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Thread: Holy Communion: double-blind RCT

Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

I was inspired by one of Evensong's posts on the Zach82 thread in Hell to wonder what a double-blind RCT of the efficacy of Holy Communion would find, if anything.

Participants would be randomly allocated to two groups. Every Sunday, for a year, the two groups would attend Mass in two separate churches. In Church A, Mass is celebrated by a priest; in Church B, Mass is celebrated by an imposter(!) The participants are subjected to a questionnaire (questions still to be determined), as are their nominated significant other, the questioning and recording of responses to be carried out by researchers who do not know which group the participants belong to.

The results are used to generate an index of some kind, and we can then consider whether any of the differences in the scores for the two groups are statistically significant.

Things I'd like a view on:
(1) Am I setting my trial up correctly? If not, in what ways could I change it to get a more objective result? (e.g. should both Masses be presided over by a real priest, but in Church B, the consecrated elements replaced with non-consecrated ones, out of sight of the participants?)

(2) *Are* there any valid questions that could be asked of a person and their other half (or closest person) to generate a meaningful efficacy index for the sacrament?

(3) Would it be inherently wrong (unethical or sinful or both) to carry out this trial, and if so why?

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

The Great Gumby

Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Things I'd like a view on:
(1) Am I setting my trial up correctly? If not, in what ways could I change it to get a more objective result? (e.g. should both Masses be presided over by a real priest, but in Church B, the consecrated elements replaced with non-consecrated ones, out of sight of the participants?)

If you want the trial to be double-blinded, you need to have a real priest, and then find some way of randomly allocating either properly consecrated elements or fake non-consecrated ones to the churches. The person responsible for the randomising and substitution should have no other involvement in the process at all, and no one else should be able to tell whether they've been swapped. This might be problematic in the context of communion.

I'd also like some separate arms of the study to examine the efficacy of bread v wafers and wine v grape juice. You should also specify a study end point, at which you would stop the study early as it's clear that your research is having undesirable effects. Maybe an army of demons living in the church?

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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman

A letter to my son about death

Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006 | IP: Logged

Dinghy Sailor

Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507

Posted

Your big problem would be that you'd be conducting fake ceremonies dedicated to a God who is said to be personal, not a natural law, and who would not be blinded to the trial methodologies at all. Were I in God's position and were I to see you offering fake ceremonies to me like that, I'd derive great pleasure from sending some dodgy results your way!

Matthew 4:7 is instructive here.

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Preach Christ, because this old humanity has used up all hopes and expectations, but in Christ hope lives and remains.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959

Posted

Let us imagine that the communion group has 27% less acne and 64% shorter bouts of gout. So what? Just what do you think you should be "measuring" to establish the efficacy of God's promises? For that matter, what do you think God has promised His people?

--Tom Clune

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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004 | IP: Logged

Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208

Posted

The problem with every thread about the sacraments, and no doubt what will be the problem with this one, is that people confuse the phrase "grace of the Eucharist" with "grace." By way of clarification, a catholic with argue that one must be baptized, receive absolution for his sins, hear the mass, and actually make his communion to receive the grace of the Eucharist. Instantly breathlessly offended people will complain that there are lots of people who know God's grace without "merely eating a bit of bread." But saying that a person must make his communion to actually receive the grace of the Eucharist does not mean God isn't giving a person grace through some other means.

So while the dummy Eucharist is not a real Eucharist because the person saying the service is not a priest and therefore not presiding in persona christi,* that is not to say that God is not giving the congregation grace all the same.

*There is actually an argument to be made that it could be the Eucharist after all, but let's not confuse matters.

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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002 | IP: Logged

Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
You should also specify a study end point, at which you would stop the study early as it's clear that your research is having undesirable effects. Maybe an army of demons living in the church?

This point is giving me some thought. For example, how much "better" would the recipients of The Real Thing have to be doing, and in what ways, before the research team would have to call a halt on the grounds that they were denying The Real Thing to the other half of the population?

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Your big problem would be that you'd be conducting fake ceremonies dedicated to a God who is said to be personal, not a natural law, and who would not be blinded to the trial methodologies at all. Were I in God's position and were I to see you offering fake ceremonies to me like that, I'd derive great pleasure from sending some dodgy results your way!

