Faith and Science
Faith Heals—Grace Pays
Abstract
God's
love moves Him to create life which He sustains and protects with inherent mechanisms
for healing. He promises healing. Faith potentiates this promise and drives the
healing of hopeless problems. Faith empowers unexplained healing by placebos
which may be a manifestation of faith enabling psychosomatic well-being.
Unbelievers may also believe in a downward causation where alteration of
beliefs, emotions, ideas, feelings, or intentions can reprogram
message-processing programs to be health enhancing (therapeutic) or disease
inducing (pathogenic). People's reliance on
drugs for healing is greater than on our faith-powered God-given inherent
healing ability. We use reason for justifying "traditional" medicine
but not any "alternate" medicine empowered by faith. Many rely
especially on drugs designed for managing mental problems such as anxiety,
depression and stress. Such drugs are likely to reduce a believer's cost of
discipleship and provide a "spirituality" that allows
one to be comfortable with sinfulness and cheap grace. Faith in our God-created
healing ability is unimportant when one lives by cheap grace. Cheap grace gives
one comfort and eliminates the cost for discipleship. Jesus tells us the cost
of discipleship, a cost that enables healing and the love needed to carry out
His commands.
We overcome the world with faith in His healing; drugs deafen us to the Holy
Spirit compelling us to work for the Great Commission. Faith in His healing
acknowledges that we have a time to develop a life-ending affliction and that
we will always
belong to the Lord.
Most of Jesus' miracles were to heal people. In
each instance the power of the Lord enabled the healing. The healings attested
to His power by signifying that they were done through the name of Jesus
Christ.
Healing Requires Faith
Throughout the Gospels, people asking for
healing had faith in Jesus' powers to heal. Jesus was always concerned about
the faith of those He encountered and assisted. One young man was brought by
his father because Jesus' disciples failed to heal him and Jesus stated that if
the disciples had greater faith they would have seen the boy healed (Mt
17:16-18). Jesus heard a centurion asking for healing of his servant and
responded: "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with
such great faith..." (Mt 8:10). Faith was sometimes lacking and the
unbelief prevented Jesus from doing "any mighty miracles among them except
to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them" (Mk 6:5). Strong
faith is God's light shining on us and the power of healing that He created
within us glows brightly. Jesus' miracles were for healing of a person's body,
mind, and spirit—the whole person.
Jesus gave his disciples authority and orders to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness (Mt 10:1, 8). Paul tells Christians to "take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one" (Eph 6:16). Evil in one form or another causes loss of health and faith is the absolute requirement for healing. The pagan healing cults promised physical healing but success was never evident. Their magical potions (drugs) without faith were of no benefit. What is faith that healing requires?
Jesus gave his disciples authority and orders to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness (Mt 10:1, 8). Paul tells Christians to "take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one" (Eph 6:16). Evil in one form or another causes loss of health and faith is the absolute requirement for healing. The pagan healing cults promised physical healing but success was never evident. Their magical potions (drugs) without faith were of no benefit. What is faith that healing requires?
...faith is that attitude in which, acknowledging our complete
insufficiency for any of the high ends of life, we rely utterly on the
sufficiency of God. It is to cease from all assertion of the self, even by way
of effort after righteousness, and to make room for the divine initiative.1
We do not cease from all assertion of the self,
however. Our great sufficiency is to look to the world for healing. Aristotle
said: "You are what you repeatedly do." What faith do we rely on when
our first and repeated resort is to seek healing from modern medicine?(Figure 1)
Love Drives Healing
Jesus healed people because He had compassion on
them (Mt 14:14). He did not heal them on condition that they recognize and
acknowledge Him as the Son of God. In fact, the people Jesus healed are not
recorded as becoming believers and following Him. Jesus' healings showed His
Godly powers but they did little more than attract sick and diseased people who
wanted to be healed. There is little evidence that anyone came to believe in
Jesus as the Messiah because of His healing miracles.
