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Does Your Doctor Believe in God?
"But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who
are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick." (Matthew 9:12)
Of course, Jesus was illustrating His work to mend and heal souls. When His
enemies challenged Him wanting to know why He spent so much time with sinners,
this was His answer. He came to seek and save the lost. Doctors of this world
can help mend bones and hearts and muscles and eyes and throats. Or sometimes
not when the task overwhelms their knowledge and technology. But only Jesus can
heal the soul.
A recent survey of doctors in the United States found that 76% say that they
believe in God. That's slightly more than three out of four professionals in a
scientific field.
The survey consisted of 1,044 doctors. While 76% believed in God, only 59%
believed in some sort of afterlife. That was curious to me. And 55% said that
their religious beliefs had an effect on how they practice medicine. I hope the
effect was a positive one.
A part of the clue as to why so many believe in God but not the after-life may
be found in the fact that belief in the after-life is a major tenet in Catholic
and Protestant churches, and while more than 80% of the U.S. population belongs
to one of these two major groups, only 60% of the doctors are. This suggests
that a sizeable number of doctors (about 16%) believe in God but probably not
the true and living God that is revealed in the New Testament. Part of this is
explained by the fact that 14% of the doctors are Jewish (only 2% of the general
population is Jewish, so that is an impressive number), 5% are Hindu (versus
less than 1% of the general population) and 3% are Islamic ( versus 1% of the
general population. But these three groups also tend to believe in an
after-life.
Of course, no doctor, believer or not, can keep us from dying. We are mortal.
And whatever the doctor who treats you believes, the only power he or she has to
help make you better is his or her own knowledge of how God's universe works. I
suppose that one does not have to know the watch maker in order to use the watch
the watch maker made to accurately tell the time. But there is a very fine doctor
who has the remedy to death. He was afflicted with it once, but has the key to
overcoming it. Our ultimate trust to be placed in the greatest physician of all!
"Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the
living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the
keys of death and of Hades." (Revelation 1:17-18).
By Jon W. Quinn
The Final Page
From
Expository Files 12.7; July 2005
