“Prayer Works” is the title of hundreds of books and the subject of thousands of sermons and road signs. In one study, 82% of Christians believe prayer will cause God to intervene. But sheer logic shows inescapably that if prayer works, then either God isn’t all that good or isn’t all that powerful. Since almost all people who believe prayer works also think God is good and omnipotent, they are flatly contradicting themselves.[i] I will show you that they simply cannot be right about all three. Either prayer doesn’t induce God to intervene and change the outcome, God is not perfectly good, or God is not all-powerful.
What Does “Prayer Works” Mean?
By “prayer works,” I mean that God will intervene as a result of prayer and change the outcome. For example, Wendy’s uncle Bob is dying of cancer. Wendy prays that uncle Bob will be cured. Without Wendy’s prayer, Bob would have died, but God hears Wendy’s prayers and, as a response to Wendy, intervenes and cures Bob’s cancer. This is what I’m saying can’t be true. I’m ignoring the question of whether God exists and hears your prayer. Let’s assume She does. Maybe praying is comforting, makes you feel better, is good for the soul, will help you come to a good decision, or gives you strength to confront a challenge. None of this is what I mean by “prayer works” (and it’s not what Christians who pray for recovery or winning the lottery mean). If Alfonso bows his head in prayer and, as a result, a bullet misses his head, then praying saved his life, but it is not an example of prayer working. He would have equally been saved had he bent down to tie his shoelace. If in response to his prayer God changed the path of the bullet, that would be prayer working.
Why Prayer Can’t Work
So why do I say prayer can’t work in this way? Put aside the question of whether there is a God who hears prayers and is inclined to respond. Let’s ignore the fact that most of the time, what people pray for doesn’t happen. Let’s just look carefully at the logic of saying that prayer works.
Remember, the story is that uncle Bob was going to die, Wendy prayed, God intervened in answer to her prayer, and Bob lived. Now, either uncle Bob’s dying is for the best, or it is better that he didn’t die, or his dying and not dying are equally good. Of the two outcomes, Bob dying and Bob living, either they are equally good or one is better than the other. Those are the three possibilities. Most of the time when people think prayer worked, the possible outcomes are not equally good, so let’s assume Bob’s living and Bob’s dying are not equally good. If it is, overall, better that Bob lives, then God was going to do or allow the worse thing, until Wendy prayed. God needed Wendy’s prayer to do the right thing. Because, according to our story, if Wendy hadn’t prayed, Bob would have died. After all, if Bob would have lived even without Wendy’s prayer, then Wendy’s prayer was irrelevant to the outcome, and so it makes no sense to say prayer “worked.” So, God was not all good. He was about to do the less good thing until Wendy’s prayer somehow pushed him into doing the better thing. Can we say it was a test that Wendy passed by praying? But then Bob’s survival depended not on anything Bob did, but on whether Wendy passed the test, which is hardly fair to Bob. (And you can’t just say recovery is a pure gift to Bob, since, we were assuming, Bob’s recovery is the better thing. So, if God lets Bob die, God is doing the worse thing.) In any case, Wendy needed to pass the test in order for God to do the right thing, which means God did not do the right thing on his own. If Wendy doesn’t pass the test by not praying, God chooses not to do what is best and Bob pays with his life. Now let’s consider the other possibility: It would be, all things considered, better were Bob to die. God, being all good, was going to let Bob die. But Wendy’s prayer somehow caused him to change his mind and do the less good thing. God is like a parent who says to a child demanding candy “no, you’ve had too much sugar.” But because the child throws a tantrum, the parent gives in and says “alright, here is candy.” Wendy’s prayer made God give in and do what God knew was the worse thing. God is the weak parent.
No Acceptable Alternative
Neither of these stories are acceptable to those who believe prayer works. But what are the alternatives? Maybe God and the Devil are equally powerful. God wants Bob to live while the Devil wants Bob to die, and Wendy’s prayer tipped the balance in God’s favor. But then God is not all powerful—he needs human assistance in order to do what he believes is right. Since 382 when the Christian Emperor Theodosius ordered the execution of the Manicheans, this view has had few advocates.
