Introduction to Biblical Health and Healing

1. Introduction to Biblical Health and Healing Patrick Pun, MD Creating Christian Culture CGS Grad and Career 2003

2. Acknowledgements • “A Sure Foundation” Health Care Bible Study by Patrick Pulliam, MD www.thesmi.org • Summer Medical Institute 2000, 2002, 2003

3. Biblical Health and Healing • Take one snake and pass it down.....

4. Overview I. The Current State of Healthcare II. The god of this Age and health care III. A Biblical Understanding of Health IV. Creating Christian Culture in Healthcare

5. The Current State of Healthcare • Access, rising costs, uninsured, malpractice • The patient/provider relationship suffers • The attitudes and expectations of patients and providers about medicine and health

6. Something has gone wrong in the practice of medicine, and we all know it. It is ironic that in this era, dominated by technical prowess and rapid biomedical advances, patient and physician each feels increasingly rejected by the other. Clearly, one root of the problem lies in the patient-doctor relationship. High technology tends to dehumanize care, and third-party regulations, paperwork, and malpractice threats distract the doctor. Nevertheless, the responsibility for dissatisfaction with modern medical care lies not only with the patient and the system but also with the physician. Richard Gorlin, M.D.

7. Access is a symbol; the real issue is us. John Ring, M.D. (President of the AMA, 1991)

8. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? Jeremiah 8:22

9. The god of this age: Naturalism • Worldview: Basic assumptions about the reality and nature of all things • To understand the culture of medicine today, we need to look beyond the “matrix” to see operating system, fundamental beliefs

10. The Operating System: Naturalism • A world without God, without Creator

11. The Operating System: Naturalism • A world without God, without Creator • Therefore, man has become the measure of all things. Nothing else that matters

12. The Operating System: Naturalism • A world without God, without Creator • Therefore, man has become the measure of all things. Nothing else that matters • Reductionistic: since we are rational beings, we try to understand the universe by reducing everything to its basic principles.

13. Naturalism “[Naturalism is] a worldview based on the idea that the final reality is impersonal matter or energy shaped into its present form by impersonal chance…. Humanism is the placing of Man at the center of all things and making him the measure of all things…. [Man begins] with himself, with no knowledge except what he himself can discover and no standards outside himself. In this view Man is the measure of all things, as the Enlightenment expressed it.” Francis Schaeffer

14. Implications of Naturalism • Science and technology can understand and solve all of man’s problems • People no longer seen as purposeful, spiritual beings; we are reduced to biologic machines

15. Implications of Naturalism in Health Care • Goal is to make humans “work better” as biological entities • Method is through research, understanding of disease and cure, further development of science and technology

16. Problems of Naturalism Mr. K is a 46 yo man with severe alcoholic liver disease. Over the past 2 months, he has been hospitalized 3 times in the the intensive care unit for life threatening GI bleeding secondary to his continued heavy alcohol abuse. He requires all of the resources of the ICU and barely survives each time. He is told that if he continues drinking, he will not live 2 months. He says that he has tried to quit many times in the past, and knows that alcohol will likely kill him. When asked if he has anything to live for, he is unsure.

17. Problems of Naturalism Mr. P is a 65 yo with gastric cancer which was treated with chemotherapy 4 years ago and now deemed miraculously “disease free.” Yet on repeated outpatient office visits, he refuses to take his prescribed blood pressure medications and he has taken up smoking. When asked why he is seemingly unconcerned about his health , he says “I don’t have anything to live for.”

18. The Problems of Naturalism • Is this a solely biological problem? • More than biological machines • More to this world than reductionistic principles • More to this life than being “disease free”

19. The Problems of Naturalism • “And yet purpose remains an inescapable element in human life. Human beings do entertain purposes and set out to achieve them. The immense achievements of modern science themselves are, very obviously, the outcome of the purposeful efforts of hundreds of thousands of men and women dedicated to the achievement of something that is valuable – a true understanding of how things are. A strange fissure thus runs right through the consciousness of modern Western man. The ideal that he seeks would eliminate all ideals. With dedicated zeal he purposes to explain the world as something that is without purpose…. We all engage in purposeful activity, and we judge ourselves and others in terms of success in achieving the purposes that we set before ourselves. Yet we accept as the final product of this purposeful activity a picture of the world from which purpose has been eliminated.” Leslie Newbigin

20. Response to Naturalism: Existentialism • Existentialism arose to address the emptiness of Naturalism

21. Response to Naturalism: Existentialism • Existentialism arose to address the emptiness of Naturalism • Existentialism is the idea that we need to create our own meaning out of life

22. Response to Naturalism: Existentialism • Existentialism arose to address the emptiness of Naturalism • Existentialism is the idea that we need to create our own meaning out of life • Gave birth to New age movement: grasp for spiritual meaning

23. Alternative Medicine • Homeopathy, magnets, crystals, psychic surgery

24. Alternative Medicine • Homeopathy, magnets, crystals, psychic surgery • No basis in science or rational thought • Can be dangerous!

25. Biblical Perspectives on Health • Normal Anatomy and Physiology: Gen 1-2 • Physically: No death or disease • Socially: Perfect relationship with nature and others • Spiritually: perfect union and relationship with God

26. Biblical Perspectives on Health • Results of sin: multilateral disease • Spiritual: Man separated from the glory of God • Physical: man and creation subject to disease. Rom 8:20-22

27. Biblical Perspectives on Health “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

28. Biblical Perspectives on Health • Social: Man now at odds with creation and others

29. Biblical Perspectives on Health • Man’s fundamental disease is separation from God • Physical death is a direct result of the Fall; but it is also a reminder of the reality of our spiritual death • Psalm 38:3-8

30. “Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin. My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning. My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.”

31. Biblical Perspectives on Healing • God is the source of all healing. • If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you” Ex 15:26 • “See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.” Deut 32:39

32. Biblical Perspectives on Healing • God plan is to bring us from death to life • “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.... The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Cor 15:54-57

33. Biblical Perspectives on Healing • God’s ultimate plan is to restore unity and redeem all aspects of our humanity

34. Shalom: Biblical Health • Physical wellness: Gen 43:27-28 • “He asked them how they were, and then he said, ‘How is your aged father you told me about? Is he still living?”

35. Shalom: Biblical Health • Peace and social vindication: Ps 35:27 “May those who delight in my vindication shout for joy and gladness; may they always say, “The Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant”

36. Shalom: Biblical Health • Presence of the Lord: Ez 37:26 “I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever.”

37. Naturalistic vs. Biblical Medicine Naturalistic Biblical Goal Disease free Shalom Source of Disease Pathogens Separation from God Source of healing Medicine/technology Redemption

38. Creating Christian Culture in Healthcare • Avoid Dualism • Begin to see the spiritual root of physical illness • Practice a shalom view of health

39. Creating Christian Culture • Address spiritual, social roots of illness • Show mercy and grace • Address physical needs

40. Questions to ponder • On what basis do you judge someone as being healthy or sick? • Have you seen direct links between physical and spiritual illness? • What is an area of your life that you need the shalom of Christ? • In what ways can you encourage shalom in the world you live in?