In 2006 the largest scientific study on the effects of prayer found that it provided no benefit to the recovery of cardiac bypass patients. The strangers offering the prayers were two Catholic monasteries and a Protestant faith group. The type of prayer being invoked is known as intercessory prayer, or praying on behalf of another. It is a form of petitionary prayer, whereby we ask our god for something.
But is science even capable of investigating the supernatural at all, especially a supernatural being that exists outside of space and whose knowledge and power is beyond our comprehension? There are many reasons to think the mismatch between science and such a being would result in an impassable gulf preventing any investigation at all.
Such a being could clearly know all about the study and intervene, or not, according to Their own motivations. To believers a god’s desire to maintain Their Divine Hiddenness would likely prevent Their presence from being revealed in a scientific study of any sort. To non-believers it would only provide further evidence that no such being exists. The end result being a stalemate. Only if the study provided evidence for a god’s existence would such a stalemate be broken. But would a god who cherishes Their Divine Hiddenness ever do so? Would They ever allow a prayer study constituted by strangers to be the method by which They revealed Themselves to us? But to step back for a moment the more fundamental question for me is: “What is the minimum criteria that must be met for The Greatest Love to actually answer a prayer?“
A person that prays for great power, or another that prays that the sun turn dark are not just unlikely to be answered. We must be more confident in our assertion that such prayers will go unanswered. For me it is not acceptable to say that such prayers based on self-glorification or the World’s annihilation will even be considered by a loving god. Some prayers can be deemed aberrations of love by humankind right from the start.
So what is the criteria for deeming a prayer an aberration of love? And in thinking of this question for some time now, three minimal requirements come to mind. There may be more, but I believe at least the following three criteria must be met in order for a prayer to even be considered by The Greatest Love:
- Did the petition come from a place of love? Not power for power’s sake, or glory, or hate. Love.
- Did the petition require a law of nature to be broken? The Greatest Love will not violate a law of nature. I do not believe it has ever happened either now, or in the past.
- Did the petition prevent a greater good? This is a question that only one with the most knowledge of the Divine Plan is capable of best answering. More on this below.
There are grey areas in the above criteria. For example on criteria 2), it is clear that the laws of nature must remain immutable and so to pray for The Greatest Love to break such laws is, I believe, futile. But then there are occasions when it is impossible to know whether a request requires the circumvention of any such laws. For example whether to ask for the recovery of a loved one facing a life-threatening ailment. Would such a request involve the subversion of any laws of the natural or medical sciences? It can be hard to know beforehand and so to pray for a recovery under such painful circumstances certainly would not offend The Greatest Love even if there is nothing They will do to prevent the patient from succumbing.
On criteria 3) The Divine Plan is The Greatest Love’s master blueprint for everything throughout time and space. If answering a prayer would prevent the execution of such a Plan I cannot believe that such a prayer would ever be fulfilled. But again there are many grey areas. If answering a single prayer would extend the fulfillment of The Divine Plan, but not jeopardize it, by one day, one year, or even one millennia would They ever do so? Answering such a question involves having an understanding of all the possible greater goods and whether the ends (i.e. achieving The Divine Plan as quickly as possible) justifies the means (i.e. leaving prayers unanswered). It is a question only The Greatest Love can answer.
It is this latter criteria, criteria 3), that can prevent even the most heartfelt of pleas from being answered. And without our visibility into all the cascading effects of answering a given prayer, without The Greatest Love’s ability to peer into the future, albeit without certainty, it is impossible for us to know why it was not answered. It can cause us to question the very existence of a Divine Creator. And The Greatest Love understands this. They accept it as a painful but necessary part of Their role in the Universe.
The above discussion provides reasons and examples for when The Greatest Love cannot answer our prayers. But an even greater quandary exists. Can The Greatest Love personally intervene to answer any of our prayers? Would doing so amount to playing favorites which I have already stated I do not believe will ever happen. So is answering a personal prayer playing favorites? Does it not favor theists over atheists? And I can draw no other conclusion other than answering prayers, for the sake of answering prayers, is playing favorites and it cannot be.
This is not to say that what we petition for in prayers cannot be fulfilled. It merely means that there is no special consideration given to those who pray, less non-believers be treated unfairly by The Greatest Love. Instead The Greatest Love listens to the hearts of all of Their children. They know what is in those hearts. Those hearts can be theist, atheist, or agnostic. They can worship the Abrahamic god, the Hindu gods, or no god at all. The desires of those hearts are always taken into consideration even before those desires manifest into a formal petition via prayer. Prayer is not required to petition The Greatest Love to act. A desire originating from your love is all that is needed.
So why pray? Because The Greatest Love listens to all of our prayers, and cherishes each one of them. Prayer is not required for our desires to be considered however our desires when formalized in prayer are considered. This alone instills within prayer a tremendous power: the power to provide solace to the petitioner. Even if those prayers cannot be answered the fact that they were at least considered can provide us with solace. The simple act of formalizing our desires into a prayer with the knowledge that such prayers are at least considered can provide tremendous comfort. And I believe it to be true.
Can not an omniscient being know in advance what we will desire making prayers redundant? First off I believe The Greatest Love is not omniscient. They freely gave up that attribute when they gave us free will. Next I believe our desires, and how they are formed, is a part of our free will, and so The Greatest Love cannot know our desires before they are formed. Moreover They cannot go back in the past to influence a decision we make in the present. Such an action would be akin to reading our minds and altering the conditions within it to execute a particular action in the past so as to influence present/future behavior. It would represent a circumvention of our free will. Playing with us, as a puppet master plays with their puppets. The Greatest Love does not treat us as Their puppets. When They gave us free will They limited Their own omnitemporality to prevent Themselves from going back in time.
What is done is done.
But I believe The Greatest Love not only listens to all of our prayers, They cherish all of them as well. They cherish our conversations with Them, but They cannot answer all of our prayers. After all They did not answer the prayers of one of Their greatest prophets, Jesus Christ, when he prayed for deliverance in Gethsemane just before his betrayal, torture, and eventual crucifixion:
There are, no doubt, passages in the New Testament which may seem at first sight to promise an invariable granting of our prayers. But that cannot be what they really mean. For in the very heart of the story we meet a glaring instance to the contrary. In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not. After that the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed
C.S. Lewis
If we were truly created in Their image then prayer forms a major part of Their connection to us and it is their connection to us that gives Them purpose. Yes They have a Divine Plan but the motivation for that plan is Their love for us and all other loving beings. And it is through our prayers and the love we espouse within them which inspires Them. Prayer must be seen as a method to help Them as much as it helps us.
A Love Story 