What is a good theological critique of "coincidences"? How do you know that answered prayers aren't merely a coincidence?

[Bohm_Bawerk]

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk

 

[AntiTheist]

You can’t, at least not on an anecdotal level.

You could, of course, study the effect – or lack thereof – of prayer and compare it to the results you would expect from pure chance.

For example, you could get a group of patients with a specific disease (some form of cancer, let’s say), and pray for a select number of them and not for the others. You make the experiment double-blind so that the doctors and the patients do not know who is being prayed for. Then you see if the sub-group being prayed for recovers 1) at a rate significantly higher than the others who were not prayed for and 2) at a rate significantly higher than the rate we would expect from pure chance (the usual rate of remission).

If prayer worked, you could – obviously – do this experiment over and over and over and over and consistently demonstrate that the group being prayed for consistently recovers at a much higher rate than everyone else. You could actually demonstrate it to a statistically significant amount.

Now imagine if this experiment were repeated again and again, with different members of different religions saying the prayers, and you could demonstrate that it is only the prayers of Catholics that have this effect.

Wow! That would be one heck of a discovery, wouldn’t it? While it wouldn’t immediately demonstrate that the rest of the claims that this religion makes are true, it would sure tell us that something is special about this one particular religion, and suddenly its other claims become much more viable.

You’d have grant money pouring in, scientists ready to really study the other claims made by the religion, a lot of credibility, etc.

But the fact of the matter is that none of the above is ever going to happen because prayer doesn’t work. If you could consistently demonstrate its efficacy to statistically significant degrees, someone would have done it already, and it would have been front-page news pretty much everywhere because it would rock the very foundations of human knowledge.

The fact of the matter is that prayer and its “results” are completely unmeasurable and completely indistinguishable from coincidence.

EDIT: Oh, I just noticed that you were an atheist. Sorry, you probably wanted the theist “party line” on this issue, but I guess it never hurts to start off with a rational approach to a subject.

 

[Bohm_Bawerk]

You can’t, at least not on an anecdotal level.

You could, of course, study the effect – or lack thereof – of prayer and compare it to the results you would expect from pure chance.

For example, you could get a group of patients with a specific disease (some form of cancer, let’s say), and pray for a select number of them and not for the others. You make the experiment double-blind so that the doctors and the patients do not know who is being prayed for. Then you see if the sub-group being prayed for recovers 1) at a rate significantly higher than the others who were not prayed for and 2) at a rate significantly higher than the rate we would expect from pure chance (the usual rate of remission).

Good response, but how would this work in light of the Bible’s command that “Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted [him] in Massah” (Deuteronomy 6:16). One could easily argue that God, or a god, wouldn’t answer the prayers if He figured that he was being tested through experiments.

Plus, this experiment assumes that God can only answer a prayer in 1 way (namely, for the person to be cured), whereas most would argue that God can answer a prayer in different ways…in ways that would generally be unexpected (e.g. emotional comfort, God using the suffering to bring closeness between the patient and Him, etc).

How would an experiment work in light of these facts ? I was looking more for an “a priori” criticism rather than an “a posteriori” criticism of the issue of coincidences and answered prayers.

Thank you,
**Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
**

 

[Bohm_Bawerk]

I heard that David Hume talks about this in one of his works, so I’ll have to look into that.

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk

 

[tonyrey]

Prayer and its results are distinguishable from coincidences by the fact of prayer! There is a vast wealth of evidence that prayer does have positive results on the person who prays - which is in turn evidence for the power of the mind.

The only sound reason for believing that answers to prayers are coincidences would be a total lack of results. And prayers are not always answered in the way we expect…

 

[Julian0404]

Prayer comprises the entire last section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, i.e. PART FOUR which begins with Paragraph 2558. Suggest you read this section.

 

[abucs]

Try passing off the story of Fatima as a co-incidence of babbling children. Is pretty hard to take that line of thought.

 

[Tsuwano]

You can’t, at least not on an anecdotal level.

You could, of course, study the effect – or lack thereof – of prayer and compare it to the results you would expect from pure chance.

