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[Trask]

What would help to prove to me there is a God? A study looking at the efficacy of prayer as having a real result which shows with repeatable results that people who are prayed for have remarkably better results than those who aren't, and only when that prayer is to your god specifically.

[jimwalton]

Prayer is not a scientific pursuit because there are too many parameters and unknowns to structure a reliable experiment. For instance, here are a few things you'd have to know to scientifically assess the effectiveness of prayer:

1. We have to be able to isolate those events on earth that are actions of God and those that aren't. If we can't create clean categories here, our data may be tainted.

2. We have to be able to guarantee that only certain people (and none others anywhere else in the world) are praying in a certain way for a certain outcome. Any stray prayers unknown to the researchers may skew the data. In addition, we would have to know that absolutely no one in the world was prayer for those in the control group. One pray-er, again, may skew the data. If we can't guarantee exactly who's praying with absolute certainty, then the data may be invalidated.

3. We have to establish objective criteria for what constitutes an answer to prayer and what doesn't. After all, in the Bible God at times uses very normal people and normal circumstances to answer prayer. If we can't define clearly what constitutes an answer to prayer, then the data is invalid. Also, sometimes God answers prayer not in the ways people prayed, but in other ways to answer their prayer by arriving at a different end by a different means, but still what they prayed for. We'd have to be able to define that. And sometimes God answers prayer partially. We have to be able to define that.

These are a few things that come immediately to mind to show us that there is no scientific experiment that can be devised with enough control of input and criteria to discern whether or not prayer has been effective. But there is even more than that. In the book of Job, the author deals with the dicey question of “Can righteous people expect to be blessed at a higher rate than average? Can we rightfully expect that God will actively and obviously bless the righteous and harass the wicked?” The answer of the book is a resounding NO. Practically speaking, if God were to bless the righteous at a higher rate, the first effect we would expect to see is people acting righteously just to get the prize, which, of course, wouldn’t be acting righteously. It would only be a show to force the hand of God. Secondly, the motives of any and every “righteous” person will come under question, because the idea of “blessing” will even subconsciously be lurking. Ultimately, such a policy will devastate any notion of righteousness on the earth.

But what if the righteous fare worse than the average? That scrapes against all sense of justice. What kind of God punishes his own people by deliberately making things worse for them. Ultimately, such a policy will frustrate any motivation toward righteousness.

Is there a 3rd Choice, where it all seems haphazard, non-sensical, unpredictable, and sometimes just downright irrational? Our choices are actually narrow: God be accused of ruining righteousness because he blesses people, God be accused of unjust cruelty because he doesn’t bless people, or God be accused of not even being there in any detectable way. Hm. Sounds like a Catch-23, -24, and -25.

Maybe the reality is that it’s really hard to tell where the blessings of God are and where they aren’t, but people with eyes to see, who learn to recognize the hand of God, see them in enough quantity to bring a smile to their face and a word of praise to their lips. As far as others can tell, it’s just the law of averages. It’s not unlike a wife who learns her husband’s mannerisms so well that she can see the signs of his love that others easily miss.

Let’s move on to the specific question of prayer. Maybe prayer is like the moral of Job. “Can I rightfully expect that God will actively and obviously answer my prayers at a rate greater than average?” It’s an intriguing proposition. The answer should be “Of course.” Practically speaking, if God were to answer the prayers of his people at a higher rate than average, I would form certain (no doubt self-oriented and self-centered) expectations about how I can, more often than not, get what I want. It’s an insidious attitude, but impossible to avoid. Yes, look at me—I can turn the hand of God. The motives of every pray-er would come under question, because the idea of “control” will even subconsciously be lurking. Ultimately, the such a policy will devastate the purity of the human heart. Prayer was not given to people to make them master over God.

But what if my prayers are the kiss of death? If I pray for it, I can almost guarantee you that it won’t happen. What kind of tragic relationship with God is THAT?

Is there a 3rd Choice, where where it all seems haphazard, non-sensical, unpredictable, and sometimes just downright irrational? Our choices are actually narrow: God will be accused of ruining godly hearts because he has an OBLIGATION to answer prayers for them at a higher rate, and we all know about the corrupting leverage of power; God will be accused of cruelty as he deliberately ignores the cries of his people when he has asked them to pray to him, or God will be accused of cavalier apathy because he’s not responsive in any detectable way. Hm.

