Are Unambiguous Prayers Ever Answered

Many Christians are convinced that prayer can heal a wide variety of illnesses (despite what scientific research indicates), it is curious that prayer is only ever believed to work for illnesses and injuries that can be self-limiting. No one ever seriously expects that prayer will cause an amputee to regrow a missing limb. Why not? Salamanders do it routinely as do starfish and squirrels. If God answers prayers, ever, why wouldn’t He occasionally heal a deserving amputee? And why wouldn’t Christians expect God to answer prayers to work in such cases?  

 

Why won't God heal amputees? It may seem like an odd question but it just might be one of the most important questions that we can ask about God. It probes into a fundamental aspect of prayer having to do with ambiguity and coincidence.

 

Imagine that you visit your doctor one day, and he tells you that you have cancer. Your doctor is optimistic, and he schedules surgery and chemotherapy to treat your disease. Meanwhile, you are terrified. You don't want to die, so you pray to God day and night for a cure. The surgery is successful, and when your doctor examines you again six months later the cancer is gone. You praise God for answering your prayers. You believe with all your heart that God has worked a miracle in your life.

 

The obvious question to ask is: What cured you? Was it the surgery/chemotherapy, or was it God? Is there any way to know whether God is playing a role or not when we pray?

Unless you take the time to analyze this situation, it looks ambiguous. God might have miraculously cured your disease, as many Christians believe. But it might have been the chemotherapy drugs and surgeries are the things that cured you. Or your body's immune system might have cured the cancer itself.

 

When your tumor disappeared, in other words, it might simply have been a complete coincidence that you happened to pray. Your prayer may have had zero effect.

How can we determine whether it is God or coincidence that worked the cure? One way is to eliminate the ambiguity. In a non-ambiguous situation, there is no potential for coincidence. Because there is no ambiguity, we can actually know whether God is answering the prayer or not.

 

That is what we are doing when we look at amputees. Think about it this way. The Bible clearly promises that God answers prayers: Mark 11:24

Jesus says, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." And billions of Christians believe these promises. You can find thousands of books and magazine articles on the power of prayer. According to believers, God is answering millions of their prayers every day.

 

So what should happen if we pray to God to restore amputated limbs? Clearly, if God is real, limbs should regenerate through prayer. In reality, they do not.

 

Why not? Notice that there is zero ambiguity in this situation. There is only one way for a limb to regenerate through prayer: God must answer prayers, at least occasionally. What we find is that whenever we create an unambiguous situation like this and look at the results of prayer, prayer never works. God never "answers prayers" if there is no possibility of coincidence.