For example, you could get a group of patients with a specific disease (some form of cancer, let’s say), and pray for a select number of them and not for the others. You make the experiment double-blind so that the doctors and the patients do not know who is being prayed for. Then you see if the sub-group being prayed for recovers 1) at a rate significantly higher than the others who were not prayed for and 2) at a rate significantly higher than the rate we would expect from pure chance (the usual rate of remission).

If prayer worked, you could – obviously – do this experiment over and over and over and over and consistently demonstrate that the group being prayed for consistently recovers at a much higher rate than everyone else. You could actually demonstrate it to a statistically significant amount.

Now imagine if this experiment were repeated again and again, with different members of different religions saying the prayers, and you could demonstrate that it is only the prayers of Catholics that have this effect.

Wow! That would be one heck of a discovery, wouldn’t it? While it wouldn’t immediately demonstrate that the rest of the claims that this religion makes are true, it would sure tell us that something is special about this one particular religion, and suddenly its other claims become much more viable.

You’d have grant money pouring in, scientists ready to really study the other claims made by the religion, a lot of credibility, etc.

But the fact of the matter is that none of the above is ever going to happen because prayer doesn’t work. If you could consistently demonstrate its efficacy to statistically significant degrees, someone would have done it already, and it would have been front-page news pretty much everywhere because it would rock the very foundations of human knowledge.

The fact of the matter is that prayer and its “results” are completely unmeasurable and completely indistinguishable from coincidence.

EDIT: Oh, I just noticed that you were an atheist. Sorry, you probably wanted the theist “party line” on this issue, but I guess it never hurts to start off with a rational approach to a subject.

You could do all this, but then this assumes that the purpose of prayer is to bend God toward the will of the petitioner. Only someone who does not pray very often would assume that this is the only, or even primary, purpose of prayer. It is not. The purpose of prayer is to bend the petitioner toward the will of God. This turning toward God cannot be measured using statistics, I’m afraid, but can only be known by the person who is praying, and then only over a period of time, sometimes a lifetime. Prayer is not concerned with coincidence because the faithful Christian believes that God’s will is made manifest in history through human experience. A particular incident may not be indicative of God’s will, but history, in the long run, is.

 

[odile53]

Since I’m not a theologian I can’t offer you an explanation. But I just want to comment on the scenario that the second poster proposed. There actually was a study that examined the impact of prayer on two cohorts of patients (if memory serves me correctly, they were cardiac surgery patients) who were being prayed for by a group of people (and at this point I don’t recall if the praying people were from the same religious denomination.) Neither cohort of patients knew whether they were being prayed for; I don’t recall if they even knew this study was going on (to avoid the placebo effect.) The “prayed for” cohort did better in terms of survival rate and lower rates of complications postoperatively, and the improvement in survival and recovery rates was outside of what could be accounted for by random chance (in other words greater than one standard deviation.)

I seem to remember that the study occurred sometime in the early 1990s. I do not know who sponsored or funded the study, or whether similar studies were ever started.

I wish I had hung onto the journal that had that article in it. If I can find the reference in the literature, I will post it.

 

[a_priori]

How would an experiment work in light of these facts ?

Experimentation is only useful when it is anchored, in all aspects, to the domain of spacetime. This is where logic lives. In matters of faith, prayer and coincidence, the methodology of experimentation is incomplete and therefore useless. Much of the stuff of prayer is popping and cracking outside of spacetime where we cannot exhaustively discern it.

Does God exist and answer prayer? The atheist cannot deny it and the theist cannot confirm it. However, lived subjective experience may lead individuals to different conclusions that are valid for them. There is no “chromatograph” on Earth that can answer that one.

 

[Spock]

I was looking more for an “a priori” criticism rather than an “a posteriori” criticism of the issue of coincidences and answered prayers.

First, let’s make sure we are on the same wavelength, when we use the phrase “prayer works”. The prayer is question is the “supplicative” or “intercessory” prayer, and NOT the “meditative” prayer. To quote Ambrose Bierce (in the Devil’s Dictionary):

To pray (v): To ask that the laws on the Universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

And when we say that the prayer “worked”, we assume that God fulfills the request in an affirmative manner as the petitioner asked for it.

