Scientific
Evidence for Answered Prayer and the Existence of Godby Rich Deem
Scientific
Evidence for Answered Prayer and the Existence of GodWhat scientific evidence do we have that God exists? A crucial doctrine of Christianity is that God listens to and answers prayers. So why not test this doctrine scientifically, using a double-blind, clinical trial? This is the exact premise that two groups of cardiac doctors used in double-blind "drug" studies of the efficacy of Christian prayer on healing. Both papers are available online.
Cardiac patients from the San Francisco General Medical Center were randomly divided (using a computer-generated list) into two groups. The names of the patients in the "test" group were given to a group of Christians, who prayed for them while they were in the hospital. The intercessory prayer team members were chosen on the following basis:
The "placebo" group received no prayer. Neither the "test" nor the "placebo" group of patients knew if they were receiving prayer. Likewise, the hospital staff, doctors, or nurses were "blinded" since they did not know which patient belonged to which group.
Statistics were acquired from the prayer and placebo groups both before and after prayer, until the patients were discharged from the hospital. There were no statistical differences between the placebo and the prayer groups before prayer was initiated. The results demonstrated that patients who were prayed for suffered "less congestive heart failure, required less diuretic and antibiotic therapy, had fewer episodes of pneumonia, had fewer cardiac arrests, and were less frequently intubated and ventilated." Statistics demonstrated the the prayer group had a statistically significantly lower severity score based upon the hospital course after entry (p < 0.01). Multivariate analysis of all the parameters measured demonstrated that the outcomes of the two groups were even more statistically significant (p < 0.0001). In science, the standard level of significance is when a "p value" is less than 0.05. A value of 0.01 means that the likelihood the result is because of chance is one in 100. A p value of 0.0001 indicates that in only one study out of 10,000 is the result likely to be due to chance. Table 2 from the study is reproduced below. The remarkable thing which one notices is that nearly every parameter measured is affected by prayer, although individually many categories do not reach the level of statistical significance due to sample size. However, multivariate analysis, which compares all parameters together produces a level of significance seldom reached in any scientific study (p < 0.0001). The author points out that the method used in this study does not produce the maximum effect of prayer, since the study could not control for the effect of outside prayer (i.e., it is likely many of the placebo group were prayed for by persons outside of the study). It is likely that a study which used only atheists (who had no Christian family or friends) would produce an even more dramatic result. However, since atheists make up only 1-2% of the population, it would be difficult to obtain a large enough sample size.
Cardiac patients from the CCU at the Mid America Heart Institute (MAHI), Kansas City, Mo, were randomly chosen and assigned to control or prayer groups. In this study, patients were not told about the prayer study and doctors did not know which patients were assigned to which groups. According to the paper, "The intercessors represented a variety of Christian traditions, with 35% listing their affiliations as nondenominational, 27% as Episcopalian, and the remainder as other Protestant groups or Roman Catholic. Unlike the Byrd study, the intercessors of the MAHI study were given no details about the medical conditions of the patients, but were only given their first name.
The main table of results, reproduced from the study appears as Table 3 below. Because of the small sample size of each individual component, only one of the individual components reached statistical significance. However, the overall effect was statistically significant, with a P value of 0.04, meaning that the result was likely to occur by chance in only 1 out of 25 times the experiment was repeated.
This study was designed as a prospective, randomized, double-blind study in which the efficacy of intercessory prayer was assessed in patients undergoing treatment for in vitro fertilization–embryo transfer (IVF-ET), who were unaware of the study (Patients are required to be informed of being involved in a research study conducted in the USA, but since this study was performed in South Korea, informed consent was not obtained). Investigators chose the setting of IVF-ET in order to control for as many variables as possible and designed the study to be masked to patients, providers and investigators. According to the authors of the study:
"In planning and conducting this trial in as rigorous a fashion as possible, we set out with the expectation that we would show no benefit of IP. None of the authors are employed by religious organizations, and we were not asked by any religious groups to conduct this trial, nor did we seek religious advice at any time."
Two hundred nineteen women, aged 26–46 were prospectively but blindly enrolled into the randomized trial to test the effect of intercessory prayer on IVF-ET. These women were consecutively treated between December 1998 and March 1999 at the Cha General Hospital, Seoul, Korea. As in the previous two studies, all prayer participants in this study were from Christian denominations.
Table 1 shows that the two groups (NIP, no intercessory prayer, and IP, intercessory prayer) were statistically indistinguishable as randomized into their respective groups. The NIP group obtained a pregnancy rate of 26%, which is average for IVF-ET. However, the prayer group had nearly a doubling in their success rate (50%). These results were extremely significant (p = 0.0013). In addition, the implantation rate was significantly higher in the IP group (16.3% vs. 8%, P = 0.0005), and a greater number of preembryos reached the eight-cell stage in the IP group (66% vs. 45.5%, P = 0.0001).
Obviously, science has demonstrated in three separate studies the efficacy of Christian prayer in medical studies. There is no "scientific" (non-spiritual) explanation for the cause of the medical effects demonstrated in these studies. The only logical, but not testable, explanation is that God exists and answers the prayers of Christians. No other religion has succeeded in scientifically demonstrating that prayer to their God has any efficacy in healing. The Bible declares that Jesus Christ has power over life and death and sickness and is able to heal us, both physically5 and spiritually.6 He gave this power to His disciples and those who follow Him.7
Scientific Studies that Show a Positive Effect of Religion on Health - Not Convinced? There's much more!
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