In the first place, it is said that answers to prayer are scientifically _incredible_, since they would involve God's interfering with the course of nature, or, in popular language, working miracles. The most probable explanation is, that they are only a particular class of _superhuman coincidences_ (Chapter VII.). According to this theory, God, knowing beforehand that the prayer would be offered, arranged beforehand to answer it. Thus the prayer was not a direct cause of the event which fulfilled it, but it may still have been an indirect cause. For had the man not prayed, God, foreknowing this, might not have arranged for the event to have happened. And the same is true even when the prayer is made _after_ the event. Suppose, for instance, a man heard of the loss of a ship in which his son was travelling, and prayed for his safety. That safety, as far as the shipwreck was concerned, must have been decided before the father prayed. Yet, as everything was foreknown to God, his subsequent prayer might not have been useless; since, if God had not known that the father would have prayed, He might not have brought about the son's safety. Of course, it may be said that this is making the cause come after the effect, and is therefore absurd. No doubt it would be so if merely physical forces were involved; but when we are dealing with personal beings, able to foresee and act accordingly, there is nothing impossible in a cause happening after what was in a certain sense its effect. For instance, my going for a holiday next week may be the cause of my working hard this; though, strictly speaking, it is my _foreknowledge_ of the intended holiday, that leads to my working hard. So in the case before us. It is God's _foreknowledge_ that the prayer will be offered, that leads Him to answer it; but for all practical purposes this is the same as if the prayer itself did so. Therefore this theory does not detract from the value and importance of prayer any more than God's foreknowledge in other respects makes human conduct of no importance. In every case God foreknows the result, not in spite of, but because He also foreknows, the man's conduct on which it depends. While if we admit what is called God's _Immanence_ in nature, and that everything that occurs is due to the present and immediate action of His Will (Chapter VII.), it greatly lessens any remaining difficulty there may be in regard to prayer. From this it is plain that answers to prayer may, without losing their value, be regarded as superhuman coincidences; and, if so, they do not involve any interference with the ordinary course of nature, and all scientific difficulties are at an end. (2.) _Moral difficulty_.