Now, the critique is simple. One of the alleged attributes of God is that he is immutable, which means that God’s “mind” cannot be changed no matter what we ask for and no matter how fervently we ask for it. So to perform a supplicative prayer reveals that the petitioner does not accept God’s immutability, in other words he is a heretic. Or, if he does not deny God’s immutability, then he is one of the “meek ones”, who shall inherit the Earth… (The phrase “meek ones” is just a politically correct euphemism. You guess what it stands for.)

Recommended reading from the Onion: here… (Warning! Seriously tongue-in-cheek, not to be taken seriously.)

 

[a_priori]

First, let’s make sure we are on the same wavelength, when we use the phrase “prayer works”. The prayer is question is the “supplicative” or “intercessory” prayer, and NOT the “meditative” prayer. To quote Ambrose Bierce (in the Devil’s Dictionary):

To pray (v): To ask that the laws on the Universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

And when we say that the prayer “worked”, we assume that God fulfills the request in an affirmative manner as the petitioner asked for it.

Now, the critique is simple. One of the alleged attributes of God is that he is immutable, which means that God’s “mind” cannot be changed no matter what we ask for and no matter how fervently we ask for it. So to perform a supplicative prayer reveals that the petitioner does not accept God’s immutability, in other words he is a heretic. Or, if he does not deny God’s immutability, then he is one of the “meek ones”, who shall inherit the Earth… (The phrase “meek ones” is just a politically correct euphemism. You guess what it stands for.)

Recommended reading from the Onion: here… (Warning! Seriously tongue-in-cheek, not to be taken seriously.)

However tongue-in-cheek, this does illustrate the tangled mess one can end up with if their approach to theology and hermeneutics is too cataphatic. There’s a lot of that going around. Overreaching here and ascribing to God the exaggerated tendencies of men merely turns Him into no more than another candidate for the Pantheon (gods with human priorities and urges writ large).The Judeo-Christian God transcends human language categories. Inquiries into His nature and intentions must be apophatic, or they are dangerously presumptive.

Your mileage may vary…

 

[Spock]

The Judeo-Christian God transcends human language categories.

In that case all the attributes ascribed to God must be declared null and void and meaningless. There is no more “God exists”, or “God is love”, no more of the “omnimax attributes”. If human language cannot describe God, then so be it. But in that case you must impose silence about the whole subject. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. That only happens in some fairy-tales, not in real life.

 

[seagal]

First, let’s make sure we are on the same wavelength, when we use the phrase “prayer works”. The prayer is question is the “supplicative” or “intercessory” prayer, and NOT the “meditative” prayer. To quote Ambrose Bierce (in the Devil’s Dictionary):

To pray (v): To ask that the laws on the Universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

And when we say that the prayer “worked”, we assume that God fulfills the request in an affirmative manner as the petitioner asked for it.

Now, the critique is simple. One of the alleged attributes of God is that he is immutable, which means that God’s “mind” cannot be changed no matter what we ask for and no matter how fervently we ask for it. So to perform a supplicative prayer reveals that the petitioner does not accept God’s immutability, in other words he is a heretic. Or, if he does not deny God’s immutability, then he is one of the “meek ones”, who shall inherit the Earth… (The phrase “meek ones” is just a politically correct euphemism. You guess what it stands for.)

Recommended reading from the Onion: here… (Warning! Seriously tongue-in-cheek, not to be taken seriously.)

Your idea of immutability seems to be that God is just sitting up in heaven perfectly still, not moving or doing anything to change his perfectness. On the contrary, God still acts, he is still creating, he is still listening to our prayers. Jesus taught us to pray and how to do it, he wouldn’t have bothered if there were no use in praying.

 

[a_priori]

In that case all the attributes ascribed to God must be declared null and void and meaningless. There is no more “God exists”, or “God is love”, no more of the “omnimax attributes”. If human language cannot describe God, then so be it. But in that case you must impose silence about the whole subject. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. That only happens in some fairy-tales, not in real life.

Human language cannot describe God to the degree of specificity claimed by many people who do theology. Of course there are things we can know about Him because that’s the point of living. I should have been more precise by stating that the needle on the hermeneutics gauge should be more in the apophatic range, but not hard against the stop. There is a place for cataphasis, but the farther you go in that direction, the more you are compounding your error. This is when you get Salem witch trials, The Inquisition, Calvin drowning pregnant women in Geneva, the Taliban, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the garotting of Atuhualpa, etc., etc.

