Transplanted Hearts
W. Carl Ketcherside
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For quite some time I have been exchanging occasional letters with a fine young man in one of our northern states. He is not satisfied with trite answers and he keeps probing for that which will adequately explain God and life. For example, here is a brief paragraph from a recent communication which I received.
"I think we shall eventually have to come
face-to-face with the prime question of whether God really
exists, and if so, whether he is personal and individual, that
is, whether he has being. If God does exist why, for instance,
would he allow George Washkansky to die after the apparently
successful heart transplant? "Would a benevolent being who had
the power to prevent such tragedy, deliberately mock the humble
and dedicated surgeons who had worked so long in their
laboratories eagerly seeking this one moment of success? How
could a merciful being act with such indifference while so many
were praying to him?
The problem of pain and human misery will continue to challenge our deepest intellectual powers. No sensitive person can ever fully evade it. And there will be varied reactions as men confront it. Some will be led to a deeper trust, others to denial and rejection.
In his book, The Plague, Albert Camus paints a graphic picture of a little boy dying in agony from the bubonic plague. By his bedside stand a priest, a doctor and a kindly agnostic. The doctor works frantically while the priest, who has difficulty even watching the struggle, places his hands before his face and prays earnestly, "God, please spare this child." But the boy dies. Later, while the three men are sitting in the shade of a tree on the hospital lawn, the priest admits that to him what happened is revolting because unexplainable, but he suggests that perhaps we should learn to love that which is not understandable. At that, the doctor turns on him in a rush of heated anger, and says, "No, Father! I have a very different idea of love and until my dying day I refuse to believe in a God who lets a child die like that!"
I make no claim of special insight which would enable me to eradicate all doubt from the earth and provide an easy solution for every question. Indeed I am also caught up in the human predicament and must struggle with many baffling problems which beset my rational powers. For that reason, I can only witness to that which has been meaningful to me, but I would be derelict in my responsibility if I refused to do this.
I do not deplore the asking of questions by men for it seems to me that the very fact we are men forces us to ask questions. Man is a questioning animal simply because he is a thinking animal. But not all questions which men ask are valid. They are not always the questions which should be asked. And I could be quite mistaken, of course, but it seems to me that my young friend may have asked a wrong question, even though it was right to ask it.
The point is that the query, "Why did God allow Mr. Washkansky to die?" may not prove a great deal regardless of how it is answered. It may not be very elemental after all. I presume that the death of Mr. Washkansky, except for the publicity attending it, was no different than the death of any other person on earth.
Insofar as its effect upon others was concerned it certainly came with much less of a shock than that from one who dies in an automobile crash. Mr. Washkansky had suffered from an aggravated heart condition for many months and this deterioration had affected other organs, including the brain. It was precisely be-
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By the same token the diligent work done by the surgeons in the laboratories in this particular area, is a secondary issue and has no real relationship to the question posed. This does not undervalue the experimental efforts in which the hearts of many dogs had been transplanted, but we must realize that hundreds of dedicated men have devoted themselves to ardent research in other areas to find a remedy for plagues which have proven to be a scourge to mankind. In the final analysis, their findings may be of far greater importance to mankind, although not all are as spectacular.
The point is that we have no more right to expect God to interfere in the case of a heart transplant than in the case of administration of smallpox vaccine which also required a tremendous amount of dedicated research. God should not be expected to show preference for cases that make headlines in international newspapers. The fact that my friend singles out this one case as a test of God's existence may reveal how little he understands the nature of God, for God would be equally concerned with all of his creatures. In other words "not a sparrow would fall to the ground without a heavenly Father knowing it."
When we reduce the problem to the question, "Why do men die?" we have not answered it, but we have placed it upon a wholly different plane. It may then be no longer a question of God's allowing, permitting or letting individuals die. And since there is no longer the question, then the death (or the circumstances surrounding the death), of any specific individual, cannot be used as the proof of the existence or non-existence of God.
At this Juncture I find myself, as usual, tempted to set forth my personal convictions as to why men must die. Yet that is actually an altogether different theme than the problem proposed in the letter, and I shall resist the urge to explore it now, and say a little bit more about heart transplantation. If my friend tends to doubt God's existence because of the failure of a heart transplant it is because of the success of one that I believe in Him.
God declared, "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I shall take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26).
When I became conscious that I was suffering from calcification of the spiritual heart and went to the Great Physician and Surgeon, he did exactly what he promised to do. And as soon as the new heart began to function a new life really began.
This does not mean that I do not have occasional symptoms of my former life or that I do not need blood transfusions regularly, but the new heart is there. My vision has been materially helped, my mental processes cleared up, and my speech purified. I have a new interest in living such as I never knew before. It is surprising what deterioration of all the faculties can be caused by an old heart.
There is now no fright, not even fear of death. But the important thing is that one can see others in proper perspective. He does not seek to use them but to love them. The inner thrill of joy floods the being. It is for this reason my prayer for all who read this is, "May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all of his saints."
I think the best way to determine whether God exists or not, is not that he make a certain physical operation successful (for there might be other factors involved of which you know nothing) but by taking him at his word in unreserved obedience. He has promised to give you a new heart if you'll submit your will to him unqualifiedly. So "taste and see that
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Dr. William Barclay tells the story of an alcoholic who was transformed by hearing the gospel in simple faith. When he began to talk about Jesus to his fellow workmen some of them ridiculed his belief. "Oh, come now," they said, "you don't mean to tell us that you believe that Jesus actually turned water to wine, do you?" He replied, "I don't know anything about that, but I do know that he can turn whiskey into clothing and furniture, because he did it in my home."