tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post115315448763416356..comments2024-01-04T08:02:29.500-05:00Comments on Attempts: Reality-Based Theists and the Efficacy of Petitionary PrayerStephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16524368948187746248noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post-35805235556582734722007-03-30T10:44:00.000-04:002007-03-30T10:44:00.000-04:00Thanks for writing such a thoughtful and intellect...Thanks for writing such a thoughtful and intellectually generous post. Since you seem to be looking for perspectives from reality-based theists, I have a couple of comments that I could make.<BR/><BR/>1) Talking about whether prayer 'works' is a bit misleading. You have to remember that the three Abrahamic religions believe in a personal God. We don't think that prayer is magic. Magic (like applied science) is always supposed to work, so long as you have the ingredients and conditions right. Prayer, though, is a request that we make to a person. Think of a child asking a parent for something. A child knows that sometimes she will get what she asks for, and at other times she won't, because she's interacting with a person.<BR/><BR/>Of course, this then raises the problem that you mentioned wanting to avoid for the purposes of this discussion, namely the problem of evil. And it is indeed a mystery to many theists why a God whom we believe on other grounds, and based on other evidence, to be fully good, allows such evil to be done (mostly by some human beings to others, but also as part of the natural order). But this, for reality-based theists, is a mystery created by the evidence, not held in spite of the evidence. It's a bit like a paradox in physics: some evidence seems to show x and some seems to show y - can we reconcile them right now, or are we still missing some further piece of evidence? <BR/><BR/>At any rate, assuming, as you do, ex hypothesi, that there is some solution to the problem of evil, it is quite possible that a good God might refuse to answer prayers that would seem likely to have alleviated some evil condition in the world.<BR/><BR/>2) Why are you so sure that it is obvious to any reality-based person that prayer 'doesn't work'? Since even we don't think God will always grant what we ask, the question isn't whether it always 'works', but whether it ever 'works', i.e. whether God ever answers our petitions affirmatively. There are certainly lots of people who can describe incidents in which they prayed for something to happen and it did, even quite extraordinary things.<BR/><BR/>Of course this raises a further question. How do we know that what happened wasn't just going to happen anyway? Well, often we don't. In that sense those who argue that prayer never 'works' are arguing something of a non-falsifiable position (not their fault that they are, of course). If the prayer is refused, they can say it 'didn't work', but if it is granted they can see some of the causes by which it was granted so then they can claim it would have happened anyway, so prayer still 'doesn't work'. In fact, what these people seem to be asking for is not just an answered prayer but (in the technical sense) a miracle.<BR/><BR/>A miracle, at least in Christian theology, is a event which seems to have no preceding causes in the natural world. We believe that they do occur, but very, very seldom. (The watering down of the word 'miracle' to mean 'amazing event' is a bit unfortunate.) A miracle is an instant and arbitrary intervention in the natural world by the God who brought it into existence. Most affirmative answers to prayer are not miracles, in Christian theology.<BR/><BR/>Theologically educated Christians (since at least Augustine around 400 AD/CE, but probably earlier) have generally acknowledged that God exists outside of time and is not bound by it. Thus, God can answer today's prayer yesterday, so to speak. And in fact, many things involving the physical world may have to be answered at the very beginning of the chain of causation in our world. God answers these prayers, we believe, through the natural order. So a prayer for unseasonable and unpredicted sunny weather, say, will still show causes, for any interested meteorologists, after the fact. <BR/><BR/>3) Of course, we also just come back to janinsanfran's point. As weird as it may be, God seems to have told us to ask. We can guess at why and I've heard some interesting guesses. But however it's explained, it's quite mystifying that an omnipotent, omniscient God would - how to put it? - 'take requests' from created beings. <BR/><BR/>4) As a sidenote, in fairness, couldn't you have four categories, the fourth being reality-defiant atheists? Your 'reality-based'/'reality-defiant' dichotomy really seems to refer to the way in which people form and then hold or modify their opinions, and that question is separate from the question of which opinions they happen to hold. Do you really think that theists are the only ones who suffer from the very human tendency to ignore evidence that contradicts their cherished views? To make a minimal argument (assuming the truth of atheism for the moment), since we all know that there are people in the world who decide what they want to believe and then stick to that belief no matter what evidence they see, isn't it probable that at least a few of those people might, by good luck, have happened to select atheism as the view that they wanted to believe? (I think I know some such people, actually.)