Finitude, Religion, and Medicine: The Search for Meaning in the Post-Modern World

Abstract

Medicine and religion are driven by the same fundamental human experience: the experience of finitude. The practice of medicine confronts, again and again, the finite nature of human existence in suffering, sickness, death, and the limits of resources. The confrontation with finitude is also an impetus for the religious experience which seeks to understand the meaning of human life in the face of suffering and death. The dilemmas of medical ethics present a unique meeting place for religion and medicine.