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Faith Alone Not Enough
It is entirely clear that faith can affect one's health, just as we know that marriage tends to improve men's health, and happiness, and a positive attitude, tends to lead to better physical health.
The question is this:
Is there something specific about faith that improves one's health that is different in kind from the improvement in health one gets from being happy, secure and fulfilled emotionally more generally? I believe the jury is still out on that, but that faith- spiritual contentment in particular- is one part of a whole way of being that improves one's physical health.
We know for instance from work done with the Enhancing the Healing Environment program at the Kings Fund in the UK that making a part of a hospital physically better designed and more attractive leads to a sense of emotional wellbeing in staff and patients alike. It leads to earlier discharge, better staff recruitment and retention, and something indefinable- that elusive sense of wellbeing that is also, I would argue, the indescribable plus that a sense of faith and of belonging gives people. It is that which also improves their health. I am utterly convinced that it is more than scientifically proven interventions that improve people's health. What I am not yet sure of is how we disaggregate faith from happiness, wellbeing, and a sense of spiritual wholeness. I suspect that they are so interconnected that picking faith on its own may be a mistake.
By
Julia Neuberger
|
June 17, 2008; 11:48 AM ET
| Category:
Personal Religion
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Posted by: Soja John Thaikattil, Sydney, Australia | June 17, 2008 10:47 PM
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Dear Baroness Neuberger
You mentioned studies that show marriage improves men's health. I'm sure if studies were done to find out if husbands followed the Ten Commandments regarding adultery and not coveting other women, it would show an improvement in women's health. Now that is the affect of religion on women's health. (The same could be said for men of course.)
I must confess to having discovered an intense interest in Judaism after I started visiting this On Faith Forum, thanks to the way you and other Jewish panelists have presented Judaism and Jewish thinking. I realize how much I could, even as a Christian who is familiar with the Old Testament, learn from Judaism. The emphasis on imitating the holiness of God ( for us as modeled by Jesus) is the foundation of Christianity too, but the rules for daily living in every aspect of life, which Jews emphasize deserves more attention and respect than I have thus far given it as a Christian. Important for me is also the Jewish emphasis on knowing good from evil, in oneself and others, which is the beginning of true wisdom.
Dom Bede Griffiths OSB claimed that a deep knowledge about good and evil is the greatest gift of Judaism. Christianity is after all built on that foundation and Jesus said He came to fulfill the law of the Jewish prophets.
A faith in God which is not dependent on feelings but has been translated into concrete rules for living in every area of one's life, to serve as a constant guide in times when feelings of love run low or are totally absent is for me the special spiritual wisdom Judaism teaches. It goes without saying one may need to update the concrete rules as more knowledge is acquired and therefore rules about shellfish etc in the OT needs to be interpreted in its context, but the basic premise that the goal is to imitate God's holiness in every aspect of one's life with concrete guide for action independent of one's feelings, never changes. Moral of Judaism to me: 'Fake holiness of God with action, even if you don't feel like it, until you make it!'
Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia