George Desnoyers
Measuring the Efficacy of Prayer
A. The Traditional Double-blind Study
Traditionally, Christians have been encouraged to believe in the efficacy of prayer. This has led to attempts to measure prayer’s efficacy by the use of double-blind studies. Typically, such studies are conducted in the following way. A statistically sufficient number of sick people are divided into two matched groups. Prayers are said for the healing of the members of one of the two groups, but not offered for the members of the second group. The members of the two groups do not know whether prayers were offered on their behalf. Without knowing which group was prayed for, an external authority conducts an independent examination into the frequencies and speeds of healings among members of the two groups. Only after the independent determination of the numbers and speeds of healings of the members of the two groups, all experimental data is gathered together and analyzed. A judgment is then made regarding the efficacy of prayer.
B. An Improved Design for a Double-blind Study
As some people have pointed out, it would be possible to design an improved test to measure the efficacy of prayer. The above-described double-blind study could be a good test, but it includes a variable that would be easy to eliminate. After all, sick people either do or don’t recover, and recover at various rates, for a large variety of reasons having nothing to do with supernatural intervention in response to prayers. Instead of dividing sick people randomly into two groups, and having one group prayed for, and the other not prayed for, without either group knowing, and independently measuring the numbers and speeds of recoveries in the two groups, it has been suggested that one could do the following. Divide dead people into two groups. Because people sometimes only appear to be dead, use only people who have already been embalmed, or maybe who have been embalmed and buried. Have the dead in one group prayed for, that they would come back to life. But do not have the dead in the other group prayed for. Compare the percentages of dead who come back to life in the two groups. When an embalmed dead person comes back to life, supernatural intervention can pretty safely be presumed. Because such revitalizations are theological miracles, absolutely contrary to the known laws of nature, factors other than supernatural intervention in response to prayers could be nearly totally discounted.
If the experiment is done as suggested, you might come to the same conclusion an acquaintance of mine says he came to several years ago. For many years he has had a standing offer to tithe to the church of anyone who can light a match by saying a prayer. (So far, this acquaintance of mine has never had to tithe to a church because the match was lighted.)
Objections to the Improved Experiment
Let’s look at a couple of likely objections to this suggested experiment.
First, one might say that the suggested experiment asks too much of God. To that is replied that it should not be one whit more difficult for God to raise an embalmed dead person to life than it is for God to more speedily heal a sick person. After all, isn’t God supposed to be omnipotent? Aren’t we talking about the God who holds the entire universe in his/her hand, and does that with great ease? Could such a God find anything too difficult? That’s inconceivable!
A second objection that might be given is that such a test tempts God to perform a miracle in order to prove himself. It is sometimes said that God will never do that. Reference may be made to Satan’s temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. The answers to this objection would be the following.
First, the temptations in the wilderness were a special case in which Satan, not a human, was suggesting that Jesus specifically perform miracles that would undermine God’s plan and accomplish Satan’s desire. Jesus would have lost stature had he fallen for Satan’s treachery. But the prayers in the suggested experiment would be said by humans who, unlike Satan, are not in competition with God, and the prayers would be intended to bring God glory rather than to harm God’s reputation.
Second, Jesus did perform signs and wonders to vindicate, or prove, himself before humans. Look, for example, at Matthew 9:2-8, esp. v. 6 (“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” Then he said to the paralytic, ‘Get up, take up your mat and go home.’” – NIV)
Third, we do have those NT verses in which Jesus promises, “If you ask anything in my name, My Father will do it for you” and “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed . . . ,” and so on, implying that all sincere prayers can and will be granted.”
The Real Reason for Objections to the Improved Experiment
Anyone who has spent much time in Christian churches should realize the real reason for objections to the improved experiment. It is because theological miracles, the kind of miracles in which a law of nature is contravened, are just not taken seriously today. When it comes to theological miracles, Christians very rarely take prayerful action on such promises as, “If you ask anything in my name, My Father will do it for you.” And theological miracles are almost never prayed for with much hope or expectation that the prayer will be answered affirmatively. On those occasions when such prayers are said, it is usually in desperation, because in the matters most important to us – like the health of a loved one – the smallest hope, no matter how tiny, is better than none. Only a person either extremely religious or very desperate could fail to recognize the presumption in requesting God to suspend a law of nature on behalf of a sinner confessedly unworthy.
