The Efficacy Of Prayer Being The Donnellan Lectures For The Year 1877

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Excerpt from The Efficacy of Prayer: Being the Donnellan Lectures; For the Year 1877 In Lectures V. And VI. Will be found the arguments on the other side of the question. In order to maintain, in accordance with the principle stated in Lecture I., an equality in form between the opposing arguments, I have stated the arguments on the positive as well as on the negative side of the question in the form of objections, pointing out the difficulties which would accompany the acceptance of a system of the world from which prayer is excluded. Some questions, which seemed to require a more lengthened discussion than could be given to them in the text, have been examined in the Appendix. I have considered in this way the power of man to inquire into the attri butes of God, and the right of the moral sense to judge of His moral attributes; the criterion of ultimate truth; the essential nature of those occurrences which we call miracles; the inherent superiority of mind over matter; the argument from statistics; and that which may be derived from the general consent of mankind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

For more than a century, the American medical profession insisted that doctors be rigorously trained in medical science and dedicated to professional ethics. Patients revered their doctors as representatives of a sacred vocation. Do we still trust doctors with the same conviction? In Trusting Doctors, Jonathan Imber attributes the development of patients' faith in doctors to the inspiration and influence of Protestant and Catholic clergymen during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He explains that as the influence of clergymen waned, and as reliance on medical technology increased, patients' trust in doctors steadily declined. Trusting Doctors discusses the emphasis that Protestant clergymen placed on the physician's vocation; the focus that Catholic moralists put on specific dilemmas faced in daily medical practice; and the loss of unchallenged authority experienced by doctors after World War II, when practitioners became valued for their technical competence rather than their personal integrity. Imber shows how the clergy gradually lost their impact in defining the physician's moral character, and how vocal critics of medicine contributed to a decline in patient confidence. The author argues that as modern medicine becomes defined by specialization, rapid medical advance, profit-driven industry, and ever more anxious patients, the future for a renewed trust in doctors will be confronted by even greater challenges. Trusting Doctors provides valuable insights into the religious underpinnings of the doctor-patient relationship and raises critical questions about the ultimate place of the medical profession in American life and culture.