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Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy Vol. 7 No. 1 2004 “PARTNERS IN SERVICE TO GOD”: TORRANCE’S SCIENTIFIC
METHOD IN HEALTHCARE CHAPLAINCY
Michael J. Ward
Abstract: The author argues that “spiritual” approaches in healthcare are based on a Cartesian dual-ist outlook that is outdated in a Maxwellian-Einsteinian cosmology. A review of the history of medicine exacerbates the dichotomy between the physical and spiritual aspects of human nature. Thus modern healing has ceased to be seen as religious. An examination of scientific method suggests that modern science is more congenial to Christian theology than is supposed by Bradshaw and other proponents of spiritual care. Torrance’s doctrine of man is used as an example of how a modern scientific method allows us to regain a proper understand-ing of the mystery and uniqueness of humanity. The author argues that Torrance’s reconstructed natu-ral theology of man allows healthcare professionals to view each other as complimentary, thus allowing a return to true holistic healthcare. Key words: Cartesian, Christocentric, dualist, holon, hierarchy, theological science. Introduction: ‘Black birds’
In a previous article (Ward 2003), the author sug-
able to move the debate in healthcare forward beyond gested that chaplaincy has an important part to play “the realm of measurable effectiveness”. in the future of healthcare. Moltmann’s “double strategy” offered a reconciliation between views of The patient experience
chaplaincy as central or peripheral, but the question remains how might chaplaincy construct itself as a Indeed, patient literature appears to widen the gulf theological science alongside the other healthcare between the Enlightenment view of medicine and sciences. The tension between different disciplines contemporary experience of disease and healing. is illustrated in an etching, circa 1820, which de- Levison (1999), whilst inevitably accentuating the picts three outlandish figures in black garb huddled experiential aspects of disease, treatment and recov- together in animated discussion: a physician, a law- ery, implicitly acknowledges a divide between spiri- yer and a minister, unflattering ‘Black birds.’ tual and physical care. His “experience of the (Porter 2001: fig. 52). It is easy to imagine the fig- fragility of the body and also at times of the mind” ures, their dress indicative of their exclusive and (Levison 1999: 31) implies an acceptance of the Car- elevated calling, engaged in rational debate. Alas- tesian model that is spelt out by Ferguson. dair Macintyre might have had contemporary The medical model [of healthcare] is based on Car- ‘black birds’ in mind when he wrote: tesian dualism…so we can see the body as a piece of “Managers and therapists… are seen by them- mechanics, and treat it as such, without reference to selves…as uncontested figures, who purport to re- the mind. It has given us many blessings…However, strict themselves to the realms in which rational it leaves many areas unexplored and therefore unde- argument is possible – that is, of course, from their point of view to the realm of fact, the realm of means, the realm of measurable effectiveness.” The experiential aspects of healing may not be so simple, however, and these will be examined later. Such is the power of the medical model that inevita- If, however, we find a utilitarian focus for health- bly one is tempted to draw precisely the kind of dis- care chaplaincy wanting, the place of the chaplain tinctions that Levison and Ferguson have made in healthcare requires a proper theological method. between physical and spiritual care. Thus the doctors Only then, this author suggests, will chaplains be are called in to administer physical healing and the Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy Vol. 7 No. 1 2004 chaplains are validated in their role in administra- from a holistic approach. All the while mechanical Newtonian philosophy offered its seal of approval. Clockwork thinking was the order of the day. As in Similar assumptions are prevalent in nursing litera- the “secularisation of matter”, so in the secularisation ture. Spiritual care is compartmentalised, and in the of the human body: iatromechanism, the theory ad- culture of so-called holistic care of the last two vanced by two Scottish doctors, Pitcairne and decades, is separated from but complimentary to Cheyne, cast the human body as a system of pulleys physical care. Bradshaw’s (1994) model still sup- and levers and pipes, governed by the laws of hy- poses one can look at the spiritual dimension inde- draulics. “Healing”, to quote Porter, “had ceased to pendently of the physical, a view reiterated in the As a consequence, the caricature of the physician as Scientia generalis and scientia spe-
