Reflections on worldviews and carcinomas
The moment was ironic, to say the least. A Muslim colleague in Hyderabad had brought some holy water back from her pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. She had given it to my Hindu friend and room-mate, who in turn gave it to me. As a Christian – and one who is a little sceptical about miraculous healing – I had no use for it whatsoever. Yet I knew just the person who would appreciate it: Ateeq, a devout Muslim who happens to have a urinary bladder carcinoma. So there I was, handing over what for me was just another bottle of H2O, but for the grateful recipient was a source of hope that maybe, just maybe, God would have mercy and heal him.
It has been my privilege to journey with Ateeq over several months, as he navigates a complex medical system while trying to cling to hope in God’s healing. As we’ve traversed the path of prayer and pills, I have grappled with several questions on the intersection between faith and medicine.
When is hope ‘false’?
Hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of things… and hope is something that Ateeq and his family were desperate for when I first met them. When I started taking Ateeq to hospital, I quickly realised that the prescribed medical treatments – surgical removal of bladder, chemotherapy and radiotherapy – would be lengthy, expensive, complicated and painful. For Ateeq and his family, that road initially seemed too daunting to take: their desperation for a magical solution was very understandable.
But once I started investing significant time and money for the family, I didn’t like to see them running after religious healers and their magic-pill prescriptions. I told him plainly: this is cancer, it’s not going to get better through some herbs and spices. I was crushing some of their false hopes – but hopefully substituting it with a realer one. On the other hand, though I perhaps have a different notion of how God operates, I didn’t want him to lose hope in a miraculous cure. Am I too quick in seeing others’ faith as foolishness, in viewing hope as superstition?
If it’s all in God’s hands, what is our role?
‘It’s all in God’s hands – we can strive all we like but ultimately it’s up to Him.’ This is a refrain I hear very frequently from my neighbours in the slum.
One of the things I find most endearing about Ateeq is that, while grateful for my help, he doesn’t grovel in that – and relates with me as an equal. He almost echoed to me Jesus’ words to Pilate: ‘Any help you have given me, it hasn’t come from you, but from above.’ I agree with him, of course, and acknowledge that ultimately healing will come not from me, but from God.
That said, I am wary that this type of faith can sometimes slide into fatalism: relying on God can become an excuse for lacking initiative. God has given us brains and hands – he expects us to use them, rather than just waiting for him. He has created an orderly world, which we can (partially) understand through science – and he wants us to do so. We need to strike a delicate balance, then: acknowledging God as the prime mover, while seeking to be his hands and feet; acting with confidence, but also humility.
Can we pray for a miracle while pursuing medical treatment?
‘Lord, I pray that you touch Ateeq and make him fully well. Also, we pray that you help get us to hospital safely tomorrow.’
It doesn’t take an atheist to notice the irony in my prayers: I am simultaneously requesting a miracle and hedging my bets by also asking for a good trip to the hospital! On the surface, this may seem like a contradiction: either I should be praying for God’s direct healing, and not bother with the hospital, or I should be running around the hospital, and not bother praying.
Yet I believe there is a frame of reference where both make sense; we can believe that God heals both through prayer, and through medicines. As discussed above, God acts in the world, but often via other people and through nature. In my experience, prayer and action should go hand in hand.
Prayer without action can end up being tokenistic and false: ‘suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food: if one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed”, but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it.’ (James 2:15-16). On the other hand, action without prayer can lead us to hubris and egotism, as well as becoming worn-out.
Conclusion
As we deal with crises of sickness and suffering, worldviews are often thrown into sharp focus. Many of my neighbours, including Ateeq, operate on a highly faith-based worldview, emphasising God’s agency and downplaying the role of human actions and science. My western worldview, on the other hand, places great faith in science, at the cost of sometimes leaving God out of the picture. Though they at times feel contradictory, I believe there is a place for both perspectives; and the full truth is something deeper than either culture can grasp.
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