[TA THU EDITOR OF THR "SPECTATOR:1
SLE,—The question as between science and theology with regard to the efficacy of prayer is not, as you very justly pointed out last week, one which is engaging the attention of philosophers alone. It has a very near interest for men of all classes. It is all the more necessary, therefore, that we should keep ourselves quite clear as to what the exact point at issue is, and how much is involved in its retention or renunciation.
There are, as it appears to me, two entirely different views which may be held as to what is meant, when we speak of God as granting &direct answer to our prayers. It is most important, I think, in this controversy that those two views should be kept perfectly distinct.
First, there is the view, held,I suppose, by a very large majority of Christian people, that the man who is in the habit of praying to God with sincerity and faith has a right to expect that external circumstancea, will =ordered by the Deity in direct answer to his prayers.
Secondly, there is the view, held by an increasing number of thoughtful Christians, that although God does undoubtedly grant a direct answer to the sincere prayer, yet that He does so not by alteration of external circumstance, but by change in the sup- pliant's relation to circumstance.
In a word, both views imply the belief in direct answer to prayer, but in the one case it is regarded as being brought about by the alteration of circumstances with regard to the suppliant's position ; in the other, by the alteration of the suppliant's position with regard to external circumstances.
Those who hold the first view naturally base their argument on the literal acceptation of such words as those in Matthew Ind.,— '' All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive," and are honestly content to explain all failure in their petitions by assigning it to their own want of faith ; while, on the other hand, those who uphold the second view, rejecting a literal interpretation of our Lord's words, citing His own prayer in the Garden of Gethemane (which certainly on the first hypothesis must be regarded as a failure) in proof of their position, are content to insist on a rational interpretation of the letter, in accordance with the essential spirit of Christ's teaching.
Practically, of course, with the majority of Christian people, neither of these views is held quite separately or accurately, but we are more generally suffered to modify one another according to circumstances. Such inaccuracy, of course, is natural enough, but at the same- time, it is in all possibility owing to the fact that 'such views are not kept quite independent one of another, that in some instances (noticeably in the Contemporary letter) science has taken up a mistaken position. It is, of course, with the first view
only that science can claim any legitimate right to express an opinion. As one of your correspondents rightly said, "it is special prayer only, not all prayer, that is really obnoxious to the attacks of science." The assertion of actual change in external circumstances offers at once a definite field for experiment, and therefore for the operation of scientific reasoning. But with the second view, at present, at any rate, as it appears to me, science has simply no
power whatever to deal. How far and in what way man's emotions may be influenced or controlled by man's own will, fa
surely a question which neither physics nor metaphysics have as yet at all satisfactorily explained, much less, therefore, how far and in what way they may be influenced or controlled by God's- will. And this is of course what is involved in the acceptation of the second view.
But, on the other hand, with the first view, as I have said, science is entirely competent to deal. And however much we may be in- clined to object to the apparent spirit in which the question has been raised by the proposer of the experimental prayer-gauge, I think we mast honestly allow that not only is the attitude of science with regard to the efficacy of special prayer a reasonable one, but it is one that has actually in this respect influenced and modified theological opinion.
If it should happen, as a result of this controversy, that the second view of prayer should be finally accepted as the most truly in accordance with the spirit of Christianity, it will not be the first time that theology has gone to school to science to be taught the true meaning of its own books.
There is a possible result of this controversy which should not be lost sight of. To the Christian the triumph of science on this question would probably be nothing but pure gain, to the Church- man it would necessarily raise occasions of some perplexity. In the Book of Common Prayer there are not only prayers for special occasions, but prayers whose form presupposes that view which in expecting an answer demands a distinct change in the course of natural phenomena. Yet to ask God to send even five minutes' rain, or to withhold it, science tells us, is to ask for the disarrange- ment of the whole order of the world, and therefore to demand a miracle. To anyone, therefore, accepting the scientific conclusion with regard to what is called the law of the conservation of energy, a form of prayer which directly implies the creation of new force could not be conscientiously used. The only legitimate prayer to such a person would be one which took the form of a petition for a change not of external circumstances, but of the relation of the suppliant to those circumstances. I do not see any intermediate position. But if there be not, surely the clergy of the Church of England, at any rate, are in this dilemma ;—Either they must accept that form of prayer which practically implies the continual.
working of miracles, or there must remain a considerable portion of that Book which it is their duty to use in their public ministra- tions to which they cannot give an unfeigned or honest assent.
Surely a question is here raised infinitely wider and more far- reaching than any that has resulted in the assertion that there must necessarily be a schism in the Church, if the reading of the Athanasian Creed is to be left to the option of individual clergymen. —I am, Sir, &c.,
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