Illness and Suffering

What does process theology have to say about major illnesses?

This is a highly complex issue, so I will address only several of the highlights here. It is a most timely issue, at least for me. I spent the holidays, in and out of the hospital. I was diagnosed with severe pneumonia, severe dehydration, renal failure, dangerously low blood pressure, abnormal weight loss, and depression. It was also determined that I have Addison's disease, which means my adrenalin glands are unable to provide sufficient cortisone. Thee is no cure, but this disease is manageable by heavy doses of medication. I am currently on elven medications, plus a catheter, and probably will be for the rest of my life. But hold on, there is more. I am also scheduled for future tests to determine if I might have additional serious medical problems.

For a theist such as myself, serious illness present major spiritual issues, After all, that is why hospital's all have chaplains. In our culture, deeply influenced as it is by the omnipotent, juridical God of classical theism, it is all to easy to fall into the error of thinking someone up there doesn't like me, that God is sending down these terrible illnesses as some sort of terrible punishment for my sins.

But such a model of God presents serious problems. It serves only to multiply the despair and anxiety one already feels. It does not explain the suffering of the innocent.

What did babies do to deserve to be dying by cancer? What terrible sins that I commit to deserve so much illness? Granted, the Old Testament presents many key passages in which God is presented as the Ruthless Moralist handing down draconian punishments. But what about the most positive passages in the New? What about the Holy Spirit as Comforter (Paraclete)? What about the accounts of Christ as healing the sick?

In process, God is a God of love. When you truly love others, you do not seek to coerce them by threats of terrible pain an suffering. God is best thought of as Cosmic Artist, and therefore his or her primary goal is to heal our broken, imperfect world. That means we, too, should be healers. We cannot condemn others, sitting passively by, watching them suffer, because after all, it's all righteous punishment from God. We must help ourselves and help others achieve what beauty can be achieved under the circumstances.

Another important issue here is the quest for simplicity. Let us all seek simplicity, but let us all distrust it. “Don't drag the mind in” appears to be the unofficial motto of much science, including medicine. Bringing in the mind greatly complicates matters because it addresses an unseen, mysterious variable that we can only speculate on. Thus, the body appears to be a collection of passive, inert, dead matter, a hunk of meat to be bludgeoned into place by purely chemical or mechanical means.

Process sees this medical model as overly simplistic because it fails to recognize that all things have souls. This means our body is far more than a heap if passive, inert, dead matter. You might thin of your body as your “animal republic,” to borrow a term from Hartshorne. Your body consists of cells which all have a psychical dimension. They all have their own unique personalities, have feelings, unconscious those these may be. Illnesses, then, can be thought of as a kind of rebellion in my animal republic because if have not been meeting the wants and desires of my constituents.

One of the goals of process aesthetics is to feel more deeply into oneself. That is an area I know I and many other ill persons are most remiss in. That is how I managed to lose twenty pounds in one month without noticing a thing. So I made it a New Year's resolution to really tune into what my cells are crying out for. If it is six means a day. So be it. I eat six, instead of just two or three. If they re tired and cry out for more rest, I simply turn off the alarm and sleep longer, all day if that's what they want.

Of course, all this is easier said than done, especially as we live in a society historically rooted an a spirituality that sees the body as something inherently evil wicked, to be repressed, put under foot. I've heard enough about “sins of the flesh." In contrast, I ague sin is not flesh, sin is insensitivity.

So an illness is just as much an internal psycho-social drama as it is a purely mechanical, chemical matter. I firmly believe we can make no real progress in healing until we realize that truth.