Healers Suffer
Jesus' healing ministry suffered many hardships.
When Jesus cured the demon-possessed man, people asked Him to leave
"because they were overcome with fear" (Lk 8:37), fear of economic
losses. Some healing powers are sacrificed today to protect financial interests
of traditional Western Medicine. "Traditional medicine" wants any
"alternative medicine" (Jesus' healing was by alternative medicine)
to disappear; it rejects cures claimed for alternative medicine.2 Traditional medicine protects its financial interests.
Creation's Inherent Healing Ability
The Bible tells us that the Lord is the only one
who heals (Ex 15:26; Ps 103:2-3; Jer 33:6; Mal 4:2, Ac 4:9), and we are to tell
this to others. Jesus told the healed man "Return home and tell how much
God has done for you" (Lk 8:39); faith in the healing power God has built
in everyone is more powerful than drugs or potions.3
By using Jesus' name, Peter showed who gave him the authority and power to heal. The apostles did not emphasize what they could do, but what God could do through them. Even Luke, the physician, attested all healing power to God and made no mention of any human having powers to heal. The medical profession of Luke's day was little different from today, however, in having innumerable people claiming powers to heal the sick and diseased.
Jesus tells us that His Father, Lord of heaven and earth, has hidden things from the intellectuals and worldly wise (Lk 10:21). The hidden that are poorly understood include the God-given abilities of our bodies to heal. The wise and learned try to discover these things but they remain hidden until God chooses to reveal them.4(Figure 2) Many want to see what God sees but do not see it, and to hear what God hears but do not hear it. God's love moves Him to progressively reveal greater understanding of creation's inherent healing processes. Human "accomplishments" reveal no greatness other than new manifestations of God's love.
To the unfaithful and powerful who live by their own knowledge, God tells: "Though you have used many medicines, there is no healing for you" (Jer 46:11 Living Bible). Medicine today is no different. Modern medicines often are of no benefit and can cause harm and even death. Most people have faith in drugs, however, and follow the "wisdom" that on finding the right one, healing will follow. No person, however, should "...be wise in your own eyes; (but) fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones" (Pr 3:7-8). God's wisdom gives life and health to a man's whole body (Pr 4:22). God's words can sustain our health—our faith in that keeps us healthy.
By using Jesus' name, Peter showed who gave him the authority and power to heal. The apostles did not emphasize what they could do, but what God could do through them. Even Luke, the physician, attested all healing power to God and made no mention of any human having powers to heal. The medical profession of Luke's day was little different from today, however, in having innumerable people claiming powers to heal the sick and diseased.
Jesus tells us that His Father, Lord of heaven and earth, has hidden things from the intellectuals and worldly wise (Lk 10:21). The hidden that are poorly understood include the God-given abilities of our bodies to heal. The wise and learned try to discover these things but they remain hidden until God chooses to reveal them.4(Figure 2) Many want to see what God sees but do not see it, and to hear what God hears but do not hear it. God's love moves Him to progressively reveal greater understanding of creation's inherent healing processes. Human "accomplishments" reveal no greatness other than new manifestations of God's love.
To the unfaithful and powerful who live by their own knowledge, God tells: "Though you have used many medicines, there is no healing for you" (Jer 46:11 Living Bible). Medicine today is no different. Modern medicines often are of no benefit and can cause harm and even death. Most people have faith in drugs, however, and follow the "wisdom" that on finding the right one, healing will follow. No person, however, should "...be wise in your own eyes; (but) fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones" (Pr 3:7-8). God's wisdom gives life and health to a man's whole body (Pr 4:22). God's words can sustain our health—our faith in that keeps us healthy.