Matthew 4:7 is instructive here.

Would we be testing Him, or would we be testing us?

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
So while the dummy Eucharist is not a real Eucharist because the person saying the service is not a priest and therefore not presiding in persona christi,* that is not to say that God is not giving the congregation grace all the same.

*There is actually an argument to be made that it could be the Eucharist after all, but let's not confuse matters.

This sounds REMARKABLY like what people are trying to say to you in a certain Hell thread, where you're busy rejecting the argument.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008 | IP: Logged

Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Let us imagine that the communion group has 27% less acne and 64% shorter bouts of gout. So what? Just what do you think you should be "measuring" to establish the efficacy of God's promises? For that matter, what do you think God has promised His people?

--Tom Clune

No, I definitely wasn't thinking of health measures. I suppose to arrive at the Index, and therefore the question set needed to score participants against that index, we'd have to start by researching what people hope to gain by being communicant members of the Church. Of course that would probably stall the research at the first hurdle if we couldn't achieve consensus on what this was. Hmmm...

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032

Posted

Wouldn't it be easier to question attenders of communion services which are not regarded by other Christians as 'proper' commuions, or the ministers as 'proper' priests?

Those congregants would be under the impression they are receiving the 'real thing'; but according to the observer's stance (ie, it's only valid under certain circumstances) they aren't really.

One needn't go to the trouble of setting up 'imposters' and fake eucharists, when apparently this is, in fact, the case anyway?

Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002 | IP: Logged

Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
So while the dummy Eucharist is not a real Eucharist because the person saying the service is not a priest and therefore not presiding in persona christi,* that is not to say that God is not giving the congregation grace all the same.

*There is actually an argument to be made that it could be the Eucharist after all, but let's not confuse matters.
This sounds REMARKABLY like what people are trying to say to you in a certain Hell thread, where you're busy rejecting the argument.

Also, with my hypothetical researcher's hat on, if we cannot distinguish between the two types of grace - The Real Thing and just "some grace" - why does it matter?

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208

Posted

quote:
This sounds REMARKABLY like what people are trying to say to you in a certain Hell thread, where you're busy rejecting the argument.

I knew I shouldn't have mentioned that, because I knew people would leap to conclusions.

The argument would rest on the promises Jesus made to the Church making up for the deficiencies of a Eucharist performed in good faith, in this very specific context. The argument, you should know, you be very hard going, and I personally disagree with it. Either way, it would not apply to hippies exchanging mountain dew outside of the auspices of the Church.

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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002 | IP: Logged

The Great Gumby

Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
Wouldn't it be easier to question attenders of communion services which are not regarded by other Christians as 'proper' commuions, or the ministers as 'proper' priests?

Those congregants would be under the impression they are receiving the 'real thing'; but according to the observer's stance (ie, it's only valid under certain circumstances) they aren't really.

One needn't go to the trouble of setting up 'imposters' and fake eucharists, when apparently this is, in fact, the case anyway?

I like this idea. It could be the basis for an observational study of the evidence available, which would help in refining any later research question. The difficulty is that depending on the knowledge and beliefs of the congregants, the fakes may or may not be understood as such, which complicates the situation a little.

It would also be a good idea to run a small-scale feasibility study to check that you'd get meaningful data and iron out any flaws in methodology, before launching into a full trial. But end points are the thing, along with a clear hypothesis and appropriate proxy measures for the effective operation of a genuine communion.

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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman

A letter to my son about death

Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006 | IP: Logged

Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032

Posted

I have to confess, however, I was also being - though not entirely - a little tongue-in-cheek, Great Gumby!

I have no doubt as to the validity of any of 'my' eucharists; but I know very well, many of my fellow Anglicans do. Similarly, how 'valid' is any eucharist held by an Anglican in the eyes of the Catholic Church, or a Methodist communion, by any 'three-fold order' denomination. So I think that while we can barely agree as to who is even a 'real' priest or what is a 'real' eucharist the basic OP question is almost an irrelevance.

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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:

quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
Wouldn't it be easier to question attenders of communion services which are not regarded by other Christians as 'proper' commuions, or the ministers as 'proper' priests?