Somewhat paradoxically, ministers in fundamentalist churches are often the least likely to pray for supernatural intervention in matters where it would seem they would have great interest in doing so. Why don’t they, for example, ask God in prayer to miraculously and unmistakably let all of us humans know which one of more than twenty thousand versions of the Bible, God’s “inerrant word,” is the right one? The twenty thousand versions contain hundreds of thousands of variations in the text, and it sure would be nice to know for sure which version is the inerrant one. Some versions even have several whole books that other versions don’t have. If the Bible is truly God’s word, we should naturally expect God to have an interest in preserving and promoting an accurate version (and to make men/women reluctant to alter it). At the very least, following the production of all these versions of “his word,” you’d think he would unmistakably make clear to all of us which one is correct. This is a prayer that fundamentalist ministers should quite eagerly pray, since praying for God’s revelation to actually be recognized by mankind would certainly be praying for something within God’s will.
Escape Clauses to Promises of Answers to Prayers
Aside from the presumption in praying for theological miracles that contravene a law of nature, there is another reason for Christians not to take the texts about moving mountains, and faith as small as a mustard seed, too seriously. It is because the Bible’s authors, knowing of the shortage of true miracles which could be reported literally, quite liberally peppered the Bible with escape clauses – reasons why prayers would not be answered. Any religious leader worth his salt can offer multiple Biblical explanations why someone’s prayers have not been answered affirmatively, or in some cases even heard.
Below are some of the Biblical escape clauses to which religious leaders can point. Long-time church goers will be quite familiar with them, having heard some of these escape clauses mentioned dozens of times. Some of the texts cited are often used to humble people who trouble a minister about why their prayers went unanswered. This way the minister is usually able to rest assured that the person will not soon raise the embarrassing question again.
Biblical Escape Clauses – Why Prayers Might Have Gone Unanswered
- Sin – Matthew 7:21-23; John 9:30-33, esp. v. 31; James 5:14-16; Isaiah 59:1-8, esp. v. 2; Isaiah 1:10-15; Proverbs 15:8.
- Disobedience – 1 John 3:21-24, esp. v. 22; Proverbs 28:9; John 9:30-33, esp. v. 31.
- Failure to do things pleasing to God – 1 John 3:20-24, esp. v. 22.
- Failure to abide in Christ – John 15:1-10, esp. v. 7 (See 1 John 3:24).
- Not receptive to God’s word – Zechariah 7:11-13; John 15:7; Proverbs 1:24-31.
- Not praying in truth – Psalms 145:18; John 4:22-24; Proverbs 1:24-30, esp. vv. 28-30; Matthew 23:14.
- Not in faith – Matthew 21:18-22; Mark 11:19-24; James 1:5-7; James 5:15.
- Selfishness – James 4:3.
- Not in accord with God’s will – James 5:14; Matthew 6:10.
- Not fervent, earnest, sincere – James 5:16-17; Matthew 23:14.
- Pride, absence of humility – Job 35:9-13, esp. vv. 12-13; Ecclesiastes 5:1-3; 2 Chronicles 7:14.
- Lack of forgiveness – Mark 11:25-26; Matthew 6:12.
- Lack of repentance – 2 Chronicles 7:14.
- One praying not a worshipper of God – John 9:30-33, esp. v. 31.
- Prayer rash, foolish, not thoughtful – Ecclesiastes 5:1-3.
- Lack of mercy and compassion – Proverbs 21:13; Zechariah 7:8-14, esp. vv. 9, 11, 13.
- Idolatry – Ezekiel 8:7-18; Jeremiah 11:9-11; Ezekiel 20:1-31, esp. vv. 1-8 and 30-31; Jeremiah 14:10-12.
- Contemptuous toward God – Ezekiel 8:17-18.
- Bad attitude toward wife – 1 Peter 3:7 (see also Matthew 5:21-26).
- Profane life, mixing holy and unholy – Malachi 2:11-13.
- Cruel, exploitative, corrupt leaders – Micah 3:1-4.
- Prayer too late – Luke 16:19-31; Matthew 7:21-23.
- No attitude of thankfulness – Philippians 4:6 (see 1 John 3:22).