depicted in ‘Black birds’ was soon to change. Prod- ucts of the 1815 Apothecaries Act, the new general practitioners were presented to the public as nothing The last century has seen profound changes in the less than heroes: Trollope’s eponymous Dr Thorne or foundations of thought. If Barth and Bultmann Lydgate, the doctor-hero of Middlemarch, are in were anxious to draw a sharp line between the theo- stark contrast to the negative image of clergy in Vic- logical understanding of the world in the light of torian England. The physician ‘black bird’ now had Jesus Christ and its investigation by the scientist, the language and the clinical skills to set him apart Thomas Forsyth Torrance recognised that the new scientific outlook opened up fresh vistas for theol-ogy. With the limitations of Newtonian cosmology “Partners in Service to God”
exposed by quantum physics, Torrance suggested that theology now finds itself in the throes of a Unlike Barth, Torrance sees theology and the natural scientific culture that is curiously not antithetical to sciences as interactive disciplines, each with their it but which operates with a non-dualist outlook respective language and subject. But it is specifically consistent with the Christian faith. Theology now his doctrine of man that mutually affirms the role of possesses the framework in which it can re-evaluate the doctor and the chaplain in reconstructing a com- itself as a scientia specialis, in which the kind of plimentary view of healthcare, through which the theological questions that are asked, including concept of natural and theological sciences as “part- those of healthcare chaplaincy, are appropriate to ners before God in service to God” (Torrance 1980: the nature of the object, God. Theology has no need to apologise. Scientia generalis and scientia spe- cialis are two modes of the same procedure. The In keeping with his Christocentric understanding of former is dependent upon the latter. Medicine, for creation, Torrance maintains that the model for the example, could not be what it is but for the plethora basic structure of humanity is Jesus Christ. His doc- of individual medical sciences with their own lan- trine of man thus owes much to the Hebraic tradition in which mind and body are indivisible. The incarna- tion, death and resurrection of Christ, taken together, So medicine itself, like theology, may be in a tran- affirm our contingent existence as embodied soul. sitional phase. The history of medicine since the They expose and heal our broken nature, for only by Enlightenment can be seen as a shift from the living in union with God is humanity fully human theatrum medicinae akin to a quasi-religious moral- and personal. It is fundamentally a relational doc- ity play to a number of pathological scientia spe- trine. That is not to say the soul or creaturely being is ciales in which disease is localised rather than deified. Rather, the Spirit of God humanises and per- holistic. Clinical skills that had relied more upon sonalises us, confirming our creaturely reality whilst the patient’s account than any perfunctory physical allowing us to grasp knowledge of God through our examination now utilised Laennec’s stethoscope contingent nature. As there is no division between and the technique of auscultation. The doctor was spiritual and physical in nature, so also in man. Our listening primarily to bodily functions and not the creaturely relations thus represent a created corre- patient (Porter 2001: 89-90), detracting yet further Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy Vol. 7 No. 1 2004 spondence to the uncreated Trinitarian relation with the lower levels, though they cannot be reduced to them. So, for example, the higher level of purpose cannot be discerned by the lower level of functional- For Torrance, the essential unity of the created or- ity though the latter is controlled by the former. der allows both the natural and theological sciences Hence the necessity for the questions of science or to be perceived as revealing the rationality of the medicine to be appropriate to the subject matter: to universe in manners appropriate to the subject. be literally on that level. Questions of purpose cannot There remains a Christological focus – “Christ is be asked by those operating according to the laws thus like a lens, allowing us to see the created order and language of a lower level within the hierarchy. in its proper light” (McGrath 1999: 219) – through which the world and humanity are perceived. If Perhaps Torrance’s selective focus upon the physical theological and natural sciences are mutually sciences has not allowed him to fully explore the grounded upon contingent reality, then an analysis implications of his theological method in relation to of the notion of the ordering within the world by the life sciences. But, as Barth had his Safenwil and scientific investigation will lead us to the concept Torrance his Beechgrove, so for the chaplain the doc- of redemption from disorder. Thus Torrance’s trine sketched here must be honed in the turmoil of Christological focus sets a doctrine of atonement the hospital ward or the quietness of the hospice Herein lies the fundamental essence of Torrance’s doctrine of man: not only has humanity been cre- Theological method in healthcare
