Kenneth Winsmann On The Three Problems For Testing Petitionary Prayers
Kenneth responded to my post meant for honest Christians on how to test their prayers objectively. He did so by presenting three problems which I responded to each one of them. [Edit: These three problems were first argued by apologist Trent Horn, so when I argue against them I'm arguing against Trent Horn].
Kenneth:
But to the substance of his last response goes, I must say he does as good as can be done to deflect and deny that prayers can be objectively tested. I think I have already rebutted him earlier though. So I could waste more of my time by arguing with each of his red herrings and non-sequiturs all over again, or just focus on one thing he may never have considered before.
When we examine an idea we need to consider all reasonable alternatives, put them all in a hopper and compare them for the best possible explanation of all the facts. It is very clear to me Kenneth is not doing that. Oh, it looks that way on the surface. See John, he says, what about this possibly and that possibility? What then? Well there is just one possibility he is not considering. He acknowledges it though. He acknowledges it without wondering why he does, that scientifically tests on petitionary prayers are answered no better than chance. That is not being disputed and yet it is the most significant thing to be acknowledged. He never stops to ask himself what he would expect to find prior to any scientific tests on petitionary prayers, given that god wants reasonable belief.
So just step back a moment. What would he truly and honestly expect before scientists tested petitionary prayers? Go back before the scientific revolution had even begun, if you have to. Upon the supposition that there is a god who wants reasonable belief what would Kenneth expect back then? Well let me tell him, provided he interpreted the Bible as most Christians throughout history interpreted the passages on petitionary prayer, before the verses were acknowledged through experience to have failed too many times to be considered as literal as they appear, so they were watered down further and further until scholars gerrymandered the texts about petitionary prayers away (I was one of them).
Before there were any scientific tests Kenneth would have expected that a god who wants reasonable belief will answer prayers in ways that could be objectively tested. But since it did not turn out that way, on hindsight Kenneth is now forced into vigorously defending a viewpoint that he would never have considered before.
That's why I argue in my most recent book that all apologetics is special pleading. All of it. That's what Kenneth is doing. He's making god into a special case that cannot be tested, who doesn't want tested and will even thwart any and all attempts at being tested, even though by Kenneth's own lights god wants reasonable belief.
Kenneth is making shit up as he goes. He's moving the goalposts. He's redrawing the lines with the advances of science. The problem is that by doing so, his god belief is receding further and further away from being a reasonable belief. That's a high price to pay for his faith.
Kenneth:
I have a few questions about your test that I have been developing since completing WIBA. I have three challenges to your test and would love to see what you think here.My response:
1. The problem of interpreting results:
Imagine that every single prayer was answered. Would that mean that God exists? Or that I had developed some kind of new age focus technique that controls reality? A positive karma shield? Or maybe Satan is answering these prayers to fool me and keep me from becoming a muslim? Or perhaps Stephen Laws Evil God answered them to bring about some greater evil. What conclusions would I draw?
What if all of them fail completely. Nothing is answered. 100% negative response. What does that mean? Is God mad at me for testing Him? Is Satan trying to crush my faith? Is it all for a greater good? Bad Karma? Again, no answers.
If the hits and misses run right about equal what would that mean? If I concluded that God does not exist, wouldn't that be committing the fallacy of affirming the consequent?
Albany is in New York/' I am in New York/ Therefore I am in Albany
Easy to catch the fallacy right? But now run it with prayer
If God goes not exist my prayers will not be reliably answered/ my prayers have not been reliably answered/ therefore God does not exist
Same fallacy.
1. The problem of interpreting results:Kenneth:
If p, god wants reasonable belief then q, he should answer prayers in ways that can be objectively tested by the results of a clinical trials (i.e., the best known way to determine the effectiveness of new drugs).
So if p then q.
If you affirm p, the antecedent, then you need to explain why q, the consequent, doesn't follow. You could have a number of possible explanations for why the consequent doesn't follow. But one thing you could not say is that God is producing reasonable belief by answering prayers that meet the standards of clinical trials. In other words, if god is not doing q then he still may want reasonable belief, hence no formal fallacy here, but he's not producing it through the best known way to determine the effectiveness of petitionary prayers, which are clinical trials.
So since petitionary prayers have failed the tests of clinical trials, this means god is not producing belief through the best means possible. You must explain why such an intelligent god does not do this. You must also have another basis for reasonable belief that is unrelated to clinical trials.
But when we chase that rabbit down the rabbit's hole we'll find after much debating and debunking, that you have no reasonable belief at all. It certainly doesn't come from any objective studies on prayer that's for sure.
If every prayer was answered, my conclusion would be that it's extremely probable the particular god prayed to exists and answered prayers. But first I would want the aforementioned clinical trials to know whether they were in fact answered.