Those congregants would be under the impression they are receiving the 'real thing'; but according to the observer's stance (ie, it's only valid under certain circumstances) they aren't really.

One needn't go to the trouble of setting up 'imposters' and fake eucharists, when apparently this is, in fact, the case anyway?
I like this idea. It could be the basis for an observational study of the evidence available, which would help in refining any later research question. The difficulty is that depending on the knowledge and beliefs of the congregants, the fakes may or may not be understood as such, which complicates the situation a little.

It would also be a good idea to run a small-scale feasibility study to check that you'd get meaningful data and iron out any flaws in methodology, before launching into a full trial. But end points are the thing, along with a clear hypothesis and appropriate proxy measures for the effective operation of a genuine communion.

Yes, it would be a cost effective way to see if further research were warranted. However I think that what TGG is saying is that there is some added confusion there because you end up with a variety of populations.

That is to say, in the trial, you have one population who think they are receiving The Real Thing, some of whom are, some of whom are not. In the real life scenario, you have:
- a group who think they are receiving Real Thing A and are in fact receiving that
- a group who think they are receiving Real Thing A, but are receiving Real Thing B
- a group who do not think they are receiving The Real Thing, though we cannot know for sure they are not in fact receiving it

And possibly a number of other variations (people who think they are receiving Real Thing A, but believe in any case that Real Thing B *is* the same thing, maybe).

I suppose I was looking to engineer a situation with the least variables.

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826

Posted

Martin Luther said that the Devil himself could administer the Eucharist as long as it was prefaced by the Word proclaimed in "On the same night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread..." and the all-important promise of "given for you"..."shed for you."

In our tradition we (usually but not always) restrict the celebration of the Eucharist to an ordained person -- not because we think s/he has some special metaphysical means of getting Jesus in, with and under the elements, but because it's a matter of good order; we all have our jobs to do as the assembled people of God, and except in unusual circumstances that's one of the pastor's prerogatives.

So from my perspective your double-blind test wouldn't amount to much, other than giving everyone involved an opportunity to receive the Sacrament on a regular, frequent basis during the length of the experiment.

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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

Even if the imposter priest was one of the researchers, an atheist, let's say?

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Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644

Posted

Unless God agrees to participate, the study will prove nothing. And, if God agrees to participate, why bother doing the study? A paper on how you know God was participating in the study would be far more exciting.

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Lyda*Rose

Ship's broken porthole
# 4544

Posted

Erronious Monk:

quote:
(3) Would it be inherently wrong (unethical or sinful or both) to carry out this trial, and if so why?

Unethical at the least. People who participate in experiments that might change something in their lives need to know and agree to participate in a study. In the interest of the study's purity, the parameters of the study might not be revealed during the run of the experiment, and the participants would be informed of that. That is why ethical psych departments (most, I hope) at universities specifically recruit test subjects who at least know they are test subjects, if not of what test. Humans are not small furry rodents and shouldn't be treated as such.

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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano

Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003 | IP: Logged

Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
So while the dummy Eucharist is not a real Eucharist because the person saying the service is not a priest and therefore not presiding in persona christi,* that is not to say that God is not giving the congregation grace all the same.

*There is actually an argument to be made that it could be the Eucharist after all, but let's not confuse matters.
This sounds REMARKABLY like what people are trying to say to you in a certain Hell thread, where you're busy rejecting the argument.
Also, with my hypothetical researcher's hat on, if we cannot distinguish between the two types of grace - The Real Thing and just "some grace" - why does it matter?

The exception there is a matter of a congregation acting in good faith. If we all know the person is not a priest, or we use slim-jims and mountain dew for the elements, then the jig is up.

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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002 | IP: Logged

The Great Gumby

Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
I have to confess, however, I was also being - though not entirely - a little tongue-in-cheek, Great Gumby!

As am I. But it's an interesting thought experiment, and the different variables (as has been identified) of true believers receiving fake sacraments, non-believers receiving genuine sacraments, sacraments which the priest believes to be valid but the congregants don't and vice versa all need to be understood and controlled for.

That's why there needs to be substantial preliminary investigation. A good observational study should help to pin some of these issues down a little bit.

