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Monday, November 29, 2004 Volume VI Number 48
by Ken Kemp
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n uneasy tension exists between the disciplines of science and religion. It’s nothing new. Some consider the two world views to be hopelessly irreconcilable. Others shrug off the differences, claiming non-contradiction.
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The scientist wants proof. The religionist considers the need for proof to be a denial of faith. The scientist wants verifiability. The religionist considers experience to be the only criteria necessary for validity. Do the two have anything in common?
The whole question made the front page of a regional paper this week. A scientist from the University of California, Irvine, a physician, Dr. Bruce Flamm of Kaiser Permanente in Riverside, is skeptical about some research published in the prestigious Journal of Reproductive Medicine in 2001. He is sounding the alarm.
The study was reviewed and then released by physicians at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Rogerio Lobo, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) indicated that the study, which took place at the Cha Hospital in Seoul, Korea, should not be ignored. "We are putting the results out there hoping to provoke discussion and see if anything can be learned from it,” he said. The study focused on the effectiveness of in vitro fertilization. The Korean study suggested a profound increase in the effectiveness of the in vitro procedure – when patients had people praying for them. “We would like to understand the biological or other phenomena that led to this almost doubling of the pregnancy rate," he explained.
The study’s conclusion: when people prayed, women were nearly twice as likely to become pregnant as those who had no prayer. In the study, Christian prayer groups prayed specifically for one half the patients undergoing the procedure. The other half received no such support. The results were measured, and the prayed-for group had nearly twice as many pregnancies as the group with no prayer.
Dr. Flamm, a California physician, finds the whole thing ludicrous and misleading and an abuse of the scientific method. The morning paper reports his efforts to call into question the study’s scientific merit. He is convinced that the Korean hospital ignored accepted scientific procedures and that the University of Columbia compromised their professional integrity in publishing the findings. But, pray tell, the good doctor has been frustrated in his efforts to expose the quackery. He suggests a cover-up on the part of his “scientific” colleagues. This mixture of science with the hocus-pocus of prayer is just too much for him. He’s gone public, apparently in hopes of informing a gullible public that such a “scientific” validation of the ancient religious practice of prayer is pseudo-science at best, fraudulent at worst.
What are we to make of this? Would it help if it could be shown scientifically that prayer is effectual? If Dr. Flamm is right, that the study is flawed, does this somehow diminish our confidence in prayer?
It’s hardly a new dilemma. Skeptics like to point to the religionist response to Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). He postulated that the Earth was not the center of the universe as the Roman Church believed, but that the Sun was the center of the Solar System, and that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and not the other way around. This scientific intrusion on a fundamental tenant of religion was rejected by the church as heresy, and Galileo, who later popularized the view in his writings, was persecuted. Science crushed a cherished religious point of view, causing many to feel the need to choose between the two. To this day, seemingly intelligent people find solace in their skepticism knowing that the religionists are slow to accept scientific findings, and perhaps, embrace the tenants of religion without much independent scrutiny at all.
Let me suggest some perspective. Think about it. If the religionist is anti-science, he is not a biblical believer. The Scripture is clear. There is a precise orderliness about the universe. As intelligent stewards, as fellow-creators (made in the image of Creator God), we most of all ought to be curious about the patterns and predictability of the created order. We should be doing the best science of them all. The joy of discovery is perpetual motivation for an insatiable curiosity.
But if science is all there is - then we have reduced the Creation to a series of predictable formulas. We have eliminated mystery. Gone is a sense of wonder. Humans are little more than chemical machines. Consciousness is a cruel hallucination. The soul an empty illusion. Hope and transcendence and love and grace and eternity wishful, romantic fantasies.
So, does prayer help those who seek in vitro fertilization? I think so. But I don’t need the Columbia study to confirm it. Does prayer force God’s hand statistically? I don’t think so. He’s God – and far too clever to be reduced to scientific predictability. Is Dr. Flamm right to challenge the study? Certainly. And if he’s right – that it’s unreliable pseudo-science, does that diminish my confidence in prayer? Not in the slightest.
Why, then, do I pray?
First of all, to enter into God’s presence. It’s a good place to be. When I speak there, my thoughts and ideas take shape with a new and right and pure and wholesome perspective. And I listen, too. Prayer isn’t a monologue, it’s a dialogue. And when I pray for that woman who is pursuing in vitro, I am asking God for more than a baby. I’m thinking about the needs of a woman and her man and the awful pain of anticipation that is so intense it hurts and I’m thinking about a home and a life and a future full of hopes and dreams and I’m asking God to do what is best and what is right for that pair and I’m asking God too, that I might be the best kind of friend and I’m listening for a still small voice and I’m quiet, and there it is, I hear it, “Be still and know that I am God.”
“Be still and know that I am God.”
“Be still and know that I am God.”
It’s a place I wish Dr. Flamm might know. Scientists need that place, too.
It’s the place that’s far more important than the statistics of the Columbia study.
It’s a place for you, too.
* * * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
You live in the tension between science and faith. You love the challenge of science, and sometimes you feel like its lessons contradict your life of faith. And you love your faith, too. It’s a riddle - one of those cosmic riddles that will keep us interested for the duration.
But know this – God is far greater than our understanding of Him or His universe. The greatest scientists of them all understand and accept the limitations of their formulas.
We don’t need scientific validation to be faithful. If God could be proven in the laboratory, he would be way too small.
You wouldn’t worship that God.
He wouldn’t be worthy.
Worship the One who is.
Posted in Valley Center, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2004
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