Medicine: This is why science and faith should not be in conflict | Sunday newspaper

In the fight against diseases attributable medicine With their studies and statistics as the gold standard today. Church, religion and dogma are far from conceivable. This was not always the case. Tobias Niedenthal writes in his article “The narrative that the Church was hostile to scientific medicine is not true. The soul is more powerful than the body … the era of monastic medicine and its predecessors and beyond.” The article has now been published in “Ordenskonferenz” (Issue 1/2022).

Are faith and science really incompatible?

depending on Historical examples An employee of the Abbey Medical Research Group at the University of Würzburg refutes the assumption that faith and knowledge in themselves act as irreconcilable poles. “Many bishops have practiced the profession of doctors,” Tobias Niedenthal told the Sunday newspaper. The former Roman soldier Martin von Tours founded the first western monastery in France in 361 AD. The person who was revered as a “monk bishop” had medical knowledge and served as a NurseAnd Care And doctor.

Religion has defined the world view of all cultures for centuries. Disease is one of them Big Life Issuesthat people struggle with. The Bible makes numerous references to this: In the Old Testament, for example, plagues are interpreted as a burden imposed by God. The New Testament tells of stories of healing, such as the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law by touching his hand in Capernaum or the healing of a paralytic through the forgiveness of sins.

Historical examples refute the contradiction

Tobias Niedenthal knows that the Evangelist Luke in particular is credited with a “medical figurative language” in literature. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,” missionary Luke was quoted as saying by the German Medical Journal, emphasizing the traditions of religious medicine to this day.

Medical knowledge of the Greeks and Romans found its way into the 20-volume “etymology” of the Spaniard Isidore of Seville in AD 630. The encyclopedia, which, in addition to medicine, dealt with agriculture and medicinal plants, was the basis for the transmission of Mediterranean medical knowledge to medieval England, which was dominated by Latin.

One of the oldest books in which this knowledge flowed is:Lorch’s constitution“From about 800 AD, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2013. The art of healing, recipes and nutritional sciences in theory and practice are systematically recorded and written here for the first time. Niedenthal talks about an ‘expert framework for five recipe collections with a total of 482 recipes'” .

Hildegard von Bingen is the best example of monastic medicine

The abbot of Reichenau monastery on Lake Constance, Walahfrid Strabo, described 24 medicinal plants less systematic than noodles in a herbal poem. Some of the plants described can be found in the “St. Galler Klosterplan”, which was established in the 9th century in Reichenau and is still considered the quintessential image of a Benedictine monastery. the medical facilities A form with a chapel, bathroom, kitchen, medical center, storage room for medicines – pharmacy – as well as a type of “Intensive care unit“One severely ill patient herb garden A separate institution within the monastery.

Hildegard von Bingen in the 12th century was one of the most famous representatives of monastic medicine. Her writings are known today as Natural History “Physica” and “Causae et Curae” Medicine. The 19th century Reverend Sebastian Knepp is also indispensable in physical therapy today. The five-pillar therapy of the Swabian High Priest still enjoys many adherents.