Medicine and Religion

* Paper presented at graduate assembly meeting. February, 1949, C.M.E.

By H. M. WALTON. M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, C.M.E

"Beloved I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prosperetlz." 3 John 2.

 

I do not know just how much significance can be attached to the, "even as" in 3 John 2, but it suggests an equal concern on the part of the apostle for the health and the spiritual wel­fare of his beloved Gaius. At all events this is good theology, and it is also good medicine. It is well established that a close, inseparable re­lationship exists between religion and medicine, between spiritual experience and health. The basis for this relationship rests on the unity of man as a created being—a well-integrated functioning whole, consisting of body, mind, and soul—a whole which 'cannot bd separated into Watertight compartments as unrelated en­tities.

That God is interested in the physical well­being of His created beings is not strange, for man is the crowning work of God's creation. In the theocracy of Israel and the patriarchal eras the priest was not only priest but physi­cian as well. Even to the time of Hippocrates (460 ?-377? B.c.) there was little special train­ing in respect to specific medical care of the sick.

Following the ministry of Christ and that of the apostles, the church took an increasing in­terest in, and responsibility for, the care of the sick and infirm. With the increase of knowl­edge and scientific advancement in medical lines- from the days of the Middle Ages, and particularly from the early part of the nine­teenth century, physicians became increasingly learned in the sciences, but at the same time increasingly materialistic in their philosophy. The church and its religious leaders became less prominent in the scientific field, and de­creasingly connected with responsibility for man's physical welfare. Thus there evolved a serious weakness in the religio-medical setup, and the church largely abandoned concern for the health of its constituents. Meanwhile, the medical profession, for the most part, lost interest in the welfare of men's souls, and in its materialistic outlook lost its fitness to min­ister to spiritual needs. Even today we need to be on guard lest we fall into the same error of reckoning that it is the function of the minister to pray and the physician to heal.

The present accepted ideal situation calls for the minister and physician to collaborate intel­ligently and wholeheartedly in seeking the heal­ing power of God and the physical healing agencies in behalf of sick bodies and troubled spirits.

Circumstances are often such, however, that -the minister and physician are each called upon to minister in a dual role to a greater or lesser extent. To become fully fitted for such a com­plete ministry, ministers should understand physiology, hygiene, and Christian psychology, so that they can intelligently give advice in respect to professional matters.

On the other hand, the physician is to be so fortified spiritually that he may minister to his patients in things pertaining to the soul. "None but a Christian physician can discharge to God's acceptance the duties of his profession." —Medical Ministry, p. 12.

Leaders in the fields of religion and medicine met for four days in Chicago recently to study the relationship of medicine to religion. One of the basic topics discussed at this meeting was, 'Is a person with a deeply religious conviction better equipped to pursue a professional ca­reer; and if so, how?" The answer was yes, and I quote several excerpts :

"Yes, if our religious conviction makes us realize that in medicine or its allied professions we are not dealing with things. This helps to differentiate us from plumbers. We are not dealing with lower animals. This helps to differentiate us from butchers, and even from veterinarians. Rather our religious convictions should make us everlastingly conscious of the fact that we are dealing with persons who have God-given rights and equalities—persons who are hungering for that care proportionate to their human dignity and destiny.

"Again yes, if our religious conviction helps us to understand more profoundly the fact that man is mor­tal and of nature and that his soul is . . . capable of a supernature.

"We must see nature as violated when modern man as the result of medical propaganda goes through life fearing death, who expends his health as a hypochon­driac, and who ends up as a vitamin-taking, antacid-consuming, barbiturate-sedated, aspirin-alleviated, weed-habituated, benzedrine-stimulated, psychosomat­ically-diseased, surgically despoiled animal. Nature must be shocked that its highest product turns out to be a fatigued, peptic-ulcerated, tense, headachy, nico­tinized, overstimulated, neurotic, tonsilless creature.

