But this routine exam turned into something I hadn’t expected: An opportunity to open someone’s mind to the Christian worldview. I felt the conversation was important, not just in the sense that I believe the practitioner benefited from it, but in that it impressed upon me the importance of leading people to the truth by simply asking questions; by forcing them to struggle with the implications of their own worldview.

Here’s how the conversation went, as best as I can recapture:
 

At the end of the exam, the practitioner mentioned that she would schedule a follow-up appointment.

I asked, “Why? I’m on Medicare. I don’t like spending taxpayer money unless it’s necessary.”

“Oh,” she said, pausing. “Well, it’s just a good idea.”

She then launched into a discussion about an elderly woman who is terminally ill and is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for a treatment that won’t save her.

She shook her head and sighed: “I wish more people took the position you do, that we shouldn’t waste money on medical care.” 

I said, “I understand completely. I think the woman should consult with her doctor and her family, and if it’s clear she’s dying anyway, she should not be artificially extending her life.  But if she doesn’t do this, how do you deal with the problem?

The healthcare practitioner looked at me quizzically. 

I asked her again, “Who should make the decision?”

She said, “Well, right now, doctors pretty well have to persuade patients.”

I said, “Supposing they can’t persuade them?”

She said, “Well, there should be an independent board that makes that decision.”

I said, “Well, that’s possible.  But what would be the standard they would go by?  How would they make a decision?”

She answered that if there are only limited resources, then you would only provide care to the extent of those resources. 

I said again, “How would you make that decision?  What’s the standard today?”

She said, “Well, you’d help as many people as you can.” 

I then said, “Would you describe that as doing the greatest good for the greatest number?”

She smiled then, and nodded her head and said, “Yes, of course.”

I then asked her if she knew where that philosophy came from.  She said she didn’t know.  I asked her if she knew where that philosophy had been employed before.  She said she didn’t.  I then asked her if she was aware of what the German doctors did in the 1930s.  Now she began to look like she was acknowledging that there was some problem. But she said, “No.  Tell me what they did.”

“Well, the Germans formed medical panels to review the cases of the chronically ill, terminally ill, and those who had mental disabilities. Many of the people who went before those panels simply disappeared. Their families never saw them again.”

Her eyebrows arched up, and she looked horrified.

I then said to her, “If doing the greatest good for the greatest number is your standard, how else would you deal with it?”

Now she was trapped, and she knew it.  She said, “It’s really a question of common sense, isn’t it?”

I said, “Yes, it is common sense.  But what standard would you apply?”

She said, “I think people would have to be very reasonable about this.”

I asked her if she thought the German doctors were reasonable.  She said, “No.  They shouldn’t take a life without some proper standard.”

I said, “Well, didn’t they have a standard?”

Then she nodded yes, and said, “Yes, the greatest good for the greatest number.”

I said, “Then what did the German doctors do wrong?  These were very smart people, after all.”

She nodded, knowing now she was at a dead end. 

I then explained to her that when Christianity burst onto the scene in the Greco-Roman world 2,000 years ago, they introduced a radical doctrine from the Hebrew Scriptures: The idea that human beings are created in the image of God, and therefore life is intrinsically valuable and worthwhile—something we all know, actually, instinctively. 

She listened with great interest as I explained to her, very briefly, that in the Greco-Roman era there was slavery, rampant abortion and infanticide. Human life had no intrinsic value.  So there was a ruling class that possessed political and economic power and led a privileged life. Everybody else was out of luck. I said Christianity turned that upside down. 

“So,” I asked, “do you still believe you can do the greatest good for the greatest number and be humane at the same time?

“No, you can’t,” she replied.

I asked, “Can you conceive of any middle ground between the Christian view and the view of the Greeks and Romans?”  

She pondered this for a moment, and she came back with, “Common sense would be middle ground.” 

“But common sense,” I replied, “means that you can apply some standard that everybody would agree with. If human life isn’t precious, what is it? Is it just a commodity?”

She eventually said, “I don’t think I can have an answer to that.” And then she asked me, to my great surprise, if I’d seen the movie “Expelled.”  I told her I had, that I knew Ben Stein.  That it was a great film, that it raised these very important questions about the existence of God.  

She had to end the discussion, because she had a patients waiting to see her.  But she said she was going to give our conversation a lot of thought.

After she’s had time to think about our conversation, I plan to follow up with her. Will the conversation lead to her conversion to Christ. I don’t know. But I do know that she now has something to consider: that humans are precious because they are made in the image of God. And as she thinks about thorny issues such as end of life decisions and health care rationing, she will do so in light of that truth.