John, you said, "If every prayer was answered, my conclusion would be that it's extremely probable the particular god prayed to exists and answered prayers."My response:
You sure about that boss? Remember you began by saying:If p, god wants reasonable belief then q, he should answer prayers in ways that can be objectively tested by the results of a clinical trials (i.e., the best known way to determine the effectiveness of new drugs).But if answered prayer in clinical trials made you believe p then you would be affirming the consequent which is a formal fallacy! Hence, the problem of interpreting results comes right back around no matter what the data ends up being.
So if p then q.
Positive, negative, or nothing better than chance, the results can't be interpreted in a way that tells us anything meaningful.
With that being said, the Christian would respond that the tests have failed because the intellectual integrity of the experiment is suspect....
It's no formal fallacy at all Kenneth. You ought to know more than just a beginner's amount of logic.Kenneth:
Your moden ponens is my modus tollens. [See below]
2. The problem of the control group. How do I know who in the world is praying for what? If I pray to get a job, but someone else prays for the same position, then what? What if I pray for grandmas miraculous healing while grandma is begging God for death? Lets say i pray for an amputee to get healed but his wife whom he had been abusing is thanking God for weakening her tormentor?My response:
How do I know how things "usually" play out without prayer? Perhaps my family is always praying for me. Maybe some stranger at the gas station says a quick prayer before I get the loan I needed or whatever. Same problem with the studies from Harvard. We dont ever know who or what is being prayed for globally. No control group= no reliable test
2. The problem of the control group.Kenneth:
When you use the example of an amputee it's clear you're not interested in the truth since no human with an amputated limb ever had it regrow, ever.
So this control group problem is a manufactured one, designed to deflect in advance any objective test on petitionary prayers, with little basis for it apart from the logical inconsistency of two mutually inconsistent prayer requests. Jesus did not qualify his promises to answer prayers except for the lack of faith. Compassion should take care of the rest. Surely it would be no trouble to find a child with leukemia or some other disease or physical problem to pray for.
If clinical trials meet with failure time and again with our best choices for answered prayer then it shows petitionary prayers probably do not work. Your god should answer these prayers, if for no other reason, than that he wants reasonable belief anyway, or because he's compassionate, or both. So the more times we objectively test for prayer then the less likely it is your god answers them at all, or that he doesn't want reasonable belief, or that he doesn't care, or that he doesn't even exist.
3. The problem of the test subject: The test assumes that God is like a natural force. Just apply such and such language and wala! Guaranteed results. But scripture surely teaches God is more like a person. One that does not just react predictably according to the laws of nature (bracket the free will debate for now!). Thus, perhaps are results would be similar to the results of a son asking a father for something. Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. (hopefully) always with the child's best interests in mind.My response:
If these questions cant be answered the test is dead in the water. What say you?
(all of this completely ignores the fact that you have uploaded protestant theology of prayer which I do not personally subscribe to. I have told others a better test would be to measure the correlations between the theological virtues of faith hope and love with an active prayer life)
3. The problem of the test subject.Kenneth (blockquotes contain my previous quotes):
I read several times in the Bible where God rewards people who tested him like Moses and Gideon. There are specific verses saying as much, like Malachi 3:10 for starters.
In any case, the test subject can be scrutinized by what I said previously:
If p, god wants reasonable belief then q, he should answer prayers in ways that can be objectively tested by the results of a clinical trials (i.e., the best known way to determine the effectiveness of new drugs).
Either the test subject wants reasonable belief, or he does not. Either the test subject wants to produce reasonable belief by the best know way to do that, or he does not.
If he doesn't then the question can legitimately be asked if he wants reasonable belief, which makes one man's modus ponens another man's modus tollens, Reversing things it goes like this:
If q then p
nq
Therefore np
If q, god answer prayers in ways that can be objectively tested by the results of a clinical trials (i.e., the best known way to determine the effectiveness of new drugs) then p, god wants reasonable belief.
But nq
Therefore np.
To the problem of interpreting results:Last thing first. The one thing I agree with Kenneth about are his last two sentences. I thought that way and argued that way as a Christian intellectual. [On this I'll let Christians themselves debate it since now I don't care.]It's no formal fallacy at all Kenneth. You ought to know more than just a beginner's amount of logic.Show off! Ha! Yes, I see that by reconfiguring the language you can produce a valid argument. So the responses are no longer fallacies. Yet, does the problem of interpreting results vanish once these arguments are set in valid form? Lets see.
Your moden ponens is my modus tollens.
If Christian prayers are answered in ways that can be objectively tested by the results of a clinical trial, then Evil God wants to fool mankind into believing Christianity.
Or
If Christian prayers are answered in ways that can be objectively tested by the results of a clinical trial, then prayer produces a positive karma shield.
So now we have three modus ponens, all valid. What now?