Faith Healing—The Placebo Effect
Placebos are substances that have no medicinal
value, but when taken they can cure a person of a disease or relieve a
symptom—the placebo effect. A placebo is disguised as an effective drug, but
with no proven benefits, and is compared with any benefits for a drug having
hoped-for curative powers. Thousands of scientific studies have shown that the
placebo effect is one of the most powerful healing factors known.5 Many people who are not given a real test drug but instead receive
a "sugar pill placebo" nevertheless get better. They get better
because they believe that they are taking an effective drug. This is explained
by faith in success changing the mind's physiology to cause healing. That
explains faith healing, faith in the ability of the body to heal even
if a person does not attribute that power to God. Jesus said this centuries ago
when He told people healing was dependent on faith.
Modern Science on Healing
According to scientists the inherent system
providing potential for healing (for correction of the second law of
thermodynamics’ impetus promoting maximum disorder, to increasing entropy) is
sustained and energized by information. For believers that information is
faith. Unbelievers may also believe in such an immanent downward causation
where alteration of beliefs, emotions, ideas, feelings, or intentions can
reprogram the system’s symbols (memes—message-processing programs) to alter a
person’s biology and that changes in these subjective states can be either
health enhancing (therapeutic) or disease inducing (pathogenic).6 Modern science and medicine maintains this is largely “folklore.”
All of life’s activities will be eventually explained by the chemical and
physical laws that govern all matter in the universe, laws that describe a
universe without free will, purpose and meaning, and its people with minds that
are matter and only matter.7
Post-modern scientists maintain that downward causation for all life is immanent in a self-organizing, self-complexifying universe, governed by ingenious laws that encourage matter to evolve towards life, consciousness and intelligence.8 This begins with matter’s smallest units showing intelligent behavior that is never completely random but to some degree self-determining.9 This primitive immanent behavior evolves into complex intelligence through upward causation. This may satisfy evolutionists but does not explain how primitive intelligence can evolve into high degrees of consciousness that can control the most primitive behaviors.
Post-modern scientific beliefs on downward causation embody metaphysical commitments but no more than modern science’s upward-causation characterization of creation.10 Research supporting downward causation verifies that humans are self-determining through the subjective power with which they can influence the inherent healing systems. Some make a giant metaphysical leap and attribute this to an evolutionary-developed capability for self-organization and self-transcendence, but God’s revelations show we are enabled by faith to optimize our healing systems.
Post-modern scientists maintain that downward causation for all life is immanent in a self-organizing, self-complexifying universe, governed by ingenious laws that encourage matter to evolve towards life, consciousness and intelligence.8 This begins with matter’s smallest units showing intelligent behavior that is never completely random but to some degree self-determining.9 This primitive immanent behavior evolves into complex intelligence through upward causation. This may satisfy evolutionists but does not explain how primitive intelligence can evolve into high degrees of consciousness that can control the most primitive behaviors.
Post-modern scientific beliefs on downward causation embody metaphysical commitments but no more than modern science’s upward-causation characterization of creation.10 Research supporting downward causation verifies that humans are self-determining through the subjective power with which they can influence the inherent healing systems. Some make a giant metaphysical leap and attribute this to an evolutionary-developed capability for self-organization and self-transcendence, but God’s revelations show we are enabled by faith to optimize our healing systems.
Disease Tests Faith
Most people today respond to illness and disease
as if they are unbelievers. Christians commonly do not trust in faith for
healing until all other hopes are exhausted. Trust in God's powers and prayer
for healing commonly becomes the last resort for a seriously ill person. Then
we remember what James tells us: "...the prayer offered in faith will make
the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up" (Jas 5:15). Are prayers
of the last resort truly "offered in faith"? Jesus tells us that
healing is possible for those with faith in God's healing processes. Yet people
largely distrust faith healing. Only a minority, between one third and one
half, of patients with physical or mental health problems rely on religion as
most important to manage their illness. This is surprising in the American
population where 96% believe in God or a higher power, 90% believe in heaven,
79% believe in miracles, 73% believe in hell, 65% believe in Satan, and 55% believe
that the Bible is the literal or inspired word of God.11
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