The reality is certainly in the middle. We cannot expect reliable and repeatable results. Prayer isn't like that. We can't expect to be the ones holding the cards and managing the output. Prayer isn't like that. We can't expect remarkably better results from a scientific and statistical viewpoint. Prayer isn't like that either.

But let's take this one step further. You are trying to find evidence that God exists in the efficacy of prayer. You are thinking (I am guessing) my argument goes something like this:

1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was answered.
3. Therefore God exists. (!Q>!P)

This is an inadequate argument for a host of reasons, all of which involve #2 being impossible to prove or verify, as previously mentioned. But I'm inclined to see the culprit as correlative fallacy rather than confirmation bias ("What I wanted happened after I prayed, therefore it happened because I prayed"), but the ultimate failure is the same. The case in which #2 CAN be proved is if the "answer" involves something so astoundingly coincidental and/or something that our current understanding of nature considers impossible, such that Ockham's Razor indicates that the simplest answer is divine intervention. But this is not longer the argument from efficacy of prayer, but rather the argument from miracles, which is a different discussion.

But then you seem to be asserting a contrasting proposition: If God exists we should see some scientifically confirmable answers to prayer. This is also wrong. The syllogistic form of that statement is:

1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. Therefore God does not exist. (Q>P)

This is a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent." Instead, what actually happened when prayer is not answered is this:

1. If God does not exist,my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. No conclusion is possible ( = we don't know if God exists or not).

The difficult in making this statement is that you have to prove its first premise. When Christians say that "no is still an answer," they aren't trying to prove premise 2 of the argument from the efficacy of prayer, they're refuting this premise (i.e., providing a [legitimate] reason other than nonexistence for non-answer). After all, it is possible that God can exist but not answer prayer or answer them in the way we want, expect, or can prove.

We are mostly left with God may or may not exist, but his answers to prayer are inadequate for determining God's existence. This is pretty much true, though it would be more proper to say, "We have no idea whether He will answer any specific prayer," since one would need only ONE example (not a statistical majority, or even a statistically significant minority) to prove that he "answers prayer" (meaning "grants requests") in general. The Bible records several examples of answered prayers, and since the same Christians who believe that God does answer prayers believe that the Bible is the accurate record of the activity of God, it is not inconsistent for them to believe that God DOES answer prayer, though this gives them no assurance that he will answer any given (or any at all) prayer of THEIRS. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Most Christians will affirm that they have no way of knowing whether or not God will grant a particular request, and most of the ones that won't affirm that are operating under faulty theology that I have no desire to defend.

We know that God answers prayer didactically, not empirically. Causation (of any kind) can't be measure empirically without fully isolating variables and replicating results. Revelation ( = being told by God) is the only way we know ANYTHING about what God is like or how God acts. Generally, when we affirm something as an "answer to prayer," this is not on the basis of an absence of physical/biological efficient causes, but on the belief that God works by means of those causes. In other words, we believe that prayers are answered ONLY because we first believed in a God who answers prayer.

If the efficacy of prayer were the only argument for the existence of God, people who wanted to believe in God would have a pretty bad time of it. But it isn't. If your objective was to force me (Christians) to admit that there is no assurance of answered prayer, fine, because we were doing that anyway. If it was to prove that the argument from the efficacy of prayer is invalid, well, technically it isn't. If anyone could manage to prove that even ONE incident, ever, in the history of time, occurred as an answer to prayer, and NOT from some other cause, it would prove that God exists (or existed at that point in time). I have not idea how one could possibly go about proving this, however, so I will admit that the argument, while technically valid, is practically useless.

There is also the truth that the purpose of prayer is not to motivate God to do something. God does what God will do according to the will of God, which is not contingent on anything that anyone else does. This is a corollary of a divine attribute called Aseity. Christians who know their theology should already affirm this.

