I recently read the sad story of a healthy young (to me) doctor from Canada, a cardiologist, Dr. Sohrab Lutchmedial, who died suddenly in his sleep at 52 years of age. What made this newsworthy, specifically in the conservative media, was that he was a vocal advocate of the jab (the COVID so-called vaccine), and mocked via social media those who refused to take it. He had gotten his third (booster) jab three weeks before his sudden, and shocking to those who knew him, death. He said back in July on something called Twitter, that for those who wouldn’t get the shot “for selfish reasons,” that he wouldn’t “cry at their funeral.” I’m not writing this post to mock the man because the theme of my life is, there but for the grace of God . . . . I only write about it because he and those like him are an object lesson, in his case about hubris, humility, and modern medicine.
Whatever we may think of COVID or the jab, and I have very strong opinions on the matter, Christians need to embrace everything in life with humility, and knowing they depend on Almighty God for every breath they take. He is not only the creator of all things, but the sustainer that allows everything to continue to exist. One of the silver linings of the disaster of the last year and a half (by this I mean the response to COVID not the virus itself), is that it has caused me to question things I never had reason to question before. Specifically, I was compelled to take a look at modern medicine in a way I never had; I took it for granted like most everyone else. Prior, I knew nothing about the history of modern medicine, and learning about it in light of the current catastrophe was eye opening. Trust me, I’m all for modern medicine, and the many blessings that come from it. The problem arises when those engaged in it, and the public health establishment that drives is, think their knowledge allows them to basically play God.
This shouldn’t surprise those of us who are Christians because “playing God” is the sinful center of every human being, you and me included. We learn why this is from Genesis 3. Sin isn’t an issue of morality, although morality is obviously part and parcel of the package, but of who gets to be God. That seems silly on the face of it because it’s obvious we are not God, right? Not so fast. For some reason, not being able to create something out of nothing or creating the entire universe just by speaking it into existence doesn’t bother us too much. We can still be God, right, call the shots, define our reality, define what is right and wrong, what is and what is not? I mean, that’s what God does, defines reality, right? He created it, after all. But Satan’s temptation to Eve rings seductively in all of our minds, “you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” In other words, we get to call the shots, not God, not our Creator; we are the captain of our souls and all that.
The problem is that we’re not very good at being God. In fact, permit me to use a semi-vulgar word, we suck at it! The reason is rather simple: we are not God! You think we’d get the message, and be willing to accept it because it’s so obvious, but we don’t. Sin is a pernicious and deceptive thing, the heart of it driven by lies and the father of lies. So we’ll easily believe things that are in fact not true, things like we can control a disease by “science.” In fact, the delusions of “science” have been around a very long time, and as scientific knowledge exploded in the 19th and 20th centuries, the hubris exploded with it. Up until the early 20th century with the sinking of the Titanic and WWI, the hubris of what “science” could do was intoxicating. As that century ground on, “science” and its twin cousin, technology, unleashed unimaginable horror and havoc on the world. Far from being solely a source for good, “science” was found to be as reliable as its practitioners, sinful human beings.
What those who spout “science” as a justification for doing all kinds of things ignore is that like every other good thing God in his grace has given us to enjoy, it can be perverted. Augustine argued that evil is perverted good, so everything can be perverted, including “science.” The doctor I referred to above, it seems, wasn’t familiar with the concept of humility in the face of things we barely understand, including viruses. The entire medical industrial establishment, as I call it, including so called public health, doesn’t seem to know much of humility. As I’ve learned, hubris has been part and parcel of modern medicine since its inception, and it doesn’t seem most of its practitioners have learned much along the way. Fortunately, we live in country with some semblance of liberty left (thank God for the Founders), and we can make our own decisions for the health and welfare of our families, and most importantly, trust God.
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