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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman

A letter to my son about death

Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006 | IP: Logged

Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992

Posted

This is an elaborate joke, right? And Erroneous Monk is going to be along in a while with the suitably elaborate punch-line, right?

Actually, my MA dissertation dealt with medical experiments into the efficacy of intercessory prayer. My conclusion, basically, was that in every single trial the researchers showed a complete misunderstanding of both the principles and practice of Christian prayer (as traditionally understood within mainstream Christianity), and that therefore the trial was invalid simply because they weren't testing what they thought they were testing.

I think that the OP's proposed experiment shows a similar misunderstanding of the principles and practice of ritual. It assumes a view of ritual of the kind held (a long time ago) by James Frazer and Edward Tylor - that ritual is a kind of religious technological procedure whose purpose is to produce a defined effect. Most contemporary anthropologists think that this is - as someone round here has said before - as mistaken as a mistaken thing that is mistaken. If Erroneous Monk has been reading Frazer and Tylor, I recommend a short course of Wittgenstein: your condition will clear up in no time.

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"What is broken, repair with gold."

Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003 | IP: Logged

Arrietty

Ship's borrower
# 45

Posted

The 39 Articles have got it covered from a C of E point of view:

quote:
XXVI. Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the effect of the Sacraments.
Although in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments, yet forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ's, and do minister by his commission and authority, we may use their Ministry, both in hearing the Word of God, and in receiving the Sacraments. Neither is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts diminished from such as by faith, and rightly, do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them; which be effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men.

We might shy away from labelling people as 'evil' in this day and age, but conning people into thinking they were receiving communion from an authorised minister when they weren't, for the purposes of an experiment, would be fairly unethical.

However if the people taking communion had every reason to believe it was being correctly done, then according to the 39 Articles it wouldn't make any difference whether someone was impersonating a clergy person or not.

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i-church

Online Mission and Ministry

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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:

Things I'd like a view on:

(3) Would it be inherently wrong (unethical or sinful or both) to carry out this trial, and if so why?

Yes. Obviously.

God is a God of Truth. Whatever your theology on Holy Communion/The Eucharist/The Holy Liturgy/The Mass/The Lord's Supper/The Breaking of Bread Service (choose preference) it would be blasphemous deliberately to set up a service that you believed was void and to deceive the faithful into taking part in it.

Since the members of the various ecclesial communities represented by those phrases widely hold each others' services to be ineffective, you could perhaps compare the efficacious results for those who attended valid ones according to their own communities, but I don't see how you would measure that.

Anselmina, as often, you're talking a lot of sense.

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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826

Posted

quote:
Even if the imposter priest was one of the researchers, an atheist, let's say?

Erroneous, if you're addressing me, the answer is yes. It could be Richard Dawkins himself dressed in a priest's costume he borrowed from Rowan Atkinson, and if he said the Words of Institution and conveyed Christ's promise of "for you" to the unwitting faithful lined up to communicate, the Sacrament would be just as valid as if the saintliest clergyperson on earth had consecrated it.

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Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005 | IP: Logged

Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

Posted

And that's the problem, isn't it? At least as Lutherans see it. You'd never manage to doubleblind a study where the participants were actually hearing the Words of Institution (or not). And then there's that pesky God who will never agree to keep his cottonpickin' fingers out of your nice clean experiment, and will inevitably skew the results... [Snigger]

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
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Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004 | IP: Logged

Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
This is an elaborate joke, right? And Erroneous Monk is going to be along in a while with the suitably elaborate punch-line, right?

Not a joke, but, as The Great Gumby said, a thought experiment.

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:

Actually, my MA dissertation dealt with medical experiments into the efficacy of intercessory prayer. My conclusion, basically, was that in every single trial the researchers showed a complete misunderstanding of both the principles and practice of Christian prayer (as traditionally understood within mainstream Christianity), and that therefore the trial was invalid simply because they weren't testing what they thought they were testing.