So if you were trying to produce a defeater for Christian theology, this isn't one. I would have given the same answer if you'd just asked, "How does prayer work?" But the impression I get is that you think the LACK of answer to some/many/most prayer is significant of something. Initially, at some point, we receive a description of God and what he is like. We hear that he is powerful, kind, loving, merciful, cares for us, answers prayers, etc. We hear this and we get an idea of what we can expect to experience in light of such a God. Then we go out and experience life and none of what we expected happens. At this point, we have a choice to make. Either the definition we received of God was wrong, or our ideas about what that description meant was wrong, and one of the two must be abandoned. The true disciple will abandon their conceptions and try to develop a better understanding of the God of whom they have been told. Everyone else will look for a new god who will either give them what they want or, as a consolation prize, at least fall into line with their self-generated conceptions.


As I hear it, your conception of "God answers prayer" is people who pray for things [would] get them at a rate better than random chance would predict. You KNOW that this is not how a Christian understands "God answers prayer." So now this is the question you need to ask: What use do you have for a God who will not give you things you ask him for?

If your answer turns out to be "none at all," than nothing I (or anything in Christianity) can say can help you. We do not serve God because we get things from him. God cures our sins and makes us like him, and that has nothing to do with answering our prayers (unless that is what we are praying for, which it should be, and note that these things can't be empirically measured). If the answer is anything else, however, this issue is really a technicality. Why do we pray if not to motivate God to action? Why does God not make his existence self-evident (in this case by answering prayers?) What is the significance of God hearing and acknowledging our prayers if he does not intend to respond? Theology can answer all of these (some more clearly than others), but these discussions are really only apprehensible after divine existence is established; you can't really debate the character and behavior of something that doesn't exist.

Remember:

This is a fallacy:
1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. Therefore God does not exist.

This is not a fallacy:
1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was answered.
3. Therefore God exists.

This is not a fallacy either:
1. If my prayer is not answered, God does not exist.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. Therefore God does not exist.

You can't prove that last one metaphysically, empirically, or theologically, but you can easily state it heuristically: "If my prayer is not answered, I don't want anything to do with the God who wouldn't answer it." This, however, is not scientific or even primarily evidentiary, but an opinion based on false premises.

[Trask]

The problem with all of this is that the only evidence for your claim that prayer is meaningful is the personal stories of those that believe it. That's not evidence. Given that no evidence exists to back up prayer, it is not logical to believe that prayer is anything other than wishing real hard. Sorry, I see no logic-based, evidence-based way of looking at this that says that prayer is anything more than wishing super hard. You haven't shown any really good evidence or logic based reasons to believe in prayer so I'm not sure based on what evidence or logic you make the claim that it works. If you have no logic or evidence, then it's not logical or scientific. Essentially isn't enough claim that can't be tested and therefore is worthless. I'm sorry, but this is the bottom line problem with religion. It makes claims that can't be tested and then acts like personal revelation or faith actually means something in terms of actual evidence. It doesn't. I'm not saying that I can disprove prayer, it can't be dis-proven because it says absolutely nothing verifiable and is therefore not a meaningful claim. That which can be suggested without evidence can be rejected without reason.

[jimwalton]

Then you've missed all of what I was saying. What I said is that prayer cannot possibly diagnosed by scientific evidence because its parameters cannot be contained enough for an experimental & control group, isolating and containing all possible variables so that the conclusion isn't skewed by unknowns and unpredictables. You just can't apply the scientific method to prayer. In that sense, it's somewhat like the weather. While they have science, observations, and algorithms to make predictions, there are too many variables for them to accurately (like true science) predict the weather. Where I live, they're wrong, it seems, about 40% of the time. It's unbelievable how wrong they can be. But they ironically enough still call it science. Go figure. It's like the Butterfly Effect—there are too many variables unknowable and uncontrollable for them to make 100% accurate predictions, like they can with the rising of the sun, the full moons, and the return of Haley's comet. Now that's science. Prayer is more like the Butterfly Effect—too many unseen variables affecting the outcome. Prayer is certainly more than personal stories. There have been millions of answered prayers, but if you want science, you have to go to disciplines where science is the legitimate unit of measure.

> If you have no logic or evidence, then it's not logical or scientific.

Hmm. I don't know if you've ever been in love, but it's not logical or scientific either. Science is not the ultimate measure of non-scientific phenomena.