Flip it back to no change at all and we have the same outcome. Or we could run modus tollens to change it up a bit. Should the modus tollens be set up the way you laid it out? By your own admission there are a “number of possible explanations for why the consequent doesn't follow”. So whether or not it is a sound argument is far from obvious even if we grant this is the only interpretation of the results. But there would be even more alternatives to consider. For example:
If God answer prayers in ways that can be objectively tested by the results of clinical trials, then God wants us to walk by sight (not faith)
There are endless possibilities. Evil Gods, greater goods, Karma fields, a lack thereof, witchcraft, the devil, theological interpretations, etc. etc. etc.
In light of this, do you still think that there is no problem of interpreting results?When you use the example of an amputee it's clear you're not interested in the truth since no human with an amputated limb ever had it regrow, ever.I might not have a PhD in logic, but its easy to spot this as the burden of
proof fallacy.So this control group problem is a manufactured one, designed to deflect in advance any objective test on petitionary prayers, with little basis for it apart from the logical inconsistency of two mutually inconsistent prayer requests. Jesus did not qualify his promises to answer prayers except for the lack of faith. Compassion should take care of the rest. Surely it would be no trouble to find a child with leukemia or some other disease or physical problem to pray for.Here you acknowledged the logical impossibility of two mutually exclusive prayers, but then just sort of shrugged it off. I need you to deal with it. If Father Jack prays “God please make sure as many people as possible go to heaven” and the child with Leukemia WON'T go to heaven if he reaches the age of accountability, which prayer gets answered? There is no valid control group, and thus, no possibility of a successful clinical trial. We do not know who in the world is being prayed for and who isn’t. We do not know what prayers are being prayed.If clinical trials meet with failure time and again with our best choices for answered prayer then it shows petitionary prayers probably do not work. Your god should answer these prayers, if for no other reason than that he wants reasonable belief anyway, or because he's compassionate, or both. So the more times we objectively test for prayer then the less likely it is your god answers them at all, or that he doesn't want reasonable belief, or that he doesn't care, or that he doesn't even exist.This is true only if clinical trials have a control group, a test subject that responds just like a natural force (chemistry, physics, etc), and the results can be interpreted.In any case, the test subject can be scrutinized by what I said previously….. Either the test subject wants reasonable belief, or he does not.The problem of the test subject isn’t that there is no way to scientifically test a person. Of course there is. Science is used to testing the reactions of people and not just forces (psychologists and sociologists do this all the time). But those experiments MUST be blind or even double blind. The person being tested can’t know that scientists are testing him. But if God is omniscient, then he always knows when he’s being tested. Any experiment involving him can’t be blind and so it probably can’t be scientific.
Either the test subject wants to produce reasonable belief by the best known way to do that, or he does not.
I would like to finish with a word on the way you are interpreting the bible's teaching on prayer. I know it’s a long shot, because you have such an education on this topic, but I think I might be able to introduce a possibility you haven’t considered before....Prayer isn’t for getting wishes granted. Prayer is for growing in the theological virtues.
But to the substance of his last response goes, I must say he does as good as can be done to deflect and deny that prayers can be objectively tested. I think I have already rebutted him earlier though. So I could waste more of my time by arguing with each of his red herrings and non-sequiturs all over again, or just focus on one thing he may never have considered before.
When we examine an idea we need to consider all reasonable alternatives, put them all in a hopper and compare them for the best possible explanation of all the facts. It is very clear to me Kenneth is not doing that. Oh, it looks that way on the surface. See John, he says, what about this possibly and that possibility? What then? Well there is just one possibility he is not considering. He acknowledges it though. He acknowledges it without wondering why he does, that scientifically tests on petitionary prayers are answered no better than chance. That is not being disputed and yet it is the most significant thing to be acknowledged. He never stops to ask himself what he would expect to find prior to any scientific tests on petitionary prayers, given that god wants reasonable belief.
So just step back a moment. What would he truly and honestly expect before scientists tested petitionary prayers? Go back before the scientific revolution had even begun, if you have to. Upon the supposition that there is a god who wants reasonable belief what would Kenneth expect back then? Well let me tell him, provided he interpreted the Bible as most Christians throughout history interpreted the passages on petitionary prayer, before the verses were acknowledged through experience to have failed too many times to be considered as literal as they appear, so they were watered down further and further until scholars gerrymandered the texts about petitionary prayers away (I was one of them).
Before there were any scientific tests Kenneth would have expected that a god who wants reasonable belief will answer prayers in ways that could be objectively tested. But since it did not turn out that way, on hindsight Kenneth is now forced into vigorously defending a viewpoint that he would never have considered before.
That's why I argue in my most recent book that all apologetics is special pleading. All of it. That's what Kenneth is doing. He's making god into a special case that cannot be tested, who doesn't want tested and will even thwart any and all attempts at being tested, even though by Kenneth's own lights god wants reasonable belief.
Kenneth is making shit up as he goes. He's moving the goalposts. He's redrawing the lines with the advances of science. The problem is that by doing so, his god belief is receding further and further away from being a reasonable belief. That's a high price to pay for his faith.
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