An Atheist’s Prayer
March 28, 2011
ON THE face of it, it seems logically inconsistent for an atheist to pray. The truth is, it is logically inconsistent for an atheist never to pray.
It cannot be established with certainty that God does not exist. If you stood on one side of a locked door and wanted to know if someone was on the other side, what would you do? You would knock or call out to see if someone was there. You would listen.
Every honest, intelligent atheist should speak to God and see if there is any response or illumination. He should test his propositions in that way. The effort would have to be sincere and without pretense or it wouldn’t qualify as a true calling out. Here is a suggested prayer:
God, there is no knowledge that frightens me, even knowledge of you. For this passing moment, I suspend my disbelief, without bias or prejudice. I am uncertain, without proof. Please deign to speak to me.
— Comments —
Jim writes:
I don’t pray. I have no interest in praying. There is no evidence that a believer’s prayer does anything. And besides, how can you even be certain that the god who would receive your prayer is the same one you envision?
Laura writes:
There is a great deal of evidence that prayers are answered, but the evidence could never be conclusive and undeniable. If it were, it would constitute a form of revelation that would rob us of freedom. (When I say that, I don’t mean to suggest that the unlikelihood of conclusive evidence is itself an argument that prayer is effective.) God is humble. He prefers not to overwhelm and often answers in unexpected ways.
One excellent account of the efficacy of prayer can be found in the book Letters from a Distant Shore by Maria Lawson Fiala. Fiala’s teenage son experienced a brain hemorrhage and was rendered comatose with little hope of ever speaking again. Friends, family and acquaintances participated in an intercontinental prayer vigil, organized over the Internet. Not long after the vigil, her son, Jeremy, woke up and spoke. It is not possible to prove the prayers were connected to his recovery, but it is also impossible to prove that they weren’t.
There are many, many accounts of people who say they have prayed and their prayers were answered.
As someone who does not pray, you understandably have no personal evidence that prayer “does anything.” A person who does not jog can have no personal evidence that jogging makes the legs stronger. However, he would take it on the authority of others that jogging has that result. Also, he could observe the difference in joggers. Many people have said that prayer does produce effects. That is a type of authority. I have noticed that people who pray are observably different.
The effects of prayers are most often spiritual and psychological.
The most obvious psychological effect is undeniable. Prayer is an act of surrender. It diminishes the sense of one’s importance. Prayer is an expression of love. It is rare, I believe, to express love and not feel changed in subtle ways. Prayers of thanksgiving impress on the mind the bounty of existence.
These are some psychological effects that are common. I can attest to more profound spiritual effects and the direct answering of prayer, as can many others. I was once like you and did not pray at all. I could never prove to you any of the amazing and unexpected things I have experienced through prayer but you might believe me when I say that I look back on the age in which I did not pray without the slightest desire to return to it. The miraculous is far more common than we suspect. I suggest you try it, if only so you can say you have. Begrudging or insincere prayer, of course, does not count.
Prayer is similar to mountain climbing. Each small step gets one closer to the summit. The sense of mounting height is tangible over time. Even people of exalted spiritual achievement, by the way, sometimes reach an impasse. They may temporarily lose the capacity to pray. They are stranded on a ledge. They may have to pray that they can pray again.
The analogy to mountain climbing is apt because prayer is sometimes deadly dull, just like mountain trails, and sometimes exhilarating.
Laura adds:
Jim writes:
And besides, how can you even be certain that the god who would receive your prayer is the same one you envision?
If you jump out of plane, you can’t be certain that your parachute will work. But you may have very good reasons to believe it will. There are good reasons to believe the one envisioned is the recipient.
Peter S. writes:
The most immediate quality of prayer is, in a way, perfectly familiar even to those who have never formally prayed. In moments of profound significance or in the presence of great beauty, one’s interiority is permeated with an uncommon solemnity, gratitude, joy or expansiveness. Virgin nature, great art, profound literature, the face of one’s beloved caught in the light just so – any and all will do. For this, one need neither believe in God nor the soul; an openness to the immediacy of one’s interior experience will suffice.
It is possible to taste further the lived experience of those who have entered into prayer more fully and to gain some savor of how an individual might be transformed thereby. To limit the scope of consideration to a single tradition such as the Russian Orthodox Church – and in what follows one certainly need not be Orthodox to benefit thereby – the following writings offer fine points of entry to this experience of interior transformation: The Way of a Pilgrim and the Pilgrim Continues His Way by the Russian Pilgrim (tr. R.M. French); and Flame in the Snow: A Life of St. Serafim of Sarov by Julia de Beausobre.
Keeping to the same tradition, the following slim but profound writings are fine introductions for the beginner in prayer, written by preeminent spiritual directors of the 20th and 19th centuries, respectively: Beginning to Pray by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom; and The Path of Prayer by St. Theophan the Recluse.
Finally, the formal supports of prayer, such as sacred music or icons, quite evidently serve to make prayer at once more accessible and more powerfully transformative. The linked choral music and icon images below are fine examples of this. .To listen to the chant of The Cherubic Hymn from the Orthodox liturgy or gaze upon an icon such as The Savior of Zvenigorod or The Virgin of Vladimir – or both listen and gaze at the same time, if one dares – is to understand this with great immediacy.
Here are The Cherubic Hymn, performed by Arte Corale, The Soul of Eternal Russia (Virgin); The Embrace of the Father, performed by Arte Corale, The Soul of Eternal Russia (Virgin); and Zealous Defender, performed by Cantus Dei, Gesänge aus dem Leben orthodoxer Nonnen und Mönche (Zander)
Mercedes Duggar writes:
Here is a book recommendation for the atheists in your audience, as well as for those who would seek to convert them by means of reason: Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Van Til.
It explains why atheists are not even being honest with themselves when they deny the existence of God, and shows why traditional and evidential apologetics will not reach them. It is by far the best book on apologetics that I have ever read.
