That Hideous Sense; Part II

1: "Why doesn't God heal amputees?"

In recent times, atheist writers and debaters have made much of this supposed problem when dealing with Christians. I have seen it numerous times in the last several days even, hence its inclusion in this piece, as its popularity is undoubtedly growing. Atheists make the claim that God does not heal amputees, no matter how much they pray to have their limbs regrown, etc. Or at least there is no account that these atheists know of where such a miracle is reported. My purpose here is not to try and offer such an account. My purpose here is entirely different. My purpose is to destroy this argument's very foundation in entitlement, and thus to destroy the argument itself, as opposed to trying to reply with examples of how it isn't true, thus giving it credence as a legitimate attack. It is not legitimate, and should never be dealt with as such. It is the bastard child of our human selfishness, and it is horrific in its consequences.

The first issue to be addressed is the manner in which atheists, apparently inadvertently, are treating amputees. What, precisely, does it mean to "heal" an amputee, or anyone else for that matter? When someone with cancer is healed, that person's cancer is cured, killed, stopped, etc. That person's life is saved. If a child dying of pneumonia is healed, it is the child's life being saved and the disease afflicting him being stopped that we call healing. Likewise, with a disease like leprosy, or polio, etc. healing is stopping of the disease, curing it, ending it, etc. This seems to my mind quite different from the "healing" of an amputee. I think we have two very different ideas of healing here. Normal healing is that of righting what is wrong, or perhaps fixing that which is broken. Healing a broken bone, for example, is fixing that which is broken. Healing psychological or emotional wounds would qualify is righting that which was wronged. Failing either of these two possibilities, in instances where medicine simply cannot remedy the problem, we do what we can to stop threats, save lives, etc. But what, precisely, is this idea of "healing" an amputee? The amputee is, by definition, someone who has had a limb removed precisely for the objective of saving that person or helping that person in some way. People are generally not amputated for no reason, they are amputated to save their lives.

Do we ask why God doesn't "heal" amputees? First perhaps we should remember why we made them amputees in the first place. Their lives have been saved, they are still people, still living, etc. Amputation, in other words, is medically speaking the righting to the best of our abilities of the various wrongs of horrible frostbite, gangrene, land mines, grain threshers, and all other manners in which people are so injured, and medical science cannot do anything but stem the threat. Amputation is done to save someone's life. But the atheist argument treats the amputee as someone who is still sick, or who is still threatened. The amputee is no longer a normal human, the amputee is now special, sick, disabled, and in need of curing and healing. Personally, I rather suspect that some amputees might take issue with being treated as such. The biggest problem here is that the atheist is using amputation without understanding it. Answering the following question might prove extraordinarily illuminating for us in regards to this issue. "What is wrong with an amputee?" An amputee is not sick. An amputee is not in danger of losing his or her life (at least not strictly because he or she was amputated), and an amputee is certainly not less than human, nor are their "rights" (ironic, yes?) violated by amputation or because they are an amputee (in strict point of fact they are technically given even greater privileges, such as coveted parking spaces). An amputee can be happy, successful, and loved, can he not? The average amputee can live a full and satisfying life, can she not? It is not only insulting, but absurd to suggest otherwise, for there are plenty of examples of amputees living and excelling while doing so. Let us have no more pretense that there is anything wrong with amputees. That which is "wrong" is that they are missing one or more limbs or body parts that most of the rest of us possess, and generally they lost those limbs or body parts as part of the solution to a problem, not as the problem itself. When dealing with amputation, we are not talking about righting a wrong, we are talking about talking replacing or filling up a lack. And in this particular case of argumentation, we are dealing with a sense that amputees are entitled to having this lack filled, but the why of this is never addressed.

And that brings us to our second issue. That which more expressly deals with entitlement, as it grows and develops from the first. Why are amputees, or anyone, for that matter, treated as being entitled to healing? The question isn't, "Why doesn't God 'heal' amputees?" the question is, "Why does God heal anyone at all?" What obligation is God under to heal anyone, let alone an amputee, whose amputation was most likely our solution to the problem that person faced? Where is God obliged to "fix" the "mistake" of ours that saved a person's life? Is this not the most ridiculous argument imaginable?

To challenge God in this regard, we must first determine that amputation is bad, that it is a problem that needs to be fixed, when that problem is in fact a medical solution designed to save a person. Moreover, we treat God as if God must heal amputees! As if amputees somehow deserve it, or even that amputees somehow need it. The atheist, by making this argument, relies on his sense of entitlement, and in so doing, not only does he create an utterly useless and baseless argument, but he dehumanizes and objectifies amputees. None of us "deserve" healing from God. There is no reason to suppose we do, especially knowing as we now know, that what Good we have is a gift. We don't deserve a bit of it. Moreover, how can we possibly argue that amputees need to be healed, when we have already admitted that any accurate and fair treatment of amputees as a subject would lead us to conclude that there is nothing preventing an amputee from living a long, full, and beautiful life? To demand healing for amputees demands that we view amputees as somehow less than a person with all their limbs, someone who is less human, and less capable of enjoying the human experience. This is patently false, and I for one refuse to play along. I will not turn amputees into demi-humans who cannot function without divine intervention, nor will I treat them as mere objects in a point against theism, to be used and exploited. To do so would be to risk the kind of Social Darwinistic and eugenic philosophies that riddled the early part of the 20th Century with death and madness. Amputees are not an ill that need to be remedied, and to treat them as such is a very dangerous proposition.