Yesterday evening I was listening to Canon Dr Giles Fraser speaking on the subject of the limits of an evidence-based approach. Since he didn't want to get bogged down in the "religion" question (he was speaking to a group composed mainly of atheists and agnostics) he approached it from the angle of the possible consequences of taking an evidence-based approach to the question of whether someone loves you. I think he spoke well and, for my part, had the more convincing argument (that there are limits to the use of an evidence-based approach). However, I think that when we put forward this view (that the EB approach is limited and is not suitable for all analysis) there needs to be some thinking behind it. Otherwise it sounds like we're just saying "Keep your science away from my love/faith/sacrament/whatever."

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:

I think that the OP's proposed experiment shows a similar misunderstanding of the principles and practice of ritual. It assumes a view of ritual of the kind held (a long time ago) by James Frazer and Edward Tylor - that ritual is a kind of religious technological procedure whose purpose is to produce a defined effect. Most contemporary anthropologists think that this is - as someone round here has said before - as mistaken as a mistaken thing that is mistaken. If Erroneous Monk has been reading Frazer and Tylor, I recommend a short course of Wittgenstein: your condition will clear up in no time.

After my experience last night, I wouldn't want to limit this discussion solely to RCT-ing holy communion, if people would like to discuss the wider issue of the limits (if any) of the evidence-based approach.

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

Lyda*Rose and Arrietty - could the ethical concern be dealt with if the trial were on a weekday communion (and therefore would not risk anyone missing a Sunday obligation) and the participants recruited were told that at the regular Wednesday service they would be required to attend, they would receive either elements consecrated by an ordained minister or unconsecrated elements - and therefore that would have willingly agreed to that part (assuming any would agree)?

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

Lutheran Chik and Lamb Chopped - are there any faith practices which you think could be at least single-blinded in an RCT. e.g. supposing you had a willing population of atheist parents who were randomly assigned to either have a baby baptised or not?

This would have to be a much longer term study though....

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

The Man with a Stick
Shipmate
# 12664

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Arrietty:
The 39 Articles have got it covered from a C of E point of view:

quote:
XXVI. Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the effect of the Sacraments.
Although in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments, yet forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ's, and do minister by his commission and authority, we may use their Ministry, both in hearing the Word of God, and in receiving the Sacraments. Neither is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts diminished from such as by faith, and rightly, do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them; which be effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men.
We might shy away from labelling people as 'evil' in this day and age, but conning people into thinking they were receiving communion from an authorised minister when they weren't, for the purposes of an experiment, would be fairly unethical.

However if the people taking communion had every reason to believe it was being correctly done, then according to the 39 Articles it wouldn't make any difference whether someone was impersonating a clergy person or not.

I must disagree here. If there is no "commission or authority" there is no sacrament. Therefore if the celebrant is an imposter, there is no eucharist, whether or not the people taking communion had every reason to believe it was being correctly done.

The article firmly rejects the Donatist heresy, but does not go as far as you suggest, in my view.

quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:

we'd have to start by researching what people hope to gain by being communicant members of the Church.

Well, one common answer would be the salvation of one's soul. And even if one could leave this world in order to collect data, I'd consider it unethical to put that in jeopardy!

Posts: 335 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007 | IP: Logged

Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Lyda*Rose and Arrietty - could the ethical concern be dealt with if the trial were on a weekday communion (and therefore would not risk anyone missing a Sunday obligation) and the participants recruited were told that at the regular Wednesday service they would be required to attend, they would receive either elements consecrated by an ordained minister or unconsecrated elements - and therefore that would have willingly agreed to that part (assuming any would agree)?

I'm not Lyda*Rose or Arrietty, but no.

Furthermore,

a. If you mean what you say, in 'they would be required to attend' that makes it worse.

b. Irrespective of our theological take on the nature of the sacraments, we attend to receive the Body and blood of Christ and to call to mind his death. we do not attend so as to participate in some sociologist's experiment or to help them get a PhD.It is therefore wrong to make or encourage people to participate in such an exercise.

The same goes for

quote:
a willing population of atheist parents who were randomly assigned to either have a baby baptised or not?

If you are saying, 'should Christians ask themselves whether what they are doing is working?', I would agree with you. Of course we should. But this is a silly and offensive way of doing it.

