Health: duty and sin

[Jack3]

If you have an illness which can easily be healed with basic medicine, you have a moral duty to take the meds.

If I am likely to die young of skin cancer unless I wear sunscreen but then blow off the advice and die young, I have likely sinned.

I actually confess when I intentionally don't wear a seatbelt when I'm being lazy, and precisely because it's an easy thing to do that could keep me alive.

The dignity of the human person and its givenness to its Creator require certain kinds of actions in given circumstances, including exercise, eating well, and, yes, taking medicine when you are ill to prevent death and disease.

Taylor Patrick O'Neil

Thoughts? Is it a sin to neglect seatbelts and exercise?

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I'm ambivalent. There is a responsibility for prudent stewardship of our own bodies, but I think it can be overblown.

[gherkin]

At least if you try to generalize the idea, it doesn't work. It kind of makes St. Francis a grave sinner, since he radically abused his body in pursuit of holiness. Or, for that matter, consider the 40 day fast of our Lord. Such things can have long term negative effects on health.

The fundamental problem, I think, isn't so much that the author is wrong in what he says, but that he ignores the greater good of union with God, which leads to contempt of the things of this world, including one's own body. But there is the further worry that the author is at least too quick even in what he actually says.

Suppose we grant that I should use reasonable means to prevent skin cancer, other things equal. Now, suppose I'm super eager and excited to get outside and start working in the garden on a warm spring day, and out of that eagerness and joy I neglect to put on sunscreen. I may pay for that with a sunburn, but I certainly don't believe there's any sin involved. Contemptuously refusing to wear sunscreen may be a different story.

Even smoking isn't clearly sinful, IMHO. Of course it can be in a fictional case where the smoker scorns the body and wants to slowly kill it. But someone who simply smokes out of enjoyment (or even habit) is clearly not doing the very best thing that he could do with his time or money or health. But there is a gap between failing to do the very best we can do, and sinning, even venially.

The opening claim about a moral duty to take medicine seems clearly wrong, too. You don't even need to posit countervailing considerations such as burning up one's life savings paying for the meds vs. allowing oneself to die naturally and being able to leave, say, the family farm to a deserving child. One can easily imagine, say, an elderly widower who is ready to go and who accepts this illness as a blessing, offers up his suffering as he dies, and enters into the next life joyfully. Of course, a young mom whose kids need her would probably be sinning by not taking up normal means of preserving her life. A lot depends on vocation and on particularities.

[Doom]

In general, I would say there is a general duty to take care of your health and avoid unnecessary risk but I am not sure it would bind under pain of sin except under narrow conditions.

For example, as a diabetic, to refuse to take care of myself seems at least contemptuous of my life and inconsiderate of the opinions of the people including wife and children ( if I had any) who would very much like me to stick around a little longer. But is it sinful? In this case, possibly given how easy it is to manage the condition and how it imposes very little burden on me, to refuse to do so would be tantamount to suicide which actually is a sin.

But can this be generalized? Not very far I don't think.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Did gherkin agree with me?

[gherkin]

Certainly not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[gherkin]

The more worrisome question is..........did Doom agree with me???????????????????????????????2

[Doom]

The more worrisome question is..........did Doom agree with me???????????????????????????????2

Perish the thought!

[Riverboat]

It's hard to take any advice from theologians when I read stuff like this. At worst, it causes some to become overly scrupulous. At least, it makes serious theologians seem irrelevant. Some matters are best left up to common sense.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

The more worrisome question is..........did Doom agree with me???????????????????????????????2

Or did you both agree with me? I'm not sure I could handle that!

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

It's hard to take any advice from theologians when I read stuff like this. At worst, it causes some to become overly scrupulous. At least, it makes serious theologians seem irrelevant. Some matters are best left up to common sense.

It might make more sense in context.

[peregrinator]

It's hard to take any advice from theologians when I read stuff like this. At worst, it causes some to become overly scrupulous. At least, it makes serious theologians seem irrelevant. Some matters are best left up to common sense.

Does common sense suggest that one can eschew vaccines entirely (not merely one vaccine or other)?

[Riverboat]

Does common sense suggest that one can eschew vaccines entirely (not merely one vaccine or other)?

Not my common sense. I have uncommon common sense.

[gherkin]

The more worrisome question is..........did Doom agree with me???????????????????????????????2

Or did you both agree with me? I'm not sure I could handle that!

[gherkin]

It's hard to take any advice from theologians when I read stuff like this. At worst, it causes some to become overly scrupulous. At least, it makes serious theologians seem irrelevant. Some matters are best left up to common sense.

It's a fair point. Keep in mind that theologians are academics and not in the business of being spiritual directors!

[peregrinator]

Does common sense suggest that one can eschew vaccines entirely (not merely one vaccine or other)?

Not my common sense. I have uncommon common sense.

I didn't realize but this was context missing from the OP - a priest on twitter suggested that taking a vaccine could be morally obligatory, someone responded that preventive care can never be obligatory, and then O'Neil responded with the above, I guess as a reductio ad absurdum (but not a very good one).