Ethics of Illness? ...

Tuesday, May 15, 2012. Waking up at 4:50 with a headache. I turned around, but at 5:30 the headache was still there, and sleep was gone. What to do now?

Control and Illness? …

Do we have an ethics of illness? Or an ethics in illness? When you have a headache, it will influence your day. It might kill all plans, and it might kill the joy you have with whatever you do. If you have a more sincere illness, it will influence you life strongly!

Usually, the plans we make are based on health. We plan with being healthy enough to do what we want to do. We do not take into account illness or accidents! Of course, there is a whole insurance business, which is dealing with illness or with accidents and other non-usual events. But insurance deals with the “non-normal” mode, the rest of our life looks into the “normal” mode, and that does not know illness.

We need an ethics which takes illness into account - and treats it as more than just occasional accidents. Illness is part of our life, and it needs to be part of our ethics. Both illnesses and age are important ingredients of being human!

What does Jesus say? …

Jesus is the great healer. Many different healings are recorded. In this sense, he also does not treat illness to be normal. However, he knows that it is a part of life as we have it on earth. Only when God's new world is fully there, illness will be removed from mankind. We find strong images in the Old Testament and in the New Testament as well, about this kingdom of God where all tears are wiped away, where justice reigns and illness is gone.

Here, while we live this life, illness will be there. We are asked to support each other in all illnesses. We are asked to help, to pray for each other and to support with all means we have. We cannot completely erase illnesses - even with the best medicine we have we are only able to postpone illness and death for some years. Our ethics needs to realize and fully incorporate the fact that life is finite, and that usually our body will be exposed to more and more problems before the end.

Jesus gives the promise that God will be with us, in healthy days as well as in the days of headaches and other illnesses. God is there, since he wants to be with us, he loves us, he saves us. He is eager to help and eager to support and comfort us in whatever happens to us …! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts