LETTERS: USING WELLNESS AS GAUGE OF FAITH IS BAD THEOLOGY

To the editor:

Robert Trankle (March 18 letter to the editor) appears to have confused the Hebrew shalom, which could be translated "wholeness for the whole man," with the Greek soteria (salvation), derived from the verb sozo (to save, deliver). While sozo is used to speak of deliverance from disease, it has no intrinsic relation to human wholeness. While Jesus speaks of faith in relation to sozo, he never uses the term in relationship to therapeuo, the standard word for "to heal." Indeed, that faith is not a prerequisite to healing is seen in the case of the man who was born blind in John 9. Mark 2:1-12 shows that Jesus' response to faith is forgiveness of sin. The healing in this account is performed as a sign of power in reaction to those present who do not have faith.

I do not question the power of Jesus to heal either in his day or in ours. I do question any theology that correlates the degree of wellness to the degree of faith. I question any doctrine that judges a person with a disability as lacking in faith. If wellness is a gauge of faith, then in light of the raising of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17) which Trankle has brought to mind, all who have died are dead because they lacked faith. This is bad theology.

KERRY H. WYNN

Cape Girardeau