Do you feel a cold coming on? Better get mom to make a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Did you get a black eye? Better put a raw steak on it to bring the swelling down.
We're all familiar with any number of home remedies from traditional medicine, various conventional methods which promise treatments for all sorts of ailments. But do they work?
That's complicated. The problem is that when people use these remedies, their evaluation of the treatment is often skewed by a selection bias in which they end up counting the hits and ignoring the misses. So, for example, once we expect that the bowl of chicken noodle soup will offer us some respite from the symptoms of our cold, we will look for evidence – any evidence – that it has the desired effect. Even if the real effect is negligible, we might easily convince ourselves otherwise. And in this way, an ineffective treatment – like putting raw meat on a bruised eye – might end up being handed down from mother to child as a bit of homespun wisdom.
To be sure, home remedies are not always misguided. Sometimes they do include some genuine well-worn wisdom. However, they also have their share of futile and even harmful advice carried along by a battery of anecdotal reports and unchecked bias.
So is there any way to tell the difference?
That's where science comes in. The scientist respectfully tables mom's testimony and guards against one's selection bias by establishing carefully controlled experiments in order to test the efficacy of various treatments. One does so by comparing the effects of the treatment on an experimental group with the results of a control group that does not receive the treatment. In this way, scientific testing provides an essential tool for distinguishing the truly effective treatments from the exercises in futility.
Prayer as Treatment
Just as people often appeal to home remedies for life's many problems, so people of religious faith often appeal to prayer. A word sent up to God, in effect, could be viewed as the ultimate homespun solution. So it should be no surprise that many researchers have set out to use the same basic methods by which we gauge the effectiveness of chicken noodle soup on a cold to evaluate prayer for life's many struggles.
Of course, the word ‘prayer’ can mean many things, so we should be clear that in this context we are referring to the practice of asking God for some particular outcome. This specific kind of prayer is often called petitionary prayer or intercessory prayer. Thus, the question is whether we can test the effectiveness of petitionary prayer to see whether it really does make a difference.
Many scientists seem to believe that we can: indeed, they have devised experiments to test the effectiveness of prayer. Truth be known, prayer has not fared very well in those experiments. Here is a summary of the deflationary results from one particular 2006 study:
Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and other scientists tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two weeks. The volunteers prayed for ‘a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications’ for specific patients, for whom they were given the first name and first initial of the last name. (Power of Prayer Flunks an Unusual Test’ (30 March 2006), <www.nbcnews.com/id/12082681/ns/health-heart_health/t/power-prayer-flunks-unusual-test/#.XJuJECJKipo>)
The patients were divided into three groups of approximately 600 people each: ‘those who knew they were being prayed for, those who were prayed for but only knew it was a possibility, and those who weren't prayed for but were told it was a possibility’.
After the study was completed, it yielded the following outcome:
Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication, versus 52 percent of those who were told it was just a possibility.
According to these results, the experimental group did not see a statistically significant improved outcome. Prayer, so this result would suggest, does not work. (Cue the sad trombone.)
Such is the interpretation of many who have looked at these studies and this brings me, finally, to my topic. Can scientists really test the effectiveness of prayer? Does the failure of prayer to demonstrate statistically significant improvements in an experimental group over a control group provide a good reason to believe that prayer doesn't actually work?
In this article I'm going to argue to the contrary that prayer studies are not effective tools to study petitionary prayer and thus that scientists cannot, in fact, accurately test the effectiveness of prayer. I will aim to make my case by way of three specific arguments: first, prayer is not properly analogous to a medical treatment; second, we cannot reliably say when a prayer is not answered; third, we have a good reason to think God would not answer prayers in the predictable way assumed by researchers. Let's take a closer look at each argument.
Prayer is not Properly Analogous to Treatment
Prayer studies depend on the assumption that praying is relevantly analogous to a medical treatment. But is it? On the contrary, I would argue that it is not. The key difference is this: while home remedies involve the application of some substance or process which exhibits predictable outcomes in particular circumstances, by contrast, prayer involves appeal to another person. And this personal factor introduces a critically significant difference because persons do not behave in the same predictable ways as material substances and processes.
So what are some of the considerations that might shape the way God responds to prayers? Let's consider three possible factors.
To begin with, the relationship of the individual towards God could affect the prayer. For example, we read in James 5:16: ‘The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective’ (NIV). This verse suggests that being righteous gives a significance and potential impact to a petition that might not exist in a prayer prayed by a person who lacks that righteous stance.
