Franklin Sanders’ The Moneychanger© Articles from The Moneychanger

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. . . Do not ye yet understand that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out in the draught? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. – Matthew 15:11, 17, 18

While I was reading Julia Ross’s The Diet Cure (reviewed on page – in this issue) I fell to pondering the proper use of medical knowledge. Now carefully note that I am not criticising Julia Ross here. Her book objectively presents certain nutritional means and the results she has observed using them. I believe many people can profit from her recommendations. After all, it’s not her point to make moral judgements, only to recommend nutritional means.

Yet something wrong creeps into our thinking if we fail to understand that means are not causes, efficacious in and of themselves. This is hardly an abstruse or pointless distinction. If we fail to hold means in their proper place, we will abolish mankind. Most of the world is busily doing just that.

We’ve all met Food Pharisees, food nuts who yammer on and on about how perfect they are because ne'er a carb or animal protein or fat globule touches their mouth. "Lips that touch lard shall never touch mine." Vegetarians can be the worst, and vegans can be violent. Look, if you want to deprive yourself of steak, that’s fine, but don’t pretend it’s the moral high ground. It’s just protein starvation speaking.

However, the problem I’m dealing with goes much deeper than that. Julia Ross asserts in her book that when she changed her therapy for drug and alcohol addicts by adding certain amino acid supplements, the cure rate went from 80% failure and 20% cure to 20% failure and 80% cure. So was the addicts’ problem simply that they lacked certain nutrients?

Now suppose for a moment that the only reason people drink too much or use drugs or beat their wives (or husbands, as the case may be) is that they are missing a particular amino acid. Then the cure becomes simple. You just feed them the right chemical and Presto! they’re cured.

If that’s true for addictions to alcohol or drugs, what about other evils? Maybe the reason you lose your temper all the time only because you are deficient in xyz nutrients. With those in your system, you’re just a peach. And maybe adulterers and murders and frauds only sin because they missed their broccoli? Can food really save you?

Sounds ridiculous when I use “broccoli,” but how does it sound when I say “lithium” or “Prozac” or “Valium”? Everybody stops laughing, because the implication takes your breath away.

For if the mere insertion or lack of a chemical can so alter human behaviour that what the ages have called “sin” disappears, then what becomes of man? How silly is his struggle against himself and evil if he only lacked chemicals? No, not silly -- despicable. Stupid. Meaningless.

If men are just bags of chemicals, and every fault can be cured by adding or subtracting chemicals, then nobility of soul is impossible. In fact, even love is ridiculous. Who could get excited about one bag of chemicals attracting another bag of chemicals? It’s just a chemical reaction.

Only one of two models is possible, because one contradicts the other. Either the biblical model of man and reality is true, or the medical model.

If the medical model is true, then all ‘dysfunctional” or undesirable behaviour can be cured by drugging the subject, i.e., adding or subtracting some chemical. No moral condemnation of any behaviour – alcoholism, drug addiction, rape, murder, theft, blasphemy – is possible, because all these “dysfunctions” arise like scurvy, from the want of Vitamin C. And a man with scurvy is not guilty, he’s sick.

If the medical model alone is true, then man is not true. Man cannot exist, nor God. Morality is impossible. Salvation is impossible. In short, meaning is impossible. Bags of chemicals aren’t noble, don’t need saving, and don’t mean anything.

The Biblical model, on the other hand, assumes that men have meaning because God created them in his own image for his own glory. Therefore of all the creation, man holds the highest place. And although God is wholly sovereign and ordains whatever comes to pass, yet he is not the author of sin or evil and he does no violence to man’s will. How much meaning, then, do our choices have? It is not too much to say that the angels watch in heaven to see what decisions men will take, for good or ill.

In the Biblical model, God’s Providence supersedes all other causes and causes all things. He provides, and expects us to use, means for our sustenance and healing. Yet it is not the means themselves that work, as if by some power within themselves. Means are not magic. Rather, the sustaining power of God causes them to work to our benefit. The food we eat, for example, would no more nourish us than an equal weight of sawdust, if God did not choose to bless it to our nourishment. That’s why when we sit down to eat, we first ask God’s blessing. Likewise, when we are sick, we pray for healing, and then visit the doctor. Pray for effectual means, search out the means, then use the means God provides.

As creatures, our duty is to obey our creator. We make moral choices to do that. But none of this argues that illness is imaginary or that bodily ailments do not exist, or that they do not influence our behaviour. On the contrary, we know that illnesses exist, and that God does provide means to help us when we are sick.

But what happens when the “sickness’ doesn’t reach the level of a raging fever? What happens when the “illness” is anger or irritability or addiction? Then it’s not a sickness at all; it’s a moral failing. Even if I have a nature given to anger, I have a moral responsibility –- an obligation to God -- to control my temper. If I like drink too much, I have a moral responsibility to curb my drunkenness. Indeed, men manifest their greatest nobility as they struggle to control themselves – their own carnal desires – in what St. Augustine called the “Christian struggle.” And while it may be true that I have some genetic or nutritional deficiency that makes my irritability worse, I am still morally responsible to control myself. If I act like a cantankerous, hateful monster, I can’t blame my genes or my chemicals.

Here’s where the proper use of the means arises. I am responsible to control myself. That means not only governing myself and stifling wrong actions in my heart and will and mind by the grace of God, but also seeking out and using any other means available and necessary to control myself. If I learn that eating three square meals a day might help me control anger or depression, then I have a moral duty to investigate and try that means. We have a duty to use those means because they constitute the physical side of controlling our fleshly selves. Body and soul are one whole.

To refuse to use the means that God provides for our healing is positively sinful. To use means as if they themselves must automatically cure us is no less sinful. When we substitute physical means alone for moral effort, we abolish both man and God.

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