Growing up, the man who lived just down the hall from me was a talented
spine surgeon. As an academic and devout Mormon, he continually interjected his
work with religion and vice versa. I recall him being decorated with awards for
medical achievements and the occasional colleague referring to him as an
outlier. To me, he was just Dad.
Combining science and religion has been quite natural for me. I
remember conversations around the dinner table filled with speculations
concerning the creation of the earth or trying to understand how time is
relevant to God. I remember my father explaining how characters in the
scriptures were afflicted with very real medical conditions and going into
great detail about them to contextualize the stories from the Bible.
Watching my father heal people for a living certainly put into
perspective our responsibility to help one another. I’ve been able to meet many
of his patients over the years. One little girl in particular suffered from a
severe injury to the aorta in her leg as an infant that impaired its ability to
grow. The injury resulted in a leg length discrepancy and required an ilizarov, a
somewhat painful leg lengthening apparatus that is surgically screwed into the
leg using tension rods. I was a few years older than her and struggled to
understand how happy and optimistic she was despite this large metal device
screwed into her leg. It looked terribly painful, but here she was jumping on
my trampoline with me.
I asked my father a lot of questions about her. I remember him talking
about how someday people would look back on his work, orthopedic surgery, and
scoff at the rudimentary, risky, and barbaric nature of the practice of slicing
the human body open to go in and fix it manually. I remember asking him, “If
it’s so horrible, why do you do it?”
He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly and replied, “Because we have to
do the best we can with the tools we have. It’s not perfect, but we can’t stand
by and do nothing.”
He continued, “Someday we’ll be able to heal the body without cutting
people open. We will be able to heal the body from the inside out with pills
you can swallow.”
As a young girl, I didn’t think much of what he said until now.
We currently have elementary tools to work with, but they still surpass
the primitive technologies available to our ancestors. We can and will create
more sophisticated tools as time goes by, because we can’t stand by and do
nothing. Healing each other is not only possible, it’s our responsibility.
The scriptures are glittered with supernatural miracles that couldn’t
be explained with the knowledge, tools, and technology of that time period.
However, what was once a miracle has now become medical. What was once
inexplicable is becoming reasonable through technology.
It’s not only appropriate, but also a Christian’s duty to continue to
immerse themselves as the body of
Christ. It’s fitting to emulate those we worship. Medical technology is
simply a tool we can use to improve humanity and take on the name of Christ.
In Mark we read about “a certain woman, which
had an issue of blood”. Menometrorrhagia and anemia are now highly treatable
conditions allowing women to live long, active lives.
It was said that “the
lame [would] walk”, but with advancements in bionic limbs the lame are not
only walking they are running,
climbing, and dancing. Surgeons are also using new
techniques to help patients overcome paralysis.
Today, “the blind
receive their sight” with surgery.
“Lepers are cleansed”
and cured with triple
combination antibiotics.
Isaiah promised “…the
ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.” Physicians are creating auditory
brainstem implants (ABI) to allow deaf people to hear.
Psalms states, “He
maketh the barren woman […] a joyful mother.” With advancements in IVF and uterine transplants
we are creating miracles for parents all over the world.
A miracle is “an event
not explicable by natural or scientific laws. Such an event may be attributed
to a supernatural being(s).” These examples were once considered miracles,
however, are they no longer miraculous because of our sophisticated medicinal
applications?
I must contest that science and miracles are not in direct
contradiction to one another, but are simply a cohesive, evolutionary process
as we strive to help each other have a better human experience. If we can share
in the astonishing miracles laid forth in scripture, what else are we capable
of? Corinthians reads, “The
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
Collectively, humanity has become quite “super” in our medical and
technological advancements and yet still extremely “natural” in our yearnings
for life. After all, what is more natural than our primal instinct to survive,
or live? What is the essence of Transhumanism if not the technology of
miracles?
After all, we can’t stand by and do nothing.
*Published at The Transfigurist on Monday, May 18, 2015