ated in God’s image, but redeemed from its disor-der, humanity now takes on a redemptive mission to The absence of doctrinal uniformity is, if we accept nature. Christian theology must regard man’s God- Campbell’s (1986) thesis, a defining feature of our given role in natural scientific enquiry… not only time. Therefore it would be naïve to suggest that to be the constituent element in the universe healthcare chaplaincy could, or even should, embrace whereby it unfolds and expresses its inherent ra- any specific doctrine. But the methodology by which tional order, but to be the instrument under God Torrance encourages his readers to engage with God whereby physical evil and disorder are rectified… and the world guards us against the incipient indi- to serve the whole created order. However, it is vidualism of which Campbell is so critical, bringing only as man himself is healed of his own inward us alongside those who offer their medical and clini- split that he may exercisea truly integrative and re- cal skills. Authority, as Campbell suggests, may well ordering role in the world… (Torrance 1981: 138) rest upon our ability to be fellow travellers and com- panions with those whose skills treat the human So in Torrance’s natural theology, his doctrine of humanity sums up his rejection of dualism whilst reaffirming his Christological focus: redemption The Koestler-Polanyi hierarchical anthropology al- and creation, spiritual and physical healing, the lows the healthcare chaplain, à la Torrance, to predi- world of the physician and the theologian are cate a theology of healthcare on the method that brought together as partners in service to God. every reality is to be investigated kata physin – that is, according to its own distinct nature or its own The hierarchical model of man
level within the multi-layered hierarchy. Healthcare chaplaincy can, and from the Christological stand- Torrance illuminates his natural theology by exten- point must, apply its own method of enquiry and its sive references to Polanyi, particularly to what I own language as a theological discipline alongside shall call the Koestler-Polanyi model of the holon the medical scientia speciales whose methods of en- or organic hierarchy. This model (Koestler 1949, quiry and language are equally valid. Holistic health- Polanyi 1958) sets out a ‘hierarchical universe’ care must not be a “lowest common denominator” (Polanyi) or ‘evolutionary hierarchy’ (Koestler) fusion of different methods and disciplines. that focuses upon the physical and life sciences respectively but which, not surprisingly, share the Certainly, the natural theology that places man at the same features. The laws and structures of the higher centre of the hierarchy, the linchpin through which levels of the hierarchy are dependent upon those of God’s redemptive action is discerned, will go some Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy Vol. 7 No. 1 2004 way towards countering the “self-inflicted obsoles- In physical medicine, the picture is different. What cence” (Torrance 1975: 272) that has marred the does the application of a rigorously scientific holistic Church’s witness. For unless we recognise the right model of humanity have to say of the tendency, exac- of theology to operate within its own subject matter erbated by technological advances, to fit patients into and ask questions of man pertinent to the level of pre-designed and rigid clinical criteria that are inher- reality upon which the theologian operates, the ently inflexible? Invariably, subjects are shoehorned temptation to translate the message into questions into data items to be completed by the clinician or pertinent to a lower level of the hierarchy – where nurse, not vice versa. Does theological science have no purpose or meaning can properly be discerned – something to say about patient care that goes beyond will be difficult to resist. To paraphrase McLuhan, clinical pathways? Or is healthcare to remain com- it is easy for the Church to mistakenly think that the fortable with the inverted perception of an outdated medium is the message, with the church errone- scientific method that divides the physical from the ously playing a role opposite that of scientists. And chaplains to doctors perhaps? The problem of