A DOCTOR DISCUSSES FAITH | KAIROS GLOBAL | MAY 2021

Author: Jyothni Malaickal

Intro: Jyothini Malaickal speaks to Dr. Abraham Mathew  (Dr. Manoj) about faith, science and reconciling situations when both collide.

Q. As a doctor, do you think faith and science are complementary or at odds?It’s definitely complementary. I don’t know if that’s the exact word to use but I would say faith is beyond reason, beyond the limits of reason – not necessarily subject to reason. Once it becomes a subject of reason, there’s no reason to believe. A simple example is telling a kindergarten student that he will be able to drive a car [when older]. He would believe but would not understand the mechanisms behind it because at that stage, it is beyond his comprehension, beyond his reason. When as an adult he understands the concepts, he won’t need to take my word for it. 

So when it comes to matters of faith, there are things beyond human comprehension. Also with aspects of the divine, we cannot utilise methods of scientific reason to understand them; it is revealed to us. For example the idea of Jesus taking flesh, of God taking flesh. We cannot fathom how exactly it happens. The virgin birth, where by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mother Mary conceives, cannot be explained in scientific ways – no matter how anyone tries. Therefore with respect to faith, we need to first acknowledge that our reason has limits.

Q. Have you faced situations that challenged the teachings of the Church? How did you deal with them? 

Just as facets of faith are beyond comprehension, and need to be revealed and understood. When people aren’t open to such revelations – they have eyes but they cannot see, ears but they cannot hear (Mark 8:18) – their minds are not open to absorb the truth, then they come up with their own versions of morality. I don’t know if such people are to be blamed because on one side you want the Spirit to work in them, they’re just incapable of understanding moral standards. There will always be a clash in this world with some people able to see the light while others unable to. Our position should be one of compassion and understanding, whether we are for their stance or not. 

So the next issue would be how to engage with them. That is also difficult because such matters cannot be resolved quickly. It requires personal relationship, connecting with them, going to the core issue of human understanding and the divine law, and being open to that. E.g., abortion – you cannot talk about abortion to a person who does not understand the dignity of the human being, from the moment of conception. Unless that fundamental fact is understood, they will always bring up issues like ‘woman’s right to her body’, etc. These issues pop up in workplaces. I don’t necessarily deal with, but people do come to me about these complicated situations and ask for guidance. A position of compassion is needed, for we cannot blame people outright because their understanding is clouded. 

I have had to face situations of life and death, instances like whether to place a feeding tube in a [brain-dead] patient or not. I feel a lot of Catholics are confused about what stance to take. Sometimes they want to hold on to life at any cost. People don’t realise that human life is not an eternal good, in that there should not be a struggle to stay on this earth forever; that’s not what pro-life means. For example an elderly person with terminal cancer, whose family, knowing the low chances of survival, want every measure possible to keep them alive. This is mistaken value attributed to being on this earth rather than making natural death possible. The life of the soul is the eternal good and we need to work to save souls and to gain eternal life. Life on this earth should be supported, nourished and the natural processes allowed to happen and we need to respectfully let that be. And that idea is often missed. 

Q. We were talking about feeding tubes, end of life situations.

End of life situations, decisions are complex. Often doctors and nurses call me asking what to do. We need to realise, decision making is not black and white at that point. For example a family of three kids, one of whom has cancer, who might live another six months, if given chemotherapy. The cost of chemotherapy, let’s say is Rupees 10 lakh (approx. $14k). The family cannot afford it without hurting the entire family’s existence, especially that of their two children. What’s the right thing to do here? There are two options. On one hand, it could be argued that the expected life of the child being only six months, does not reconcile spending so large an amount. On the other hand, if they have monetary resources, the family would want to spend those six months with the child. And who knows, the doctors may say six months but the child might live for another couple of years. If we were to ask five doctors about the same problem, we would get three or four different answers. In these situations we should take our best judgement, hoping in the grace of God to help us. Human life is not the standard we are preparing for. We need to prepare that child for God.

I have people who make decisions yet feel guilty, wondering if they did right, presupposing that they will make an absolute right or wrong decision. These situations are so difficult that one may not exactly know what is right and what is wrong. 

Q. This question is for the other end of the science spectrum. What about other life forms, quantum physics, theoretical science? How do we deal with that? For e.g. evolution.

Yeah, evolution is a common question that comes to us. And the Church has a very good position on it. Personally I feel Scripture supports evolution. Because if you read the initial description of creation, you can see a process. Day 1,2,3,4. As if God could not have done it in one day. The first two people are created from dirt. You could interpret it as evolution from the substance of the earth. Our understanding of evolution is, to quote the earlier example, at the kindergarten level. 

When God creates, he is moving the entire universe. That itself is my interpretation of what is going on. So if you think of God as being outside of ‘genus of being’, he works in ways that are very distant from our way of working. So when we say God created, we cannot even begin to imagine how the process happens. We don’t know what God is as a being, other than what has been revealed to us in the person of Jesus. So evolution isn’t too difficult to understand when you realise that the activity of God just cannot be explained in human terms. It could be evolution, it could be creation and both would be perfectly fine when it comes to matters to faith. 

Now when it comes to the universe some of these underlying principles hold true. Whether there is another class of living beings on another planet is totally irrelevant to us when you talk about faith. All we can say is nothing has been revealed to us specifically by the Lord or in the Scriptures about creation elsewhere. Scripture doesn’t reveal to us a lot of things, matters that are subject to our human brain. It tells you nothing about the core of the earth or the chemistry of a substance or molecular structure of a protein. And we are free to explore and find out. That’s what the Lord said, have dominion over creation (Genesis 1:26). 