"On the other hand, God must be disturbed that we are becoming more and more a paying animal and less and less a praying animal."—HERBERT A. RATNER, M.D. (School of Medicine, Loyola University).

The interlocking influence of Christian reli­gion in the maintenance of health, and the ef­fect of the physical state upon spiritual experi­ence, is no mere paper relationship or fanciful ideology. It is well recognized that anxiety, fear, sense of guilt, and frustration .produce disturbances in the function of glands and or­gans of the body, and may result in organic disease. Patients are often ill because of the tensions of modern life, because of fear, hostil­ity, resentment, and sense of failure. Illness is sometimes basically a spiritual problem.

On the other hand, illness can react upon the nervous system in such a way as to affect spiritual life seriously. A person who, is mal­nourished, exhausted, physically below par, ir­ritable, or suffering severe pain is hardly one to be courageous, hopeful, and persistent in prayer—one able to enjoy to the full the abid­ing peace of victorious living.

The appreciation of these interacting influ­ences is now in the limelight as psychosomatic medicine. The recently coined term psychoso­matic, is no new concept. It is an approach to medicine as old as the art of healing itself. It is only a new emphasis. It is merely an old, valid, common-sense approach in a new dress. It is actually the practice of medicine.

Plato (427 ?=-347 B.c.) voiced his tripartite-concept of man—body, intellect, and soul.

"So neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without the soul ; and this is the reason why the cure of many diseases is unknown to the physicians of Hel­las, because they are ignorant of the whole which ought to be studied also; for the part can never be well unless the whole is well. . . . For this is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body, the physicians separate the soul from the body."

This concept of man as an integrated whole to be served in all areas of his need is a foun­dation pillar in the medical work of this de­nomination, and gave rise to the founding of the first sanitarium in 1866—an institution where this principle could be ideally employed. It is a guiding conviction among this people that physical alleviation alone is not enough, and that to focus on the structural organism only is inadequate and not in keeping with the full opportunity and responsibility of scientific medicine. Healing and restoration are as much a matter of the spirit as of the body. Bodies cannot be rightly cared for without caring for souls ! We face a three-dimensional undertak­ing, embodying body, mind, and spirit. Relief of pain and physical restoration alone are not enough and do not fulfill all the objectives of the Christian physician. He seeks also the spir­itual well-being and perfection of life of his patient.

This understanding of the physician's re­sponsibility for his patient calls for unique qualifications on his part. We may well be proud of the outstanding achievements made in the field of the medical sciences. Spectacular discoveries are being made almost daily that make possible the unraveling of the case or the successful treatment of some baffling condi­tion. The electron microscope, the electronic amplifier, the cyclotron, roentgen rays, et cet­era, are evidences of scientific know-how which have broadened the intellectual horizon and ex­tended the range and sensitivity of human senses.

All this, however, without the warm human­ism of personal interest and sincere concern for the patient's welfare in all areas, would leave the practice of medicine as a cold mate­rialistic science in a machine age, with the patient as a statistic. The full and complete ministry of the Christian physician calls for a personal religious experience, and an insight that will enable him to fathom his patient's need and minister to it in collaboration with the minister of the gospel.

An experimental knowledge of things spirit­ual and a personal acquaintance with the Great Physician are essential qualifications to this dual ministry on the part of the physician, for no one can impart to his patient that which he himself does not already possess. One cannot transport his patient into the atmosphere of heaven without having first been there himself. We need, therefore, as physicians to realize our accountability and full opportunity and ob­ligation in the care of our fellow men. We must maintain a high regard for the souls of men, and seek to reveal the love and compassion of Christ, our Saviour, the Great Physician.

The first American vegetarian convention will meet on August 21-27, 1949, at Camp Aurora, Ayers Estate, Lake Geneva, Wiscon­sin. There is evidently a growing interest in vegetarianism on the part of non-Adventists, and it will be interesting to watch the scope and emphasis of this convention.


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By H. M. WALTON. M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, C.M.E

August 1949

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