los- ing the distinctive and Christocentric language of One possible rapprochement between a rigidly clini- theology is that it leads to what Polanyi famously cal practice and the hierarchical practice advocated called “moral inversion”: for the healthcare chap- here may be through the empowerment of patients lain a meritorious chaplaincy dispensing spiritual and an appreciation of the healing force of humour goodness, helping therapeutically but not properly and communication. Campbell and Swift’s recent addressing itself to the subject matter appropriate study echoes the author’s view of the danger of re- to its discipline i.e. God. If the Church is not well ducing patients to clinical stereotypes. Their study served by such a model, the world too is the poorer: also suggests a relational model affirming the kind of for how can there be a true return to holistic health- characteristics, which, in the Koestler-Polanyi model care without accepting an underlying view of man of humanity, draws the human person upward in the that is at once spiritual and physical? Yet this itself hierarchy towards a sense of wholeness (Campbell presupposes the new scientific method outlined and Swift 2002). Thus the theological foundation of a hierarchical model of humanity creates the condi-tions by which proper holistic healthcare may flour- Conclusion: kata physin and holis-
tic healthcare
No doubt the reader can call to mind further implica- Returning to the patient’s experience, we find that tions of accepting a scientific theology that takes into Torrance offers fresh insights into what one patient account the unique nature of the human being and called “a connectedness to something much bigger proposes a complimentary of disciplines, medical and than me” (Ferguson 2002: 24). It is for the chap- theological, through which a proper understanding of lain, in the rightful language of theology, to articu- the human body in its physical and spiritual whole- late the connectedness in terms of the Koestler- Polanyi-Torrance axis of wholeness and healing. Experiential opposition of immanence against tran- Does this, as Dorrien believes, place too much of a scendence – “I have now come to believe that what role upon understanding? Is the “inward split” in is important is not how God acts towards me, but humanity reconcilable only through God’s self- how he acts in me” (Ferguson 2002) – can be less- revelation? But then Torrance himself would rather ened by adopting a model of humanity that does not be seen as the instigator of further questions rather hold one view against another. Healing within, and than providing the answers. Throughout his work, he healing without, are equally valid in their own retains an emphasis on the mystery of humanity that, terms. In mental healthcare, there are signs that in part, addresses those who suggest, “Torrance’s what Foskett calls “the mental health industry” is theological project is permeated by the atmosphere of beginning to adopt a hierarchical model that vali- the physics lab” (Dorrien 2000: 163). Does Tor- dates both psychopathology and spirituality rance’s obvious enthusiasm for ‘the anthropic princi- ple’ of Creation, or his awe at the beauty of Clerk Maxwell’s electromagnetic field theory, really negate Barth’s emphasis that God is holy, hidden and myste- Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy Vol. 7 No. 1 2004 rious? The healthcare chaplain can still share in DORRIEN, G. 2000 The Barthian Revolt in Modern Torrance’s wonder at the miracle of humanity, and Theology. Westminster Press, Louisville. find in the life sciences data that challenge mecha- FERGUSON, R. 2002 Does it matter? Reflections on a chaplain’s experience as a patient. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 3: 6: 15-26. These are questions to be framed in the light of a FOSKETT, J. 2001 Is mental health good or bad for scientific method that has laid to rest the popular religion? Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 3: dualism of mind from matter and enables us to un- derstand man at the centre of a God-created and HUNSINGER, D. 1995 Theology and Pastoral ultimately mysterious universe. The ‘black birds’ Counselling: A NewInterdisciplinary Approach. may talk different languages, but they compliment one another. Each testifies in his own way to the KOESTLER, A. 1949 Insight and Outlook. Mac- divine mystery of the universe, through which man understands and is understood, heals and is healed. LEVISON, C. The chaplain as patient. Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. Mike Ward is Ecumenical Chaplain to Franklin MCGRATH, A. 1999 T. F. Torrance. An Intellec-tual Biography. T & T Clark, Edinburgh. MACINTYRE, A. 1985 Beyond Virtue. Second References
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