The high ground the atheist ascribes to himself is illusory as well. Does God exist or not? No one can answer that question for another. For me, He exists. But telling others what He “thinks” and “feels” about all human matters is above my pay grade.

 

[Pieman333272]

Now, the critique is simple. One of the alleged attributes of God is that he is immutable, which means that God’s “mind” cannot be changed no matter what we ask for and no matter how fervently we ask for it. So to perform a supplicative prayer reveals that the petitioner does not accept God’s immutability, in other words he is a heretic. Or, if he does not deny God’s immutability, then he is one of the “meek ones”, who shall inherit the Earth… (The phrase “meek ones” is just a politically correct euphemism. You guess what it stands for.)

OR God already knows which prayers he will answer, because he already knows who is going to pray and for what and how often and when and everything else about the circumstances. Changing his mind would be him going from denial of answering a prayer to deciding to answer it. As for it actually happening, the change when the prayer is fulfilled is on the earth, not God.

 

[JDaniel]

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk

Eugen:

I know that I have had this conversation with more than several posters on CAF, and admit that at one time I was of the not-well-thought-out opinion that because of God’s Immutability, he could not stop, make a decision, then, either answer a petition of prayer or not. Since then, I have had more time to think that position through. While it is true that God is Immutable: therefore: he cannot change as we conceive change to be, however, there are two additional aspects of God that would make answering supplicative prayers possible. The first is God’s Providence: in lieu of the fact that his Creation is still rolling out, still in process. And second, God consists of the Holy Spirit that we know confers graces at various “times.”

Since God knows everything, i.e., everything modified by the adverb, “absolutely,” he knows, within his Eternal Now, what all human souls will ask for during their mortal lives. And, because Creation is still in process, he does not have to per se stop anything. All he has to do is include his grants-of-answer within that process. Furthermore, as the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit can effect anything at any point in time as we sense it. The Holy Spirit confers all Graces - at all points of time. These are musts, because, the Holy Spirit must participate with the Holy Church in order to facilitate Christ’s promise to Peter: “whatever you bind shall be bound, whatever you loose shall be loosed.” Therefore, upon the restoration of lost grace - lost through the act of mortal sin - grace must be restored to efficacy the moment the confessor has absolved all of the sins of the properly disposed penitent.

Now, it is obvious that the foreknowledge of these acts (of the Holy Spirit) is necessary in order for the Holy Spirit to confer these sorts of “change” in human souls. And, it is also obvious that some souls will be recipients of grace and others won’t. Predestination is still at work here. God will not waste “grace” on the undeserving.

God bless,
jd

 

[Spock]

OR God already knows which prayers he will answer, because he already knows who is going to pray and for what and how often and when and everything else about the circumstances.

It does not matter. Whether you pray for something or not, if it is God’s will, he will do it, if it is not his will, he will not do it. No supplicative prayer makes sense if God is immutable. One of the recurring self-contradictions that Christians keep on committing and also denying. Good old doublethink. How could one be Christian without it?

 

[Pieman333272]

It does not matter. Whether you pray for something or not, if it is God’s will, he will do it, if it is not his will, he will not do it. No supplicative prayer makes sense if God is immutable. One of the recurring self-contradictions that Christians keep on committing and also denying. Good old doublethink. How could one be Christian without it?

Here’s how I see it:

We pray. God knows we will pray. God knows how and if he will respond to the prayer. He knew from the start and never changed his mind. No contradiction or doublethink here. Or am I missing something?

 

[seagal]

It does not matter. Whether you pray for something or not, if it is God’s will, he will do it, if it is not his will, he will not do it. No supplicative prayer makes sense if God is immutable. One of the recurring self-contradictions that Christians keep on committing and also denying. Good old doublethink. How could one be Christian without it?

To quote Inigo Montoya “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” God is immutable in that his essence and his attritutes will never change. Whatever he was, he still is and always will be. But he has told us through the scriptures that we can pray to him. Even Jesus prayed that he not have to go through his torture and death. Jesus instructed us to ask God for the things we want and need. Why bother if our prayers won’t be heard or acted on?