[August 2006 journal entry, reflecting on the unfolding Terri Schiavo case]
If a person accepts as fact the miracles reported in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture (e.g., stories of the sun standing still, or of raising Lazarus from being dead, or of correcting withered limbs, or of restoring sight to the blind, or . . .) and believes such can/do happen in the present, then all hope is not gone if a patient is in a ‘persistent vegetative state’ or is ‘dead by neurological criteria’. Such a person will regard a completely flat EEG or a completely atrophied brain or a completely absent brain or . . . to be no more insurmountable than Lazarus being brought back to life after being dead three days. Therefore, it should not be surprising when such a person insists on all existence-extending interventions for patients at life’s end. For such a person to do otherwise (i.e., to regard the situation as futile) would be to draw a faithless conclusion and make a faithless decision. The core issue has to do with such a person’s appeal simultaneously to two contradictory worldviews – i.e., the modern/scientific worldview underlying the development/use of the technological existence-extending interventions vs. a pre-modern/pre-scientific religious worldview.