How can God respond to prayers, and yet not have a “real” (ie, a reciprocal, dependent) relation with the creation?

Perhaps there’s a Trinitarian answer to this: In the creation, God responds to His own work. He makes light, and then He pronounces His work very good. This is not a matter of God patting Himself on the back. Rather, it is arguably the Father approving the work of His Word and Spirit, the two “hands” by which the Father works in the creation.

God’s response to prayer is similar: The Spirit provokes our prayers, which we offer in the name of Jesus to the Father. When the Father responds to these Spirit-inspired prayers, He is responding to His own work. God is responding to God’s work, the Father to the Spirit.