Do No Harm

Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” 

  "Which ones?” the man inquired. 

Jesus replied, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’’” 

"All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 

  When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Matthew 19:16-22)

     “I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein. 
      Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.”  Hippocratic Oath (The most modern version seems to be “I will do no harm permanently.”)


“charter of negative liberties,” Barack Obama on the Constitution


     In discussions, I have had or overheard, I have heard lots of proclamations of the law of “Doing No Harm.” As long as they are not harming anyone, the speakers claim that no one has a right to judge them. They don’t quite mean that they don’t think anyone has a right to judge them. They mean that no one has a right to judge them as being wrong. They’ll welcome anyone who wants to judge them and pronounce them right. There are two things about this that interest me this morning.
     The first is that it seems to me that they are drawing on a paraphrase of the Hippocratic Oath as their supreme law. Of course, they don’t accept as harmful the same things the Hippocratic Oath specifically states as harmful or wrong, things like abortion and assisted suicide. What they also don’t seem to consider is that the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors – people specifically trained to understand what will and what will not harm a person, and the doctor specifically vowed not to go beyond his education. Do these young folks have the education necessary to know what long term physical, psychological, moral or sociological harm they might be doing to themselves or others through their behaviors? Do those things even matter to them? If they lack that education, are they not violating the spirt of their own law. “Consent” does not free one from culpability. The one living under the Hippocratic Oath vowed not to do harm even when asked to do so.
      The second thing is that so many of them object to the Constitution on the same grounds that Mr. Obama did, that it is a “charter of negative liberties.” The government of the United States is not allowed to …. Those of his philosophical mien[1] seem to think the Constitution is worthless because it says “shall not” instead of “do,” but “Do no harm” is the same sort of law. So are most of the Ten Commandments. Only “honor your father and mother” is stated as a positive. 
     If the negative liberties, and negative laws are worthless because they do not move people in a positive direction, then “do no harm” is worthless for the same reason. Jesus appears to agree. When asked the requirements for being good, He tells the man to obey the commandments. When the man said that he had done all that, Jesus told him that he lacked one thing. Usually, people think that one thing is to sell all his belongings, but that is the prerequisite. The one thing was to follow Jesus.
     "Do no harm” is only good as far as it goes, and it doesn’t go far. Doing “no harm” doesn’t mean you’re doing anyone good. One can do better than “do no harm” by doing good. I think we’ve taken a step downward when we moved from “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” to “do no harm.” I think even “Do unto others….” Is a step down from the commandment on which Jesus said, “hang the Law and the Prophets.” Rather than “do no harm” or even “do unto others…” we are called to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strengths, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. “Do no harm” does not come close.


 

 

 

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[1] Bent, persuasion