From Stephen Gosden
You say that “sceptics are far from convinced” that prayer can help patients
recover even when they are unaware that people are praying for them
(13 November, p 24).
I am not surprised. Although I firmly believe in the power of
prayer, it seems clear that we cannot reduce it to a formula such that if
x people pray for y hours the result must be an improvement of
z per cent in the patient.
That prayer is much more complex than this is exemplified by the experience
of many thousands who have prayed fervently with no apparent response, and of
those who have prayed with little faith only to encounter an immediate answer.
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), we read
that “they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead”—a
hypothesis that Jesus himself proved to be true a short while later.
Brussels, Belgium
