concerning those kinds of works by sinners, he does not hear them. FRAGMENT 70 ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. [2]

[1] Ps 130:3 (129:3 LXX).

[2] AEG 4:7-8*; GCS 10 (4):538-39.