In other words, if God is both all good and all powerful, then God has already selected and will bring about the best outcome, all things considered. So prayer cannot change the outcome. If prayer does change the outcome, then prayer has either gotten God to change Her mind or enabled God to do what She could not have done on Her own. So God is either not all good or not all powerful. Will it help to say that God generally lets natural causation run its course, but prayer can induce God to intervene? No, because then prayer still got God to change Her mind from non-intervention to intervention. Either intervening and non-intervening are equally good or one is better than the other. Unless intervening and not intervening are equally good, either your prayer got God to do the worse thing or God needed you in order to do the right thing. (Of course, if every outcome is always equally good, it doesn’t mean much to say God is all good. Nothing God chooses would be any better or worse than what She didn’t choose. See the philosophical note at the end.)
Will People Change Their Minds?
Will the force of logic get people who believe prayer works to change their minds? Probably not. People believe all sorts of things that make no sense. It is comforting to believe that, in the face of a crisis, there is something you can do to help. Everyone can point to an example of someone who prayed for something against all hope and it came true. But with all the trillions of things that happen and all the millions of times people prayed for something, some of the prayers would have to “come true” even if there is no God. (And they ignore the much more frequent times when prayers are not answered, saying “it was God’s will.” But then it was also God’s will when the prayed for outcome happened, no? Why would you think prayer made it happen?)
Of course, common sense should tell you this anyway. If you really believe in a personal God who controls the world, why would you be able to change the Divine Mind just by asking? And what if someone else is praying the opposite? Prayer can’t work for both of you, can it?
Still, people will pray for something. If it happens, they say “see, it worked! There’s proof!” This is sometimes what is called “the lottery fallacy”: because an event was improbable, it must have been meant or designed. It’s a fallacy because quadrillions of events happen. If the odds of getting 30 heads in a row are less than one in a billion, toss the coin a trillion times and it’s almost sure to happen. Prayers that went unanswered far outnumber those that did. In the same way, someone who just missed a flight because their car didn’t start, and then learns that the flight crashed, may say “God saved me.” But God didn’t save all the other people on the flight, did She? Sometimes people just miss flights.
My Hope
Could I be wrong? I honestly can’t see how, but yes, of course. No one is infallible. I can only hope that my argument at least made you stop and think. Maybe the world would be better if we all stopped to think sometimes about the things we believe. We might sometimes change our minds. But at least we’d gain a bit of humility and be more tolerant of and open to other points of view.
Philosophical Notes
1. A theologian might try to evade my argument by saying that whatever God chose was the best simply because She chose it: what makes a thing good or not is whether God wills it. Neither Bob’s living or dying is better than the other until God chooses one, and that makes whatever God chooses better, by definition. That would solve the problem, since whether God answered Wendy’s prayer or not, whatever God willed is, by definition, the better outcome. Debate about this goes back at least to Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro. Plato asked whether God willed something because it was good or whether God’s willing it is what makes it good. Is there, in other words, an independent idea of good, or does “good” just mean “whatever God chooses”? If the latter, then saying God is good is just saying God does what She does, since all it means to say something is good is that God willed it. For example, if God is a sadist who loves to see needless suffering, then sadism is, by definition, good. “Good” wouldn’t mean what we usually mean—it wouldn’t play the role in ethics we want it to play, and saying God is good doesn’t mean what most religious people mean. In fact, it doesn’t characterize God at all. It’s like saying “Snoopy is Snoopy.” So religious people who want “God is good” to really mean something can’t use this “out.” (You read about more the Divine Command theory here: https://iep.utm.edu/divine-command-theory/)
2. Could all outcomes be, overall, equally good, thus avoiding the problem? If all outcomes were, overall, always equally good, then God’s will or plan, as well God’s choice of which prayers to answer, would be essentially arbitrary. (After all, sometimes ardent and sincere believer’s devout and caring prayers are not granted while sometimes dubious prayers are.)
3. A Christian might reply by saying that God made Wendy pray, thus guaranteeing the best outcome. But now Wendy lacks free will—she is just a marionette with God pulling the strings—not the picture of prayer being answered that Christians embrace. Also, it is unclear why God needs to set up this charade instead of simply saving Bob directly. Is it because this way strengthens Wendy’s faith? Then what about all the disappointments weakening faith when prayers are unanswered?
Disclaimer
Nothing that appears on this blog is meant to replace legal advice, therapy, or medical treatment. I am not providing legal, medical, or mental health advice. Always seek the advice of your own attorney or medical or mental health provider about specific questions concerning your specific health or legal issues.
[i] My argument here is different from the traditional problem of evil, since many moves in that debate, such as the free will response or the hidden good that comes from evil response, are irrelevant here.
