tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5970683153008645393.post6984003758049790947..comments2009-11-30T08:03:10.467-06:00Adam Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05826908205996140341noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5970683153008645393.post-2142768885977395262009-11-30T08:03:10.467-06:002009-11-30T08:03:10.467-06:00I want to address this idea that your prayer for other people &quot;seems to make no difference whatsoever.&quot; I don&#39;t know if the problem with this objection is noticeable to you or not, but your perception that it &quot;seems&quot; to make no difference is flawed. As you mentioned, we are in a closed system with no counterfactuals. There is no &quot;would have been&quot; in the universe we live in. So there is no potential for &quot;changing&quot; things in any real sense. Therefore, the idea that you can perceive whether or not your prayer makes a difference is flawed from the outset. You do not know what would have been, had you not prayed for said person, because it had always been predestined that you pray for them, and therefore that God would always respond to your prayer in the affirmative or in the negative, as His will dictated. The only way to quantify answers to prayer is to have in hand the counterfactuals, which of course, do not exist.<br /><br />You refer to studies regarding prayer, but you will have to be more specific (can you site any real studies that we could scrutinize?). Throughout the years, I have heard references to all sorts of studies: some studies showing that prayer actually heals more people, some studies show it makes no difference. Personally I wouldn&#39;t put much stock in any of these studies, since they&#39;re only as reliable as the ones doing the research. Also, I suppose if your basic assumption is correct, then the other question that has to be asked about these studies is, were the people praying in the studies Christians? It is one thing to profess belief, but if the success of the study depends on the people being real, believing Christians, well shouldn&#39;t that make us skeptical of <i>any</i> results such a study comes up with? After all, the success of the study depends on a fact which many churches have not been able to settle (identifying the regenerate believers among us).<br /><br />A few articles that I&#39;ve found helpful dealing indirectly with this subject (and maybe someone could suggest other articles which deal with this same issue):<br /><br /><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1981/275_What_Do_Answers_to_Prayer_Depend_On_Part_1/" rel="nofollow">What Do Answers to Prayer Depend On?, Part 1</a><br /><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1981/278_What_Do_Answers_to_Prayer_Depend_On_Part_2/" rel="nofollow">What Do Answers to Prayer Depend On?, Part 2</a><br /><a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/1996/1505_Prayer_and_Predestination/" rel="nofollow">Prayer and Predestination</a>Adam Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05826908205996140341noreply@blogger.com