Suffering and the Limits of Medicine

1 credits · Divinity School

In this graduate seminar, students will consider how suffering shows up in human experience and whether and how different forms of suffering should be medicalized. We will read personal, clinical, and theological accounts of pain, sickness, sadness, anxiety/fear, decline, and other conditions suffered, along with critical appraisals of how such suffering is often medicalized. The course aims to help future pastors, clinicians, and Christian laypersons discern when, in what respects, and why Christians might fittingly turn to medicine to diagnose and/or seek to address that which they suffer, as well as when wisdom requires resisting such medicalization.