Both faith and science require us to overcome our human instincts to fight COVID-19

Creative Commons photo.

(OPINION) My husband and I recently picked up our daughter from the Dallas airport, who was returning home from college for spring break as a result of COVID-19.

When she got in the car, I greeted her with a hug and kiss.

“Did I just see you hug her?” my husband asked.

“Of course! Didn’t you?” 

“Of course not!” he replied.

In that moment my need to manifest my concern for my daughter and to reassure myself that she was safe, overcame all the facts, protocols and social distancing protections that everyone recognizes are essential.

By design, human beings prefer their own safety and comfort over the safety and comfort of others. 

As a species we meet our own needs first. But the approach of  “all for one and one for all” is not a platitude. It reflects the reality of this world as it was created.

My automatic reaction to seeing my daughter under normal circumstances represents safety and love. Yet in in the context of a pandemic, that reflex was selfish and might have exposed my community, and ultimately my own family, to greater risk.

Both faith and science require us to use a higher power to overcome our human instincts when those instincts, originally programmed into us for survival, lead to undesirable outcomes. 

While reasonable people will differ on the source of that power, its purpose is the same. If we were naturally inclined to restrain ourselves, we would not need externally imposed restrictions.

But because the instincts that have been programmed into us by evolutionary biology do not always work in our favor, we must create external constraints.

In biblical times, there was an understanding that people with communicable diseases had to be quarantined, and their possessions had to be sanitized. The origins of infectious disease might be understood very differently by the author of the book of Leviticus than by Louis Pasteur.

Nevertheless, the restrictions required to control disease are surprisingly similar. We are not naturally inclined to isolate ourselves. So instead of waiting for many to figure out the hard way the need for self-isolation, the bible and the Centers for Disease Control both impose isolation upon us. 

The Book of Proverbs uses different words for knowledge, wisdom, discernment and understanding, indicating that each of these has a role to play in determining what is required of us in any given moment.

“If you call to understanding and cry aloud to discernment, If you seek it as you do silver, and search for it as treasure, then you will understand God’s awesome power, and find knowledge of the Holy One. For God grants wisdom; God is the source of knowledge and discernment,” (Proverbs 2:3-6.) 

It is precisely because we forget to exercise all the sources of information available to us that we have to be reminded over and over again that we possess them, and that God is the source of them all. 

Wisdom literature implores us to employ the frontal lobe of our brain, to train ourselves to control our animal instincts in the interest of pursuing a whole and wholesome world, a world that will only come to be if each of us takes responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of every living creature, using all of the sources of information at our disposal.

To be sure, there are times when our sources of information may conflict with one another. Discernment may wrestle with wisdom. Understanding may override knowledge.

But faith absent knowledge, wisdom, discernment and understanding is not the faith that God requires of us.

I cannot ultimately protect my daughter’s health or my own without taking responsibility for the environment in which we live. That responsibility existed before this pandemic, and it will exist once it subsides.

Faith has given me tools to overcome my instincts when it best serves the good of others, and, ultimately myself.

Science gives me ongoing opportunities to put my faith into action. When I ignore or fail to consider either one, I violate the covenant that the Creator has made with me. 

Rabbi Nancy Kasten is the Chief Relationship Officer of Faith Commons in Dallas and a Public Voices Fellow through The OpEd Project.