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Prayer and Natural Law |
Many find a difficulty in believing in the efficacy of prayer
because they think that answers to prayer would involve arbitrary
interference with the laws of nature. An analogy may
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help to remove this difficulty. If a magnet be held over some
iron filings the latter will fly upwards and cling to it, but this
involves no interference with the law of gravitation. The force
of gravity continues to act on the filings just as before. What
has happened is that a superior force has been brought into
play—another force whose action is just as regular and calculable
as that of gravity. The Bahá’í view is that prayer brings
into action higher forces, as yet comparatively little known;
but there seems no reason to believe that these forces are
more arbitrary in their action than the physical forces. The
difference is that they have not yet been fully studied and experimentally
investigated, and their action appears mysterious
and incalculable because of our ignorance.
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Another difficulty which some find perplexing is that prayer
seems too feeble a force to produce the great results often
claimed to it. Analogy may serve to clear up this difficulty
also. A small force, when applied to the sluice gate of a
reservoir, may release and regulate an enormous flow of water-power,
or, when applied to the steering gear of an ocean liner,
may control the course of the huge vessel. In the Bahá’í view,
the power that brings about answers to prayer is the inexhaustible
Power of God. The part of the suppliant is only to exert
the feeble force necessary to release the flow or determine the
course of the Divine Bounty, which is ever ready to serve those
who have learned how to draw upon it.
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