<BR/><BR/>Thanks again for writing such an intelligent and inquisitive post, and for being so reality-based.<BR/><BR/>Best wishes,<BR/><BR/>BerenAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post-40230248493384736442006-11-06T22:02:00.000-05:002006-11-06T22:02:00.000-05:00The things I would most like to say have already b...The things I would most like to say have already been said, and have even been anticipated by you.<br /><br />1. The question of "does prayer work?" is teleological. So the question underlying this whole discussion is: what is the purpose of prayer? And questions of purpose either belong to a world of subjective values that does not allow for genuine dialogue - OR - such questions are answerable only by God, who alone understands the purpose of human existence.<br /><br />2. I agree that, according to the testimony of God herself, one of the functions of prayer is to influence or alter the course of events, in Jesus's words, to move mountains. Obviously, the idea persists partly due to the sheer authority of God, and partly due to answers to prayer that manifest themselves in various people's lives (aka anecdotes).<br /><br />3. The paradigmatic "unanswered" prayer is Jesus's prayer to be spared the crucifixion. What we actually mean by "unanswered," of course, is that the petition was not granted. We neglect the fact that in no model of earthly authority does the failure of a certain number of petitions dispel the idea of authority.<br /><br />4. The paradigmatic answered prayer? Maybe the resurrection? Or any of Jesus' miracles? ("Why couldn't we drive out the demon?" "This kind can be driven out only through prayer.") The point is, a miracle is a narrative event. It is only visible to someone observing the story who can testify to a disruption of expectations. Miracles do not happen with statistical regularity. You can't find some other innocent men and get them crucified to see if they rise again three days later. And you can't bring a new demoniac by Jesus every day for a week to see if he can repeat the feat. Why should it be any different today?<br /><br />5. Your discussion is substantive and germane. It would indeed be ridiculous if Xians arrived at petitionary prayer through an analysis of their basic situation. As it happens, Xians have been commanded to pray and specifically to bring petitions to God. So questions of whether or not we understand why this is so important are secondary.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post-1154177191926311552006-07-29T08:46:00.000-04:002006-07-29T08:46:00.000-04:00Hi StephenThank you for commenting on my blog. Thi...Hi Stephen<BR/><BR/>Thank you for commenting on my blog. This is a great site - I will visit often.<BR/><BR/>Boelf: how do you know you are not glossing over the failures and only remembering the successes of prayer? I agree with you that we are all prone to confirmation bias of this type. To solve this, we employ statistical methods to test propositions. Unfortunately, these tests show that prayer has no affect.<BR/><BR/>All the best<BR/>Kevin<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.mexc.blogspot.com/" REL="nofollow">Memoirs of an ex-Christian</A>Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16752824290056143050noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post-1153232170307605562006-07-18T10:16:00.000-04:002006-07-18T10:16:00.000-04:00Stephen -- I think I qualify as a "reality-based" ...Stephen -- I think I qualify as a "reality-based" theist. At least I hope so. And I find your discussion of the futility of petitionary prayer completely persuasive. But I still do it, more as I engage more deeply with my faith.<BR/><BR/>Why? Because this omnipotent/omniscient God/Person/Force I have come to believe in tells me to "ask." Makes not the slightest sense to me, but this exchange goes on in the realm where I've found truths I didn't find in other realms, so I do it. Since a very large part of what some traditions would call my practice is a non-attachment to outcomes, this is not even terribly inconsistent. Though a little mystifying.<BR/><BR/>Thanks very much for posting your sister-in-law's letters. I too have people I love in Lebanon.janinsanfranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07548452260456734928noreply@blogger.com