The Physician as an Encourager of Health

Man is faced with challenges and problems. Some involve his character. Others involve his health. But man is a pilgrim. He is in a state of becoming. He is in a state of formation. In that way, when faced with his challenges and problems, his challenges and problems become an opportunity for moving toward his goal or an occasion for falling with respect to it. What is his goal? It is happiness. What will make man happy, ultimately? His greatest good. His final end.

But, man has to do his part in making himself happy by moving closer to that which can make him happy. Part of moving toward such an end, however, is becoming more perfect, more righteous, more pure, more virtuous---through his challenges and problems. The challenges and problems, along with his condition as unfinished pilgrim, partly in control of his own destiny, are opportunities for growth and movement towards happiness, even if they themselves temporarily make man unhappy.

In the challenge, there is opportunity. There is a certain kind of medicine, a certain kind of lesson, a certain kind of nourishment, a certain kind of fuel that man needs to become more perfect and more complete. The challenge shapes him by providing him an opportunity to respond in a certain way. He can more towards greater health or away. He can move towards a better moral character or away. He can move towards his first and final cause or away. The challenges are an opportunity for change, either better or worse.

Now, when man, in this condition, faces challenges of a certain kind, he seeks guidance from others.

When he seeks it from philosophy, he is told to grow in wisdom, truth, and a knowledge of first causes. The challenge is an opportunity for growth in wisdom.

When he seeks it from the moralist, he is told to grow in natural virtue. The challenge is an opportunity for such growth.

When he seeks it from natural religion, he is told to grow closer to his first and final cause, i.e., God, by fulfilling the virtue of justice with respect to the first and final cause. The challenge is an opportunity for growth in the virtue of religion, which is closely linked to the virtue of justice.

When he seeks it from the Church, he is told, along with wisdom, natural religion, and natural virtue to grow in the life of Christ, to develop (or make more complete) a personal relationship with Christ, through the sacraments of the Church and through the theological virtues--faith, hope, and love. He is told to offer it up to God in the name of Christ, to join his sufferings with the sufferings of Christ, to take up his cross, to sacrifice for Christ's sake while he can, to love God and neighbor, to help his neighbors, especially the orphans and the widows, to follow the Ten Commandments, which are, when understood positively, expressions of various virtues, all flowing from love itsef. The challenge is an opportunity for growth in the life of Christ and in many other aspects that have to do with our development.

When he seeks it from a physician, the physician can include aspects from above in his practice, depending on his understanding of such things, but he wants to focus on what his profession focuses on and that is health, mental and physical. In this way, the physician is an encourager. He wants to encourage good health. He gives the medicine and performs the procedures, when acting at his best, because he thinks his actions and recommendations will promote health.

But unjustified prenatal homicide of a human being in a certain stage of development can never promote the health of the one being targeted for death. Nor is it obvious that encouraging people to commit unjustified homicide or doing it for them can promote the health of the mother, especially mentally, if we consider the weight of homicide in general, even when justified, and the even heavier weight of unjustified homicide. And so, as an encourager of health, and as one who makes a profession out of making judgments about other people's health, unjustified prenatal homicide should not be prescribed for reasons of health. If the physician wants to encourage health with respect to all patients in the room, unjustified homicide will not be the prescription. This is true at the level of health, but it is also true at the level of philosophy, natural religion, natural virtue (natural ethics, a branch of philosophy), theological virtues and truths, etc. In as much as a physician is attentive to more than just the physical and mental health of the patient, understood very narrowly, he may only be concerned with health in a more limited sense. Even so, his profession makes it his business to be concerned about that, if not about more.

(And certainly his profession obligates him to be concerned about his own ethical actions at all times, as well, even if he only wants to focus on the health of his patients, understood broadly or narrowly.)