The Theistic Conception of the World / An Essay in Opposition to Certain Tendencies of Modern Thought

by B. F. Cocker

The facts concerning the order of nature which it is claimed are placed beyond controversy may be stated in the following words: Now of all the results of science, none is more universal and more emphatic than this: that there is no arbitrariness in the series of events which constitute our experience; but that a perfect order or uniformity prevails through them all, an order which our intellect can apprehend under the form of cause and effect, or permanent force and necessary phenomena, or, better, a constant persistency of amount both of matter and force in the universe.[424] This statement of the scientist is accepted by many theologians (of the Calvinistic school), who say with Rev. William Knight, "The doctrine of the persistence of physical force and the invariability of natural law, is a physical truth of which the theological phase or corollary is the uniformity of Divine operation and the inviolableness of Divine love. 'The permanence of the order of nature' is the scientific equivalent of the Divine constancy—'the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.'"[425] How far and in what sense we accept this doctrine will be seen as we advance in the discussion.

At the beginning of this chapter we remarked that if the Christian doctrine of the efficacy of prayer is disputed, whether on theoretical or experiential grounds, an adequate and complete defense can only be made by falling back upon the fundamental conception of God, and the relation of God to nature and humanity presented in the preceding chapters of this volume. Is there a God in the proper and commonly accepted sense of the term—a conscious, free, personal First Cause, the Creator of the world and man? Is He the immanent Conservator of the universe—is his omnipotence the force, his reason the law, and his omnipresence the life of all nature? These are the questions which must be settled before we can successfully deal with the problem of the efficacy of prayer. If we are not agreed on these points, the debate must be adjourned until we have settled the first principles which underlie the discussion. This will be obvious to all who are acquainted with the history of the controversy. If it can be proved that there is no conscious, free, personal God, the creator and conservator of the universe, the question is settled; then prayer can be of no avail, and must "be abandoned to the domain of recognized superstitions." But if it be admitted that there is a God, in the proper import of that term, then the question may be debated whether the Christian doctrine of the efficacy of prayer is consistent with the scientific conception of material nature as "the living garment of God."[426]

Dr. Tyndall is the fairest and ablest representative of that class of scientific men who to-day are denying the efficacy of prayer—that is, of such prayer the answer to which would seem to involve the interference of personal volition in the economy of nature; and he believes in the existence of a God. He has again and again repelled with feeling the imputation of atheism which the English theologians have inconsiderately and unfairly cast upon him. He is a frank, outspoken man, and he admits that in "his hours of weakness and doubt" he has temptations to material atheism. "But," he says, "I have noticed that it is not in hours of clearness and vigor that this doctrine commends itself to my mind, and that in presence of stronger and healthier thoughts it ever disappears as offering no solution of the mystery in which we dwell and of which we form a part."[427] He also expresses his conviction that "the Power which works for righteousness is intelligent as well as ethical."[428] And furthermore he asserts that "it is no departure from scientific method to place behind natural phenomena a universal Father who, in answer to the prayers of his children, alters the currents of those phenomena. Thus far theology and science go hand in hand."[429] Let it, then, be distinctly remembered that we are arguing with men who believe in the existence of God.

In an article which appeared in the Fortnightly Review for August, 1872, entitled "Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer," by Francis Galton, a species of guerrilla warfare is opened on this doctrine from the stand-point of experience.

Mr. Galton assumes that "the efficacy of prayer is a perfectly appropriate and legitimate subject of scientific inquiry." It must be assumed to be subject to unvarying laws, and, like all physical problems, may be brought to the test of rigid mathematics. By the marshaling of very incomplete and partial statistics, drawn chiefly from Chalmers's "Biographical Dictionary," he endeavors to show that praying men, especially clergymen, are no healthier, recover from sickness no better, and do not live any longer than the men who do not pray. Insurance companies make no distinction between the prayerful and the prayerless; they regard them as equal risks. Furthermore, praying men do not make any better statesmen, any more successful men of business, or any better physicians and lawyers than prayerless men. On the contrary, "it is a common week-day opinion of the world that praying men are not practical." Finally, the children of praying parents are no better endowed intellectually, and do not turn out any better morally than the rest of mankind. His gentle impeachment is that they are somewhat below the common average. By this "scientific method," as he is pleased to call it, the writer flatters himself that he has routed the army of believers in the efficacy of prayer, and that the practice of prayer will soon become "obsolete;" "just as the Water of Jealousy and the Urim and Thummmin of the Mosaic law did in the times of the later Jewish kings."

