Can Prayer Change The Past?

Posted by Atheist Under Ur Bed on February 28th, 2009

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A few weeks ago, at about the same time that I first posted my Test Your Faith entry, it occurred to me that Christians (among other theists) never seem to try to change the past with their prayers. I’ve come across an awful lot of “Let us pray to end the drought!” type stories, but few, if any, stories about theists praying to erase last year’s drought from the history books. Why?

Matthew 17:20 is about as clear as anything is in the Bible when it quotes Jesus as saying “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Now, if nothing is impossible to those with faith, then nothing is impossible – right? So why do few, if any, Christians ever even attempt to use their miraculous powers to correct any of the horrible events of the past?

A web search for more information on this odd state of affairs took me to an essay by John Loftus entitled “Can Prayer Change The Past?” It was a very good essay, but… it now seems to have disappeared. That’s one big reason why so much of this diary is devoted to reposting the many interesting things I find in their entirety. I *hate* the way online information can disappear in the blink of an eye.

Oh, well…. As it happens, the Christian reaction to Loftus’s essay remains and might be even more interesting.

Here, for example, is how the blogger known as Swordbearer responded at the Christian Skepticism: A Reasonable Faith website:

While I’ve ceased being amazed at how often unbelievers argue against a gospel which is not the true gospel (which displays how great their fear and enmity against God is since they go to the extent of arguing against God through the fabrication and argument against their own strawmen), I’m still not amazed at how many different ways unbelievers will come up with in misunderstanding or misapplying the text of Scripture to try to argue against God.For example, John Loftus, in his recent post on “Debunking Christianity” entitled “Can Prayer Change the Past? One More Time” sets a challenge before Christians to “pick any event in the past, announce that they are praying to change it, and then watch what happens.” His argument is that if God lies outside of time, but hears the prayers of believers, then God can change the past, events like “the Holocaust, the terrorist 9/11 attacks, or any tragic event reported in the daily newspaper.”

Besides the obvious question of how one would determine that God changed the past (given that the change would then be our past), Loftus’ challenge is an example of either poor exegesis or faulty logic when it comes to the Scripture. Does not Loftus understand that God does not change and that the prayers that God honors are those in keeping with his will? In effect, what Loftus seeks to accomplish through his challenge is to put the burden on believers to prove the existence of God by having God answer a believer’s prayer which is contrary to his will (something contrary to Scripture). This is no different than the logic used by those who in arguing against freedom of the will in light of predesitination [sic] are willing to suppose that God predestines the end but then fail to recognize that God ALSO presdestines the means to that end as well. Or better put, it can be likened to someone challenging another to prove a spouse’s love for their mate by presenting evidence (or seeking to show evidence) that is contrary to love.

Let readers beware, that often what may appear to be fine sounding arguments at first by unbelievers (even those who set themselves up as previous believers or pastors), are easily untangled and found faulty when one takes the whole truth into account. Scripture shows that one of the tactics often used by those who oppose Christ is to try to set forth a half-truth as the whole truth. Those who want to avoid deception and become mature must learn to discern and then they will not fall to those arguments which are falsely set forth as high-minded wisdom and knowledge.

Yes, well… ignoring the harsh ad hominem attack on the honesty and motives of Loftus and others who dare challenge Christian dogmas, let’s look at a few of the claims that are being made here that simply don’t seem to make sense.

1) “Does not Loftus understand that God does not change and that the prayers that God honors are those in keeping with his will?” That sure sounds to me like another way of saying that prayers have no impact on gOd. They may coincide with what he did, does, or is going to do, but that’s like saying that the sun coincides with my prayers for it to rise in the east and ignores those that request that it rise in the west. In other words, prayer is pretty much irrelevant. This seems to me to be a very strange thing for a Christian to claim (especially in light of the – “Ask and it shall be given” Bible passages we find in Matthew 7:7-8 and Luke 11:9-10 ), but I don’t know how else to interpret Swordbearer’s words. (Do you?)

2) “In effect, what Loftus seeks to accomplish through his challenge is to put the burden on believers to prove the existence of God by having God answer a believer’s prayer which is contrary to his will (something contrary to Scripture).” I think what Loftus is really trying to do is nothing more than quite rightly asking Christians to bear the burden of proving the existence of their gOd, and, oh, by the way, here’s a dandy way of doing so if they’re up to the task. Obviously they aren’t, but instead of graciously acknowledging that fact and retreating back into a Tertullian-like “I believe BECAUSE it is absurd!” stance, some apparently prefer to blast people like Loftus for daring to ask for something more.