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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson

Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008 | IP: Logged

Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
The same goes for

quote:
a willing population of atheist parents who were randomly assigned to either have a baby baptised or not?
If you are saying, 'should Christians ask themselves whether what they are doing is working?', I would agree with you. Of course we should. But this is a silly and offensive way of doing it.

I find the thought experiment intriguing because we keep being told a valid Eucharist is IMPORTANT for us, and an invalid one DOESN'T WORK. Well, let's pick one viewpoint, say RCC, find a thousand people who for several decades have weekly participated in a *valid Eucharist*, match them to a thousand people who for the same period have participated in an *invalid Eucharist* church, compare. What's different? What difference does a "valid Eucharist" make in one's life? If Eucharist is doing anything -- helping people become more God aware, shaping souls to be more like God's personality and values, conveying divine peace regardless of circumstance, strengthening ability to serve others -- whatever it's doing, shouldn't some effects leak out to this realm in the lives of those affected?

Or, as to baptism, I have an atheist friend who had one child baptized (to please Grandma) and the others not (Grandma was dead). What difference should I expect to see?

I think a lot of our theology was invented by the institution to inflate it's importance, and is not how God thinks at all!

Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008 | IP: Logged

ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
... could the ethical concern be dealt with if the trial were on a weekday communion (and therefore would not risk anyone missing a Sunday obligation) ...

No. Imagine trying to get it past a university research ethics committee! Or put it in another religion - say you made a proposal to test the efficiacy of Muslim prayer by putting half the participants in a prayer room where the thing on the wall that points to Mecca was pointing in the wrong direction? Would that get past the committee?

quote:

and the participants recruited were told that at the regular Wednesday service they would be required to attend, they would receive either elements consecrated by an ordained minister or unconsecrated elements - and therefore that would have willingly agreed to that part ...

That in effecgt unblinds the experiment for communicants because they have a good guess as to what's going on, and what the difference between the two treatments is. If someone told you that one of the two priests in your church one was a fake,m you would try to guess which> I imagine most regualr churchgoers woudl guess quite well. And yes that objection probably applies to a great many psychgological experiments of the sort traditionaly done to undergraduate psychology students)

But the ethical objection isn't the real objection. its the one everyone has mentioned already, the logical objection. If God exists then there is no basis for the experiment. Because God knows whats going on and can give you any result that God wants. Its like the characters in a play doing experiments on the author.

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002 | IP: Logged

no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

Posted

I believe that God has his computer mouse ready to click on and smite anyone who'd try such an experiment. Or maybe click, hold and drop them into a volcano. In this life or the next. Though probably the next, as God dislikes being obvious these days.

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010 | IP: Logged

Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
This is an elaborate joke, right? And Erroneous Monk is going to be along in a while with the suitably elaborate punch-line, right?

Not a joke, but, as The Great Gumby said, a thought experiment.

Oh, well that's all right then!

Virtually all RCTs present problems, and many of those problems are ethical. Although the RCT is held up as the so-called "gold standard" of research, there's really a large number of situations in which they simply can't be used. Hardly any RCTs these days, for example, are straightforward drug-vs-placebo trials, simply because it is unethical to prescribe a "sugar pill" (placebo) for a condition that is treatable. Most trials are "known good treatment"-vs-"treatment we suspect might be better", or "combination of good treatments A"-vs-"combination of good treatments B".

In other words, to conduct an ethical Holy Communion, if you suspect that Holy Communion is beneficial at all, then it can't be Communion-vs-No Communion. It'll have to be, say "Primitive Methodist Communion"-vs-"Wesleyan Methodist Communion".

You also normally have to have the explicit prior consent of the participants in order to meet ethical standards. Now, since you're obviously going to be asking church members, it's unlikely that they themselves are going to be coming from an uncommitted point of view. This introduces the element of participant preference into the study, which can bias the outcome.

It's common, too (though not universal) to say that at some point in the chain of the people conducting the research, someone has to have a genuine uncommitted doubt as to which "treatment" will be most effective. This is because, if everybody involved already believes treatment A to be better than treatment B, then it is unethical to administer treatment B (see my note on placebos above). If you were using genuine presiding ministers, it would be difficult or impossible for them to be approaching the experiment from such a position of non-commitment.

