Motion of the Body: Christological Reflections on the Metaphysics of Medicine
Kimbell Kornu, MD, MAR, Vanderbilt University
Jeffrey Bishop has recently argued that the metaphysics of medicine is founded upon on matter in motion, with the dead body as the epistemological norm, which is made possible because the metaphysics of modern science is based solely on efficient causation, divorced from formal and final causation. However, Simon Oliver has argued definitively that pre-Newtonian, pre-modern motion is a teleological concept that applies equally to physical nature and to virtue ethics because motion is ultimately a theological concept derived analogically from the God of motion. Against this background, I will sketch how an analogical concept of motion can provide helpful grammar for an alternative theological metaphysics of medicine in three ways. First, following Maximus Confessor, I will attempt to show how all of creation is in motion towards its divine end, drawn by the beauty of God, culminating in the cosmic Christ. As a domain of creation, it follows that medicine, with its telos of healing, also culminates in Christ. Second, drawing on Felix Ravaisson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I will suggest that knowledge is intrinsically embodied and relational, entailing motion towards the other, which has implications for what it means for a physician to know a patient. Third, I will argue that virtue ethics is best understood as motion in the development of embodied habits that concur with the teleology of nature, thereby overcoming the Kantian antinomy between necessity and autonomy and pointing towards Christ as the archetypal human. I will then conclude with some practical applications.
Jeffrey Bishop has recently argued that the metaphysics of medicine is founded upon on matter in motion, with the dead body as the epistemological norm, which is made possible because the metaphysics of modern science is based solely on efficient causation, divorced from formal and final causation. However, Simon Oliver has argued definitively that pre-Newtonian, pre-modern motion is a teleological concept that applies equally to physical nature and to virtue ethics because motion is ultimately a theological concept derived analogically from the God of motion. Against this background, I will sketch how an analogical concept of motion can provide helpful grammar for an alternative theological metaphysics of medicine in three ways. First, following Maximus Confessor, I will attempt to show how all of creation is in motion towards its divine end, drawn by the beauty of God, culminating in the cosmic Christ. As a domain of creation, it follows that medicine, with its telos of healing, also culminates in Christ. Second, drawing on Felix Ravaisson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I will suggest that knowledge is intrinsically embodied and relational, entailing motion towards the other, which has implications for what it means for a physician to know a patient. Third, I will argue that virtue ethics is best understood as motion in the development of embodied habits that concur with the teleology of nature, thereby overcoming the Kantian antinomy between necessity and autonomy and pointing towards Christ as the archetypal human. I will then conclude with some practical applications.