3) “[T]he obvious question of how one would determine that God changed the past (given that the change would then be our past)….” Hey, TV shows in which a character changes the past don’t seem to have much of a problem with this. I’m sure an omnipotent gOd capable of anything could present us with evidence that Christian prayers actually changed the past if he wanted to. Apparently those prayers can’t or he doesn’t want to. If prayers CAN change the past, well, why is it still acknowledged by virtually everyone to have been a bloody mess? Because gOd wants it that why? What a beast!

Bottom Line: However a Christian may choose to answer Loftus’s questions (and my own), they and their gOd don’t seem to end up looking very admirable – or even passingly moral.

Something called The Puritan Board also addressed Loftus’s challenge. If anything, the comments there strike me as even ruder and sillier than those offered by Swordbearer.

Here are some samples:

For my part, I refuse to get into absurd arguments with infidels. When they throw things out like our prayers and our God’s response to them, they are not asking a real question they want to tread on that which is Holy! They want to blaspheme not have rational discussion. Never should we give people like that the satisfaction. Pearls to swine. They shall find their answers in Hell. – etexas/Puritan Board Professor[Methinks the good Professor might have benefitted from reading those How Not To Win An Argument entries I posted back in May 2002.]

Loftus, like many, has to have a god who measures up to his own satisfaction. Sad. – puritan lad/Puritan Board freshman

[Ummm, doesn't virtually every theist embrace a gOd that measures up to his or her satisfaction? I can't recall ever meeting a Christian who said "Jesus really dissatisfies me - but I love him anyway!" Now, some seem to have very low standards ("Sure, my gOd committed genocide in the Old Testament, and Jesus will someday be throwing pagans babies into eternal hellfire, but ya gotta understand - they have their reasons even if I don't know what they are!") but it seems pretty self-evident that IF X believes in gOd, X does so because that gOd has satisfied whatever standards the person requires beliefs to meet before he or she makes that belief their own. Even Tertullian had his standards (as goofy as they seem to have been). A theist who proclaims "gOd doesn't satisfy my standards for believing in him - but I believe in him regardless" would seem to necessarily be either a liar, a fool, a jokester, or mad.]

Why would an unbeliever challenge Christians to pray a past event out of existence? It is absurd. As the WCF says, God foreordains all things whatsoever comes to pass. The reason these things happened is because God ordained them in His infinite wisdom. – Jane Chavez/Covenant of Grace, OPC

[So, again, virtually ALL prayer seems to be reduced to meaninglessness - not merely prayers that try to change the past. And if whatever happens is necessarily ordained by gOd, if I successfully slap people who say things like this, well... even *I* must just be doing gOd's will, right? So who are theists to complain if I *do* slap them? Or if a mad dictator executes them by the millions? It's ALL their good gOd's will - right? Seems to me Jane is on pretty dangerous ground here....]

Just because God exists outside of time and space does not mean we as Christians can pray to undo the past. This is a ridiculous idea because we, as human beings, exist in the realm of time and space. Therefore we exist in the present. We can no more undo the events of the 1940s or any other era than we can undo the Crucifixion of Jesus. – Jane Chavez/Covenant of Grace, OPC

[Erm, I'm sorry.... I just don't see how a series of unsupported assertions adds up to a sound response to Loftus, let alone a reasonable life philosophy. If prayers can change the future, why can't they change the past? If prayers can heal grandma of her cancer even though we're obviously NOT part of her cancer, why can't they undo the crucifixion of Jesus even if we're stuck in the present? Remember: With God, ALL things are possible. If they aren't, Christians ought to be honest about it and reject and/or condemn the Jesus of the Bible as being a terrible liar.]

