How Augustinian Universalism Limits Medicine
John Lunstroth, LLM, MPH, Visiting Scholar, University of Houston Law Center
Augustine’s theory of history is unilinear. It has a singular beginning, and a well-defined dyadic end (heaven or hell). History unfolds in between, and each human being has a beginning and end that correlates to the absolute beginning and end. God created and controls everything.
That metaphysical architectonic space enabled the “universalist” medieval Popes to develop a strict or legalistic universalism in which God’s law determined on an absolute basis everything that happens. I call it strict or legalistic universalism to distinguish it from Aristotelian universalism, a universalism that organizes wholes and the parts that are distinguishable in them, and is associated with identity, species, form and unity. In Aristotelian universalism, with regard to living things, the sense of identity is the primary function (referent) of the universal, whereas in strict universalism it is Divine law that is the primary function (referent) of the universal.
Law functioning in the unlinear historical space is the nature of Christian (Augustinian) universalism, which through historical processes replicated into and informed colonialism, secular political absolutism, and the universalist metaphysics of science.
Through the reductionism technology has flourished, but neither that technology nor its metaphysics (science) has a theory of life, much less a theory of organic healing. Darwin’s teaching that life is an illusion, that the apparent birth, development, movement, reproduction and death of natural things is purely mechanical and physical, only solved an intractable problem for the mechanistic metaphysics that once solved became universal law within the mechanistic, Augustinian linear history.
The theory of medicine (health-disease-remedy-cure) is dependent on the theory of the person, which in turn is dependent on the theory of life. Scientific medicine is grounded in the mechanical, physicalist theory which can only exist as universal law in the Augustinian architectonic space. The main other schools of medicine, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, and homeopathy are based on a different theory of life, a different theory of the human, and therefore a different theory of health-disease-remedy-cure. That different theory of life, extremely sophisticated in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, naïve in homeopathy, is closer to the explanations of life found in Christo-Islamic traditions than that of “science.”
Therefore, how science relates to religion in the west is very complex. Scientific medicine is a casualty of that complexity. The deference religion pays to science should be examined, and western religion should examine itself on the same grounds. There is something deeply artificial and unnatural about Augustinian universalism. It is not epistemologically or ontologically necessary. Although it is required for Enlightenment science, it is not required for the religions.
Aristotle has a theory of life (on which homeopathy is based), as do Ayurveda and Chinese medicine. His universalism, with which it is identified, defines a kind of local space that coheres through compassion. Since compassion is necessary for medicine, but not for science, then we have reason to explore rejecting Enlightenment science with regard to living things so we can conceive a healthier environment in which both faith and medicine are easier.
Augustine’s theory of history is unilinear. It has a singular beginning, and a well-defined dyadic end (heaven or hell). History unfolds in between, and each human being has a beginning and end that correlates to the absolute beginning and end. God created and controls everything.
That metaphysical architectonic space enabled the “universalist” medieval Popes to develop a strict or legalistic universalism in which God’s law determined on an absolute basis everything that happens. I call it strict or legalistic universalism to distinguish it from Aristotelian universalism, a universalism that organizes wholes and the parts that are distinguishable in them, and is associated with identity, species, form and unity. In Aristotelian universalism, with regard to living things, the sense of identity is the primary function (referent) of the universal, whereas in strict universalism it is Divine law that is the primary function (referent) of the universal.
Law functioning in the unlinear historical space is the nature of Christian (Augustinian) universalism, which through historical processes replicated into and informed colonialism, secular political absolutism, and the universalist metaphysics of science.
Through the reductionism technology has flourished, but neither that technology nor its metaphysics (science) has a theory of life, much less a theory of organic healing. Darwin’s teaching that life is an illusion, that the apparent birth, development, movement, reproduction and death of natural things is purely mechanical and physical, only solved an intractable problem for the mechanistic metaphysics that once solved became universal law within the mechanistic, Augustinian linear history.
The theory of medicine (health-disease-remedy-cure) is dependent on the theory of the person, which in turn is dependent on the theory of life. Scientific medicine is grounded in the mechanical, physicalist theory which can only exist as universal law in the Augustinian architectonic space. The main other schools of medicine, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, and homeopathy are based on a different theory of life, a different theory of the human, and therefore a different theory of health-disease-remedy-cure. That different theory of life, extremely sophisticated in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, naïve in homeopathy, is closer to the explanations of life found in Christo-Islamic traditions than that of “science.”
Therefore, how science relates to religion in the west is very complex. Scientific medicine is a casualty of that complexity. The deference religion pays to science should be examined, and western religion should examine itself on the same grounds. There is something deeply artificial and unnatural about Augustinian universalism. It is not epistemologically or ontologically necessary. Although it is required for Enlightenment science, it is not required for the religions.
Aristotle has a theory of life (on which homeopathy is based), as do Ayurveda and Chinese medicine. His universalism, with which it is identified, defines a kind of local space that coheres through compassion. Since compassion is necessary for medicine, but not for science, then we have reason to explore rejecting Enlightenment science with regard to living things so we can conceive a healthier environment in which both faith and medicine are easier.