"You've got a lulu!"
"Huh? Yeah, better not get too close. "
"I never catch colds."
"Really. I was reading some figures from the Sickness and Accident Claims Division. You know that the average New Yorker between the ages of twenty and fifty has two and a half colds a year?"
"That makes me feel just terrible."
"Why?"
"Well, to make the figures come out even, if I have no colds a year, some poor slob must have five colds a year."
"Yeah, it's me."

- Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon, The Apartment (1960)

I've often heard about the power of prayer, and it got me to wondering whether prayer has the power to prove God's existence. There's certainly precedence in the Bible. God's people often prayed for signs (Judges 6:37-40), and they were even granted to those who refused them. (Isaiah 7:10-14)

Of course, these days one is far more likely to hear references to "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it" (Matthew 12:39) and "Thou shalt not tempt [test] the Lord thy God." (Matthew 4:7). It's no longer fashionable to have a God whose promises can be falsified, for the simple reason that every falsifiable god has been. These days, fideism is the name of the game. Only blind faith will do, and woe to the one who expects his God to make good on his promises.

However, some people still believe in the power of prayer, and even those who claim to expect nothing from God express their desires to him in prayer.

What would happen if God really did answer prayer?

We could settle once and for all the question of which god was the true God by simply finding the one whose worshippers have their prayers answered most. (Presumably non-existent gods do not answer prayer.) Members of "true" faith should see their prayers granted far more often than members of "false" religions.

Many will no doubt claim that God is not so easily tricked into showing himself. Why God would wish to hide from his people is an issue for another time. For now, let's assume that's the case. But if we also assume that God does answer prayer, swaying events in favor of his followers when it is in accordance with his will, then we are presented with a problem.

If a Christian, for example, is cured of an illness through prayer, that healing will affect the statistics. The prayer of Christians will - by a very small amount - appear to to be more efficacious than the prayers of members of other faiths. If God wishes to hide from statistical analysis, then he must strike another Christian ill "to make the figures come out even"!

Thus, each prayer for God's blessing is also a prayer for God's curse. If God grants health to one Christian, he must strike another with sickness. If one Christian receives wealth another must be impoverished. If one prays for safety, and receives it, another must have an accident. Prayer becomes a request that God do unto the other guy, and not just any other guy, a fellow believer.

Think about that the next time you bow your head in prayer.

December 15, 1997

Copyright © 1997 by Jason Steiner.