So exploration to the skies and stars are fair, we discover more things, which in my mind would not cause damage to our faith because our faith does not come from something we invented. It comes from Jesus, who in his own words explained matter to us, explained different concepts to us, which a bunch of people understood, though incompletely. They were struggling to understand what Jesus said, to the point that after the resurrection they all went their own ways. 

In fact, even after the ladies came back and reported the empty tomb, after Mary Magdalene reported that she saw the risen Lord, two of them decided to walk away from Jerusalem, to Emmaus. So their faith and understanding of Jesus, despite being with him for three years was minimal. Even the Lord walking with and explaining things to them, on the way to Emmaus did not have any effect. It was only at the breaking of the bread, that their eyes were opened (Luke 24:31). It is the opening of the inner eyes. They couldn’t completely understand it until the revelation of Jesus. Unless we accept him as the source of our revelation, we will have difficulty in understanding and believing what the Church and our faith teaches, because the source of that information isn’t human intellect.

So we have to be open to the revelation of Jesus – the Son of God, who came down from heaven. And I’m sure Jesus used human expressions to explain who he was and where he came from, to the point that his disciples probably couldn’t accept all he said until the Holy Spirit came upon them. Even after that they did not fully understand everything because they had to go through human processes. 

To replace one of the apostles, they had to go into a very human process of casting a lot. Think of how human that process is. That’s what kids would do when playing a game. That’s the same process they used, despite being filled with the Holy Spirit. But in that completely human and basic process, the Holy Spirit worked. 

Knowing the Lord is a process that will cause us to walk towards eternal life and the very existence of eternal life itself is something that is revealed to us. We did not just invent it. But everything else is just subject to a human process through which we have to go.

Q. Have you ever faced a situation of struggle, a point of judging faith?

Every now and then you question your faith. We all believe something that we aren’t seeing. But then we have to revert back to the first point we went through. Faith is not invented it is in the person of Jesus, who lived during the time of Pontius Pilate. A very historic person, we know the time he exactly lived and what he did and said. The Nazarene is the source of our faith. And then the question becomes, ‘Do you believe in him?’ And my answer always has been, ‘YES I DO.’ Not because I understand it all, not because I have answers to all my questions but because I truly believe he is GOD. And he has no reason to bluff me and at that point all the questions become nothing.

Q. How do you guide your children through faith and science?

I believe faith is more caught than taught. It's a training in faith, where the more you practise the more you gain. I make it very clear to my kids that faith is a matter of personal choice. That they have to make an individual decision to follow Christ rather than me forcing them to go to Church or for the sacraments. I would nudge them towards it. During family prayer, when we reflect on the Scriptures, we ask them to think about it and make a decision to agree with Jesus. Once they make a choice, it's not yours but their responsibility to follow Christ.

Regarding teaching the kids, my wife takes charge of catechesis. Almost half of the day is spent teaching catechesis as that is the most important subject to be taught. When I teach science I bring about the idea that science cannot explain everything, especially related to faith. In general, I do not use science to explain God or the other way around because science can stand by itself, as it is also true. We are seeking the truth of existence. It is part of the revelation of God. Truth is God. When we understand the truth about nature, we understand the creation and presence of God and how he works. 

Don’t we say, everything that is living is living in Christ? When Paul says, we exist in Christ (1 Corinthians 8:6), what does that mean? All life exists in God. We don’t know that but science does. Through science we understand how God exists in life. 

Q. What do you do to relax from the stress of work?

I have been helping translate the Syro-Malabar liturgy from Malayalam to English. I have been using every free moment for it. It has been satisfying and comforting. It was like attending retreats day after day and listening to great talks because the words of God echo in every prayer of the liturgy.

I do not get stressed much. I am an endoscopist and do a lot of endoscopies that at times I feel I am playing video games all day. I hardly watch movies, just being at home with my kids is itself a relaxation. If I’m tired from work, I love to come home and cook. 

Q. How do you evaluate yourself as a doctor and a family man?

I have only one version of myself. I wish I could do better in both aspects of my life. We don't celebrate any specific day – be it birthday, Christmas or Easter. Every day is Easter or Christmas or birthdays for us. Every day is equally joyful, pleasurable, and enjoyable. We are always living in the NOW. In a spiritual sense my mind is in now that does not change. 

Q. What’s your thought about miracles, for e.g. in the context of the child with terminal cancer or a couple longing for a child? 

Yes miracles do happen. In the Christian experience, the purpose of a miracle is not to be magical. Jesus healed many but it's not that he healed every sick person in the area. Even near the pool of Bethesda, not every person was healed. It’s clear from that that miracles are not the way the Lord is going to heal everyone. There is a purpose more than a miracle. The mistake is when we put our faith on the basis of a miracle. We don’t believe in Christ Jesus because he did these miracles. Granted that at the time the miracles helped and it was their purpose. We believe in him because we trust him and the miracles helped us to trust him. So it should not be a problem when xyz miracle does not happen. It is totally up to the grace of God, the extent of one’s prayer and whether that is good for the salvation of the person that miracles happen. 

We definitely can pray for miracles, but if they do not happen we should not lose faith because of it. That would mean one’s faith is not based on revelation as we talked about, but on sight, touch and feeling. As the Lord said to Thomas, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe (John 20:29). So when we pray, we should believe that God will do the right thing.

Q. Anything you want to tell the readers?

Things are not black and white, don't expect it to be so. Depend on the grace of God and do what is good, honourable and just to the best of your conscience. Always believe in the source and summit of our Christian faith – our Lord Jesus Christ, present body and blood in the Eucharist. Any question that comes up, take it to Jesus, who lived during the time of Pontius, Pilate.

Jyothini is currently the Northeast Regional Service Animator, part of the Northeast Formation group and works as a paediatric nurse. She lives with her husband Jotty and son, Joseph in New York, USA.