Intercessory prayer 3
Tonight, the movie “Air Force One” was on TNT, and I watched a little as I ate dinner. In addition to confirming my recollection that the script was formulaic and manipulative, the few minutes I watched included the one scene I actually remembered from seeing it in the theater, in which the vice president (played by Glenn Close) asks “all the American people” to pray for the safety of the president and the other people on board the hijacked Air Force One.
The sort of plea—which seems, alas, quite realistic—brings up a question that has always confused me: what is the deal with intercessory prayer? Even if you do believe in God, what makes you think that praying will influence God’s actions? It seems to be at best a psychological crutch—since you can’t do anything, you might as well pray. And yet, implicit in the practice is the belief that it does at least some good. But what sort of bizarre God would alter the course of events based on a straw poll of believers? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Even if I did believe in God, I find it hard to imagine that I could ever believe in prayer. Clearly, prayer can be valuable to the person praying, in the same way that meditation can benefit the meditator. But, as far as I can tell, the hypothesis that prayer affects the external universe in any way has scant evidentiary support; indeed, it seems overwhelmingly contradicted by the evidence. Why, then, is belief in the power of prayer so common? And why are belief in God and belief in prayer so often conflated?
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I agree with your point of view. Not only do I find it hard to believe in a God who would do that - it just doesn’t seem to line up scripturally. If you read the Bible, you are presented with a God who is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), and omnipresent (all places at all times). If he is truly all knowing, then what effect does prayer have? Also, if we as humans have free will - then how free are we if God can intervene and change courses? If God is all knowing - would he not know what we are going to pray for anyway - even if he does know every possible outcome?
I have much more on this topic - but I think we are in the same boat.
You’re absolutely right: the omnipotent / omniscient / omnibenevolent triad is often used, via the “problem of evil”, as an argument against belief in God, but it’s equally good at undermining belief in prayer.
This is sort of like answering a rhetorical question, in that you didn’t actually ask for my opinion. Nevertheless, you get it…
I don’t believe that intercessory prayer does anything to motivate God to intervene. Mostly I believe this because I think it’s incredibly selfish to believe that God would act on my behalf but not yours based solely on what I believe or what I say.
I hope that if there is a God, it intervenes in the lives of those that need the intervention regardless of their beliefs or, alternately, that it doesn’t intervene at all.
–E.
PS-Glad to see you blogging again. I have enjoyed your musings and was sad to see you on hiatus.