Is Prayer Scientific?

By Sylvia Penny

Not long ago I read an article entitled The Science of Prayer. It described a variety of scientific experiments that had been conducted in order to test whether prayer really works. My first reaction to this was to be sceptical. Then I wondered what good such experiments might do. Then I wondered what God would think of such experiments.

The first verse quoted was Mark 11:24 where Jesus says, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." However, Jesus was speaking to His chosen twelve disciples, and at a time before His death and resurrection. It was a special time, a special group of people, and a special place, and His words may well not be applicable to all people living at all times in history. Such verses, taken out of context, can lead to disappointment and confusion when prayers are not answered in the way expected or desired. At worst, they can lead to disillusionment with Christianity, in the mistaken belief that God has in some way let us down, or that we do not have "enough" faith. So I continued reading the article, wondering what conclusions would be reached.

Scientific Studies
A number of studies were cited, which I have summarised below:

A 30-year long California study of 2,600 people showed that prayer improved the immune system and lessened depression/anxiety.
Psychologists from Sheffield Hallam University and Ulster University studied the church attendance, prayer and faith of 474 UK students. Those who attended church and prayed daily or often, were found to be less depressed and anxious and felt better psychologically than those who rarely prayed.
In 1988, a ten month, double blind study by San Francisco cardiologist Randolph Byrd involved 383 coronary patients. Half were prayed for by Christians, half weren't. The patients not prayed for needed five times more antibiotics, and developed three times as many complications.
In 1998, a twelve month study of 1,000 coronary patients at Mid-American Heart Institute in Kansas City was conducted, and the findings supported the earlier study.
Dr Elisabeth Targ conducted a double blind study on 20 Aids sufferers in the mid-1990s, and a further study in 1998 on 40 Aids patients. Unknown to the patients, 40 people were praying for them from a distance. The patients receiving prayer spent less time in hospital and developed fewer Aids-defining diseases than the patients without prayer support.
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons conducted a distant praying study involving 219 women undergoing IVF treatment at Cha Hospital in Seoul, Korea, with people praying for them in the USA, Canada and Australia. Half the prayed-for group became pregnant, while a quarter of the not-prayed-for group conceived.
In 1997, in Arnold, Nottinghamshire, 15 local churches and the police combined prayer and practical action. Juvenile crime, anti-social noise, verbal abuse, petty damage and car break-ins there dropped by 15%.
When Manchester police combined prayer and social action, crime on the Swinton Valley Estate in Salford dropped by 45%.

Encouragement to pray
As I said, my first reaction was to be sceptical. However, the article was written by a Christian, it was published in a Christian magazine, and its aim was to encourage people to pray. There was no good reason to believe that the information supplied was unreliable. Therefore if I accept this at face value, it appears that God is more likely to act in a situation if people have prayed about it, than if they haven't. This in itself is a good reason to pray.

However, it was clear that prayer did not always result in what was asked for, so the article concluded that although God always answers prayers, they are not necessarily answered in the way we would wish. In other words, He does not always heal people, and does not always give them what they ask for, no matter how worthy the motive, and how faithful the person doing the praying. The difficult part is for us to accept this, and to understand that God did answer our prayer, even if it doesn't seem like He has.

I am not sure about this explanation. To me it seems that God does not always answer our prayers. What is difficult to understand is why. It is also difficult to understand why prayer should make a statistical difference to the outcome, as shown in the studies above, rather than a complete, one hundred percent difference. God likes us to ask for things!

The key may be in the asking. There are a number of verses in which God expresses a wish for us to ask for things! Mark 11:24, quoted above, is one of those, "…whatever you ask for in prayer … will be yours". A number of others are below:

Matthew 7:7 Ask and it will be given to you …

Matthew 7:11 … how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Matthew 18:19 …if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven

Matthew 21:22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer

John 14:14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it

John 16:24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete

James 1:5,6 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, … and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt …

James 4:2,3 You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures

1 John 3:21,22 … we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him

A number of points are made clear in these verses:

People needed to ask God for what they wanted. Although He already knew what they wanted, He still wished them to ask for it, before He gave it to them. (Matthew 6:8 - "… for your Father knows what you need before you ask him"). During the Acts period, if a person asked, they received their request, unless they lacked faith, or asked with wrong motives. If they obeyed His commands and did what pleased Him, they received anything they asked.

However, we have to consider whether these verses are relevant to us in this day and age. All these verses were written before Acts 28, and were relevant to the Jews to whom they were addressed. But if we look at a few verses addressed to Gentiles after Acts 28, we will see a different emphasis:

Ephesians 3:20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine …

Ephesians 6:18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests

Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God

Colossians 4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful

1 Timothy 2:1 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone

The main point that is repeated in these verses addressed to Gentiles is that we should continue to ask God for whatever we wish. However, there is no promise that all our prayers will definitely be answered if we pray with faith and the right motives. What is important is that we continue to pray, and continue to ask. Going back to the scientific studies conducted, the results bear this out. When people and situations are prayed about, God sometimes chooses to act, and answer those prayers. He does not promise to act in any and every situation in this day and age, but He does want to be asked. If we do not ask, it seems that God may well restrict Himself, and not act. Certainly the experiments mentioned earlier do seem to show that prayer prompts God into action.

I am not sure that we will ever understand why He chooses to answer on some occasions, and not on others.

We just have to trust that He knows what is best for us. It may be that, as for the Jews, occasionally we ask for things with the wrong motivation, or with doubtful hearts that God could ever do such a thing, and maybe this results in God's choosing not to act.

What good do these studies do?

What good do such scientific experiments do? I think they confirm Scripture for us, they encourage us to continue in prayer, and they are interesting enough to use in conversations with non-Christian friends. However, they also raise other questions, which we should think through, such as why God would only answer a selection of such prayers, rather than all of them. This brings me to my last point, which was, what would God think of these experiments? He obviously knew such studies were taking place, so He had a choice to:

answer all of the prayers
answer a selection of them
answer none of them

He chose the second option, which is what He has always done. The results bore out the fact that without prayer fewer people recovered, situations improved less, and people did not get what they wanted as often. With prayer, God helped many more people, significantly more so than without prayer. However, there will never be a one hundred percent answer rate, as undoubtedly if there were, with our fallen human nature, it is likely that our prayers would become progressively more frivolous and trivial.

Finally, I will close with one of my favourite verses:

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).