12.06.08
Response to A Neurological Inquiry
In a particular English 103 course in 2007, there was an instructor who would periodically pass out articles taken from the web to his students. The students were to pick one of the articles and write an essay on the one they chose. One of these was a piece from the Committee of Skeptical Inquiry entitled “Prayer: A Neurological Inquiry” by David C. Haas. The article had plenty of scientific research referenced between its intro and conclusion. Unfortunately, the author’s M.D. and university professorship weren’t quite enough to elevate him to wisdom on the matter of silent prayer. In fact, I find the article to be a good case example of 2 Timothy 3:7–”always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.”
The article is found at http://csicop.org/si/2007-02/prayer.html
The article has the following points:
“Silent prayer is silent thinking…. verbal thoughts addressed to a god.”
“…not all thoughts are verbal. Some are visual or auditory.”
“The concept of mind encompasses our conscious mental life, including not only thoughts, but also perceptions, such as seeing and hearing; sensations, such as touch and cold; feelings, such as pain; and emotions”Haas states, “How brain activity generates mental states is as much of an enigma today as it was more than a half-century ago…” He then goes on to treat the mind as a product of the brain.
“…the mental states that are the epiphenomena of [the brain's] physiological processes are neither material substances nor forms of energy.”
“If thoughts–including silent prayers–are not a form of energy, then there is no known natural means by which they could be transmitted beyond ourselves or read within us.”“…numerous experiments during some 150 years of research have not validated ESP and have left a wake of spurious statistical analyses”
Haas cites five studies that “found no beneficial effect of intercessory prayer.”
Due to the small scale of brain reactions, the electrical potentials “can be recorded only by special sensors on the scalp in shielded rooms”
Haas then goes on to list the other difficulties a god would have in picking up and understanding a silent prayer, including the multitude of languages different people think in, individual variations in brain patterns, and our own motion as the Earth hurtles through space.
The author’s conclusion, taking into account the “laws of nature” and the failure of “prayers’ solicitations as judged by proper scientific studies” to provide any significant results, is that the receiving and interpretation of a silent prayer “seems theoretically impossible for even a supernatural being.”
“A Neurological Inquiry” is so embarrassingly weak that it really is sad that it was ever published in a magazine and handed out to college students. Granted, the task was for the class to critically analyze the articles, but it would have been nice had a college level class been required to engage their minds to a higher degree than this.
First off, Haas seems not to understand the nature of God as revealed through Scripture. For one, He isn’t some superhuman extraterrestrial that the author seems to take Him for. The Lord isn’t bound by the laws of His creation. Therefore, the “laws of nature” that render it impossible to transmit thoughts between people do not apply to God. God can and has circumvented the laws of nature He put into place to maintain His creation. These events have been recorded by Christians, Jews, the forebears of the Jews, and many other humans. Water has been turned to wine, the motion of the sun has been stopped, and the world has been completely submerged. Humans can’t repeat these events. They’re beyond our power. The mechanisms involved are beyond our conventional reasoning. That doesn’t mean God can’t do it.
Haas brought up a number of reasons why humans can’t read other people’s thoughts. He fails to take into account that God created our minds, that God created our languages, that God created our thought patterns. He fails to take into account that God is not bound by the physical dimension, that He is not limited in the size of His thoughts. He takes an all powerful God and attempts to make Him into a mere superhuman straw man.
And on the test of intercessory prayer, I wonder as to just how reasonable the tests conducted were. Who was praying? Were they Christians? What were their motives? Were they trying to prove to godless fools that God exists (as if the study were needed to prove such a thing)? Who were they praying for? Did the studies take into account that God can say “no” to a person’s request? Was the Lord being treated as just another phenomenon?
I recall a certain incident recorded in the Bible where Satan attempted to tempt Jesus in the desert. He tried to have Christ show signs, to have Him flaunt His power. Christ replied, “‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” In another instance, it was the Pharisees and Sadducees:
The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.
He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ 3and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.
Again, at the crucifixion: “Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!’”
In this latter case, however, they did get a sign–the “sign of Jonah.” “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” He fulfilled the prophecy of the temple. Doubters have signs a plenty. They just refuse to look in the right places and acknowledge that the Lord is what He is.
