The Presbyterian and Reformed tradition, as one representation of Biblical theology and ethics, has considerable application to physical health. This perspective is effectively embodied in the Westminster Confession of Faith which includes “the moral law,” especially as illustrated in the Larger Catechism Questions and Answers on the Ten Commandments. The WCF has many Biblical principles that promote health and prevent disease, for example, the Seventh Commandment can be “extensively demonstrated empirically” that violations promote morbidity and mortality. This result markedly contrasts (...) with the evolutionary and politically correct foundation of modern medicine that essentially promotes disease and death. Sexual “freedom” has become “slavery” to its disastrous results. Further, the modern attempt to define and treat “mental illness” does not begin to address the needs of patients and their families. By excluding the spiritual dimension of men and women, psychology and psychiatry has no moral answers by the naturalistic fallacy, and thus their various cognitive and pharmaceutical approaches mostly make “mental” problems worse. In this essay I present what the Bible claims through the WCF, and using modern medicine’s own “evidence-based medicine,” demonstrate how this approach has a strategic advantage in promoting health over contemporary medical ethics and practices. (shrink)

The encounter between Socrates and Thrasymachus in Republic I is notoriously baffling. Most of what is said seems straightforward, and the issues at stake are ones of common concern, but the argument remains elusive. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature and grounds of this elusiveness, and to show that some of it can be dispelled by a sufficiently free-ranging exegesis that bears in mind the general character of Plato’s writing.