There are objections to some of these ethical principles - a common one being that the obligations of researchers to trial participants are different from the obligations of therapists to patients. But these objections have objections, and so on and so on.

Of course, if what you're trying to prove is that RCTs area total pain in the neck, ethically speaking, then job done.

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"What is broken, repair with gold."

Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003 | IP: Logged

Josephine

Orthodox Belle
# 3899

Posted

Isn't there a requirement that, for a sacrament to be valid, the people involved in it have to be intending to do what the Church intends to be done? That is, if you are having a wedding rehearsal, you can do the entire wedding service, say all the words, but at the end of it, the couple is not wed, because they were not intending to be wed, but were intending to practice.

If that is the case, then there is no way to have an experimental Eucharist that would be valid, because the intent would not be to have the Eucharist, but to participate in an experiment to assess the effects of the Eucharist. Which is, of course, not the same thing at all.

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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!

Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003 | IP: Logged

LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826

Posted

Josephine: Except that in EM's scenario, unlike at a wedding rehearsal, the communicants aren't aware that they're participating in a "dummy" Eucharist.

In response to EM's suggestion of a "single-blind baptism" experiment":

quote:
If you are saying, 'should Christians ask themselves whether what they are doing is working?', I would agree with you. Of course we should. But this is a silly and offensive way of doing it.

I agree. And I'd also note that God's work in a human heart happens in God's kairos -- in God's good time. God doesn't run on a lab schedule. And, in Lutheran (and other non-Calvinist) theologies, while Holy Baptism is the initial planting of the Divine flag, so to speak, on an individual's beach done on God's initiative out of love for us, the individual will still always struggle between the urgings of the Holy Spirit and his/her resistance to the Spirit; look up "simul iustus et peccator." And sometimes his/her resistance wins the day...or much more than the day.

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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com

Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005 | IP: Logged

Amanda B. Reckondwythe

Dressed for Church
# 5521

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Isn't there a requirement that, for a sacrament to be valid, the people involved in it have to be intending to do what the Church intends to be done?

I am reminded of what the nuns used to tell us in Sunday school: "If a priest happened to be walking by a bakery, and he happened to look in the window and see a shelf full of loaves of bread, and if he happened to pronounce the words of institution, then . . ."

Would it follow that anyone eating such bread would indeed be receiving the Eucharist, whether they knew it or not (and surely how could they know)?

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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.

Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004 | IP: Logged

Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274

Posted

Well, Miss Amanda, methinks those were quite naughty nuns. The words aren't magic. The priest would not have been doing what the Church intends to do in celebrating the Eucharist, there would have been no congregation in and for which the Mass was being offered, no consecration of the other species - wine - that is essential matter in confecting the Sacrament. A formula of words pronounced quite outside their proper context does not constitute the celebration of Mass and the consecration of the Holy Eucharist.

Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006 | IP: Logged

Amanda B. Reckondwythe

Dressed for Church
# 5521

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Well, Miss Amanda, methinks those were quite naughty nuns. The words aren't magic. The priest would not have been doing what the Church intends to do.

My thought precisely. Thank God nuns didn't speak infallibly ex cathedra, or else we'd all be much more screwed up than we turned out to be. [Help]

Such a scenario might have supplied a laboratory for our experiment, though. The nuns could probably have convinced a group of innocents that the bread was indeed the Body of Christ, and the innocents could probably have been persuaded to eat same. I don't presume to speak for God, but I can't imagine that he would go along with the setup. What he'd do to the nuns is a different matter.

[ 26. June 2012, 21:33: Message edited by: Amanda B. Reckondwythe ]

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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.

Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004 | IP: Logged

Josephine

Orthodox Belle
# 3899

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
Josephine: Except that in EM's scenario, unlike at a wedding rehearsal, the communicants aren't aware that they're participating in a "dummy" Eucharist.

To pass the ethics requirements, the priests and the communicants both would have to know at least that they are participating in an experiment of some sort that involved the Eucharist; they might even have to know that there was a chance that they might be getting a dummy Eucharist. If they knew that much, I think it would make the Eucharist invalid, because the intent of everyone involved would be an experiment, and not a Eucharist.

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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!

Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003 | IP: Logged

churchgeek

Have candles, will pray
# 5557

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
If you want the trial to be double-blinded, you need to have a real priest, and then find some way of randomly allocating either properly consecrated elements or fake non-consecrated ones to the churches. The person responsible for the randomising and substitution should have no other involvement in the process at all, and no one else should be able to tell whether they've been swapped. This might be problematic in the context of communion.

Depends on who your servers are. Some are quite capable of this sort of randomizing and substitution without even knowing they're doing it.

quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Unless God agrees to participate, the study will prove nothing. And, if God agrees to participate, why bother doing the study? A paper on how you know God was participating in the study would be far more exciting.

I think there's a category error, anyway, with trying to apply a double-blind study to the Eucharistic Mystery.

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I reserve the right to change my mind.

My article on the Virgin of Vladimir

Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004 | IP: Logged

Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Lutheran Chik and Lamb Chopped - are there any faith practices which you think could be at least single-blinded in an RCT. e.g. supposing you had a willing population of atheist parents who were randomly assigned to either have a baby baptised or not?

This would have to be a much longer term study though....

Well, the infant baptism thing would work except that you'd have to decide what exactly the effects you were looking for would be (so you could control for other variables), and...

You'd still have the problem of an interfering God. If he were some sort of clockwork deity this would all go much more easily, but he has a definite interfering bent, and (I think) a wicked sense of humor. Good luck with that One!

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004 | IP: Logged

Arrietty

Ship's borrower
# 45

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by The Man with a Stick:
If there is no "commission or authority" there is no sacrament. Therefore if the celebrant is an imposter, there is no eucharist, whether or not the people taking communion had every reason to believe it was being correctly done.

The experiment as I understand it would be to provide something that looked exactly like a communion service but which was invalid because the person presiding was not actually authorised or commissioned to preside.

This article covers exactly that point - the minister may be unfit to minister but that does not per se invalidate the sacrament - implicitly because God will not be mocked or allow those devoutly seeking his presence through the sacrament to be mocked.

It therefore comes down to the same point others have made - you would need God's consent to trick the faithful before your experiment stood any chance of working.

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i-church

Online Mission and Ministry

Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Arrietty:
you would need God's consent to trick the faithful before your experiment stood any chance of working.

Which you should assume you have not got.

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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson

Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008 | IP: Logged

Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
You should also specify a study end point, at which you would stop the study early as it's clear that your research is having undesirable effects. Maybe an army of demons living in the church?
This point is giving me some thought. For example, how much "better" would the recipients of The Real Thing have to be doing, and in what ways, before the research team would have to call a halt on the grounds that they were denying The Real Thing to the other half of the population?

I'm doing research on spelling for my MA. The control group will get the intervention afterwards - same intervention, just ten weeks later.

You could do that.

[Smile]

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Garden. Room. Walk

Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008 | IP: Logged

Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

Posted

quote:
From the OP by Erroneous Monk:
I was inspired by one of Evensong's posts on the Zach82 thread in Hell to wonder what a double-blind RCT of the efficacy of Holy Communion would find, if anything.

I think all these people are arguing against the principle of the test because they know that if it was possible to run it, it would find that there's no difference whatsoever between a "valid" eucharist and an "invalid" one.

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Hail Gallaxhar

Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003 | IP: Logged

Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
From the OP by Erroneous Monk:
I was inspired by one of Evensong's posts on the Zach82 thread in Hell to wonder what a double-blind RCT of the efficacy of Holy Communion would find, if anything.
I think all these people are arguing against the principle of the test because they know that if it was possible to run it, it would find that there's no difference whatsoever between a "valid" eucharist and an "invalid" one.

Marv did you just point and shout "Elephant! Over there!"? [Biased]

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
I believe that God has his computer mouse ready to click on and smite anyone who'd try such an experiment. Or maybe click, hold and drop them into a volcano. In this life or the next. Though probably the next, as God dislikes being obvious these days.

Anyone who'd try, maybe. But surely not anyone who'd *think about it*?

But then again... plenty of people have actually carried out RCTs on the efficacy of various aspects of parenting without being disowned or smited by their parents. And if God isn't a more loving parent than a human parent then I've got bigger problems ahead than this.

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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

Posted