These atheists expect Christians to perform the impossible in order to prove that God exists. It doesn’t matter what we do, it will never be enough. They don’t believe because they are hardened in unbelief among many other reasons. They are just setting up hoops for us to jump through. It’s a fool’s errand to take them up on these challenges because God is not going to answer prayers like these that are obviously a violation of His will and are for the sole purpose of “proving” to the unbeliever that He exists. The very creation proclaims His existence every day! – Jane Chavez/Covenant of Grace, OPC

[Ooooo, nice little rant there at the end. Of course it's perfectly reasonable for atheists to ask Christians to do the impossible when their holy book says that nothing is impossible for them. We're merely holding them to the standards they themselves allegedly embrace! And while Christians like Jane seem to think that it's terribly improper to expect gOd and/or Jesus to demonstrate their divine powers, neither seem to have had much of a problem doing so in the Bible. Jesus may have bitched about it at times - and even failed at times - but he allegedly came through more often that not. Why is it suddenly wrong for people to expect at least as much proof as was given to the people of long ago? Finally, if Jane is content to embrace Jesus and her gOd on the basis of so little proof, why did she embrace Jesus and that gOd rather than Muhammad and his gOd, or the Aztecs and their gOds? If theists don't have evidence that distinguishes one deity from another, what DO they have? Whim? Upbringing? Pretty hard to put yourself forward as a defender of absolute truth if that's what you're basing your beliefs on!]

[As for the claim that "The very creation proclaims His existence".... Does anyone really need me to explain what's wrong with that? I hope not! But if so... please check out the entry I posted on the subject way back on Oct 24, 2000 as well as the four related entries it links to. (Maybe we should set a goal of stamping out this particular bit of nonsense in our lifetime?)]

If it were possible that we should pray and a notable event like 9/11 did not take place, then how would we then know that it ever happened? There would be no news articles about it, no one would know of anyone that died because of it, we wouldn’t have gone over to chase after Osama bin Laden because of it. We might just as well say that the asteroid didn’t hit us yesterday. What? You say that there was no asteroid near enough? That’s because someone 2 years in the future prayed that the asteroid that was on a collision course with the earth would move out of its normal orbit and crash into the sun on the other side so we would never know what happened. It all seems absurd to even think such things. – Gerry Winebrenner

[Remember: We mere humans might not be able to imagine how prayers might change the past in a way that's obvious and verifiable, but with gOd, ALL things are possible. And the fact remains that the past seems to continue to be universally acknowledged to have been a bloody mess. I bet we ALL can imagine some personal past tragedy or unpleasantness we'd love to be able to erase with a prayer. Well, the Bible tells us that if we ask, it shall be given to us - that all things are possible if we have even just a tiny bit of faith. The fact that the consequences of a bloody and tragic past remain with even the most devout of Christians no matter how hard they pray for that to change is proof that the Bible lies.]

The Christians I’ve just quoted reminded me that theists tend not to have a very good conception of the nature of time.

It seems to me that there are three main possibilities.

First, time can be thought of as a kind of phonograph record or CD or movie. It exists in its entirety, unchanging and eternal, but we perceive it bit by bit as we travel along like a needle in a record groove or a laser beam across a CD. The present moment is, basically, an illusion akin to the illusion that we’re at the center of physical reality. If you happen to be a Christian who embraces this point of view, there’s basically no difference between past, present, and future. If prayer can change the future, why can’t it change the past? If prayer can’t change either, why bother praying? (Because gOd the puppeteer wills it?)

A second possibility is that only the present moment exists. The past only exists to the extent it exists within the present moment. Future events are coiled up within it. Changing the past or future basically means changing elements of the Now moment. If praying to gOd can change those parts of the Now moment that we recognize as being now, why can’t they change those other aspects of the Now moment that we rather arbitrarily call past and future? Why do so many Christians insist that the power of prayer – and of gOd – is so limited? (Is it because that power is really non-existent?)

A third possibility is that the course of time splits and follows every possible course. When presented with option A and option B, we actually choose BOTH – but it seems as if we only chose one or the other as time splits and pursues EVERY possibility. The megaverse consists of an infinite number of alternate temporal pathways in which ALL possibilities are realized. If this is the case, prayer is pointless. Whatever we pray for DOES come true – but only because EVERYTHING comes true somewhere regardless of whether we pray or not. It’s hard to see what role exists for gOd in this sort of megaverse or how he might be influenced by prayer. (It seems gOd is reduced to being a mad voyeur who arranged it so that every horror and perversion plays out as an actual fact.)

Are there other possibilities? Quite likely. But – as near as I can tell – none of them do a very good job of supporting Christian dogmas (and conceits).

And of course just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s true. Even if a Christian could come up with some conception of time and gOd (and some interpretation of the Bible) in which it makes sense to say “Praying to change the future can work but praying to change the past never can,” they’d also have to provide evidence showing that such a conception is actually likely to be true.

Good luck with that!