But Mr. Galton's fusillade did not produce the effect he expected. True, it made some noise, and for a brief season commanded attention; but it was soon discovered to be a mere discharge of rhetorical blank-cartridge which hit nothing. His parade of argument was found to be utterly inconsequential. The dullest mind could perceive that the attempt to solve moral problems by statistical averages was a practical folly, because it began by unceremoniously assuming the very point it ought to prove, namely, that the determinations of will, whether Divine or human, are governed by necessary laws as surely as the revolution of planets and the vibration of molecules. It is precisely because personal acts are not reducible to any fixed laws, or capable of representation by any numerical calculations, that statistical averages acquire any value as substitutes. "No one dreams of applying statistical averages to calculate the period of the earth's rotation, by showing that four and twenty hours is the exact medium of time, comparing one month's or one year's revolutions with another's. It is only where the individual movements are irregular that it is necessary to aim at a proximate regularity by calculating in masses."[430] The comparison of large averages may approach equality and furnish a basis of probability as to the future, but the contingency of each individual case remains still a contingency.

In no department of human inquiry is there so much temptation and so much opportunity for plausible sophistry as in the now somewhat popular application of statistics to ethological problems. By a skillful manipulation of figures, Mr. Buckle[431] flatters himself that he has made it apparent that "individual felons only carry into effect the necessary consequences of preceding circumstances;" that marriages are regulated by the price of wheat; and that the number of suicides is determined by the rise and fall of the barometer; in a word, that the whole of man's social and moral life is part and parcel of nature, and subject to the same necessary mechanical laws.

The logic of statistics, or rather the sophistry of statistics by which Mr. Galton proves the uselessness of prayer, would, if skillfully managed, be equally efficacious in proving that sobriety and integrity, honor and honesty, are unprofitable and useless virtues—at least so far as this life is concerned; and we might say of each of them what Shakespeare's "Murderer" says of conscience: "It fills one full of obstacles.... It beggars any man that keeps it. It is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing; and every man that means to live well endeavors to trust himself, and live without it." Dishonest men are as healthy, recover as well from sickness, and live as long as honest men. Wicked men prosper in the world, they succeed in business and increase in riches better, it may be, than good and godly men. Dishonorable and unprincipled politicians climb into place and power with more facility than men of honor and integrity. Distinguished lawyers and skillful physicians have not been strictly temperate; and statistical tables may be easily produced which show that the longest-lived men have been such as did not go to bed sober for the last fifty years of their lives. Therefore sobriety, honesty, integrity, veracity are not profitable virtues, and, weighed in the same scales and by the same standards as are used by Mr. Galton to test the weight and worth of prayer, they are practically valueless and do not pay.

Simultaneous with Mr. Galton's article, there appeared a communication in the Contemporary Review entitled "The Prayer for the Sick: Hints toward a serious attempt to estimate its value," with the indorsement of Dr. Tyndall. The proposal contained in this communication came to be generally known in newspaper slang as "Tyndall's Prayer-gauge," though Tyndall was not its author. The proposition was that "One single ward or hospital under the care of first-rate physicians or surgeons, containing a number of patients afflicted with those diseases which have been best studied, and of which the mortality rates are best known, should be, during a period of not less than three to five years, made the subject of special prayer by the whole body of the faithful, and that at the end of that period the mortality rates should be compared with the past rates, and also with those of other leading hospitals similarly well managed during the same periods." This experiment, the writer thinks, offers "to the faithful an occasion of demonstrating to the faithless an imperishable record of the power of prayer."

There was a tone of moderation and candor in this proposition which for a moment beguiled the popular mind, and there were Christian ministers so injudicious as to admit that the proposal should be entertained and the experiment tried. But its superficial fairness was delusive, and its plausibility concealed a snare. The writer must have been sufficiently conversant with the Christian doctrine concerning prayer to know that the acceptance of his challenge would be a theological blunder; for there are no unconditional assurances in the Word of God that prayers for health and long life shall always be answered. We presume also that he must have been sufficiently acquainted with medical science to perceive that the acceptance of his challenge would be a scientific blunder, for there are elements in the problem which can not be scientifically appreciated, measured, and recorded. Such, for example, are the temperament, idiosyncrasy, hereditary diathesis, previous habits of life, and mental characteristics of the patients; such the variety in skill, care, sympathy, and almost inspiration among physicians and nurses; such also the differences of climatal, sanitary, and hospital conditions; all these elements, whose varied degrees of potency are incapable of being estimated, enter into the problem and affect the results. The multiplicity and complexity of these elements render the effects as irregularly variable as if each cause had not been subject to any previous conditions.[432] The problem is not even capable of being scientifically presented in terms of experience, and until that is done it can not be subjected to experiment. Suppose the experiment to be tried in the manner proposed by the writer, and the mortality rates to be in favor of the hospital for which prayer had been offered, it would still be open for the scientific skeptic to affirm that the causes of the difference are to be found in those elements whose varying values had not been enumerated in the statement of the problem, and not in any Divine interposition in answer to prayer.[433] He might claim that the patients were not all of the same age or temperament, the physicians were not all of equal skill, the nurses were not all alike attentive, the climatal and sanitary conditions were not equal, and the question would be left in precisely the same condition as before.