The Analogate of the Divine Physician in the Clinic: Understanding the Christian Health Care Professional as a Symbol of Christ.

Abstract

The Divine Physician is a traditional title that the Church gives to Jesus Christ. This metaphor helps symbolize Jesus's mission to heal our souls of sin and its effects. In this paper, I consider this metaphor as a source for understanding the vocation of the Catholic physician. Understanding that the role of the laity is to communicate the divine law to the world, I argue that this title raises the human physician's dignity to the status of an image of Christ's saving activity in the clinic. This paper roots this dignity in the supernatural life of grace by giving both a philosophical and a theological exposition of the metaphor of the Divine Physician.