Beneath these silent statistics is a raging war of pathogenic disease against human beings, which prematurely drags down to death in pain and suffering about four out of five people who die in the United States. And in view of lines 5, 11, and 14, not more than one in ten dies a natural death. This is not a pretty picture, and not something to look forward to. As someone said, I am not afraid of death, just the process of dying. But the absolute wonder is that less than one percent of medical funds goes to disease sources instead of disease treatments. There are several reasons for this.

1. Until fairly recently many of these diseases were assumed to be “conditions,” not the result of infections (pathogens, either viruses, bacteria or parasites), just as duodenal ulcers were thought to be due to stress and spicy food, etc., not a bacterium (heliobacter pylori). Not long ago tuberculosis was assumed to be caused by sleeping in damp places, not by a pathogen. Heart disease has long been described as being caused by conditions like salt or cholesterol in the diet and as a gradual build-up of plaque in the arteries. Now it is clear that half of all who die of heart attacks don’t possess any of the alleged symptoms, but die because of a sudden “eruption” of inflamation in arterial walls (due to an infection), which suddenly blocks arteries and thus strains and damages the heart, suddenly. Only recently has strong evidence been acknowledged to indicate that infections underlie heart disease, cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and schizophrenia, for example.

2. A second major reason is that Western theology has a blind spot stemming from the neo-platonism of Augustine (in the fourth century AD). Thus, we look for God’s after-the-fact purposes in a tragedy. We don’t often seek to eradicate the causes?unless we think they are conditions like lack of exercise, wrong nutrition, etc. Jonathan Edwards (1740s) was accused of “interfering with Divine Providence” when he sought to employ a vaccine to defend his Indians from smallpox.

3. The simplest factor to explain is that sick people seeking healing (not causal explanations) provide the truly enormous resources of the medical/ pharmaceutical industries. Over 99% of all such funds, understandably, do not focus on origins of disease. Yet, most government money (NIH, NCI, etc.) is also manipulated or influenced by the medical/pharmaceutical industries. So also with the research grants on which university faculties live. In other words, relatively little concern ends up for disease origins. Ralph D. Winter “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil”?our mission too?