I suspect that we can appreciate something of the logic here: if we have a positive personal relationship with an individual, we are more likely to accede to the requests of that individual. James suggests that the same may be true of God. Needless to say, a researcher would be unable to assess the quality of relationships that praying individuals have with God or how those relationships might affect their prayers.
This brings us to a second factor. Christians commonly believe that the effectiveness of a prayer may also be influenced by the specific degree of faith (that is, trust and belief) a person exhibits as they pray. As Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you’ (Matthew 17:20, NIV). Once again, researchers would not have access to the specific degree of faith being exercised by individuals which might impact the effectiveness of their prayer.
Third, there may be factors wholly unrelated to the person praying which lead to God not responding favourably to a prayer for healing. For example, it may be that this person will suffer from a period of illness which will deepen their character and allow them to become a more effective caregiver to others as a result. Had this person been healed initially so that they would have never suffered, they would have never acquired the experience and care to be a healer for others. Consequently, God, in his wisdom and sovereignty, refrains from healing that person at that time.
These are but three factors – for all we know, there could be many more – that could affect the way that God responds to particular petitionary prayers. Given that we don't know to what degree these factors might affect the quality and outcome of specific prayers, we cannot accurately measure the effectiveness of those prayers.
We Cannot Reliably Say When a Prayer is not Answered
Let's now turn to the second major problem with scientific attempts to gauge the power of petitionary prayer. In the study cited above, individuals prayed for ‘a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications’. The assumption is apparently that if there is not a quick, healthy recovery without any complications then the prayer was not answered.
But is that a fair assumption?
Remember, Christian petitionary prayer involves presenting a request to a divine person which parallels presenting a request to a human person. And in the case of humans, we know that not every request receives a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Consider, for example, John asking Trish if he can have $10. While Trish could say yes, she could also respond in many other ways: for example, ‘No, but you can have $5’ or ‘No, but you can borrow $10.’ And it would be strange, indeed, to take the position that Trish answers John's request only if she, in fact, gives him $10. Clearly, giving $5 or lending $10 is also an answer.
To be sure, the defender of the study might point out that it does not merely gauge a simple ‘yes or no’ to the prayer. Rather, the study sought to gauge whether prayer had any beneficial effect in the recovery of patients. This may be true, but it does raise the deeper issue of what range of possible outcomes might, in fact, be positive answers to prayer. To put it bluntly, are positive outcomes only those that result in a quicker recovery?
Consider the case of Jesus himself. According to the Gospels, he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before he is crucified, ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me’ (Luke 22:42, NIV). At first blush, it would seem that God did not take that cup – the cup of suffering – from Jesus given that he ended up dying on a cross. But does that mean God didn't answer the prayer?
Not at all. Note that immediately after Jesus prays we read that ‘An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.’ This is indeed an answer, though not the one initially sought. By the same token, persons who were prayed for could possibly experience all sorts of benefits not immediately available to those conducting the test because those benefits may be outside the scope of the study. To sum up, there could be countless other ways that God might respond to a prayer request, ways which diverge from the specific request to some degree but which are, nonetheless, answers.
Why God Wouldn't Answer Prayers in a Predictable Fashion
We can now turn to our third and final point. As I said above, we have good reason to believe that if God exists, God would not answer prayers in the regular, predictable fashion assumed by researchers. Why?
Well, imagine for a moment if a parent always gave their child whatever the child asked. Would this action facilitate a healthy parent–child relationship? On the contrary, it would arguably inhibit the development of that relationship by turning the parent into something like a genie in a bottle that is ever ready to grant yet another wish from the child.
God is not simply our genie in a bottle, but a divine person with whom we are called to develop a meaningful relationship. Consequently, we should not assume, as the prayer researchers appear to, that God would be expected to respond to our prayers in a regular, predictable fashion. Of course, God can be counted on to respond to prayers in an appropriate manner, but that does not mean that we can assume God acts with the regularity that could be analysed in a double blind test.
You're Just Saying That Because the Prayer Studies Failed!
Having made my three points, I will now conclude by considering a common objection I have encountered from sceptics of prayer. They often reply like this: ‘You're just saying that because the prayer studies failed! If they had succeeded, you'd be singing their praises from the rooftops!’
This is simply not true: I really wouldn't. It seems to me that prayer studies are fundamentally flawed irrespective of whatever results they may produce. Having said that, it is also important to point out that the sceptic's retort is also irrelevant. The three arguments I have presented must be considered on their own merits. And in my view, they provide excellent reasons to reject the notion that petitionary prayer can be subjected to controlled studies in the same manner as your mom's favourite home remedy.
