Does Prozac do what God can’t? This was a question thrown at me recently. It’s a good question too. Why is it that people with religious beliefs and experience often use medication to find their equilibrium in life? After all, doesn’t God provide real happiness and contentment?
New Zealand medical stats make it clear that depression has grown to become a very real threat to social well-being. People from all spectrums of society are now afflicted with depressive disorders that affect not only their own perception of life but also their families, work and social interactions. It’s become such a big problem we now have adverts on television that rightly attempt to destigmatise depression by suggesting that we are all part of the cure.
When I was asked if Prozac does what God can’t, it got me thinking about all manner of things about which the same question can be asked. Does surgery do what God can’t? Does morphine? Does Viagra? Do the police, Does the government?
I then found myself asking, “If God can’t, or chooses not to, then why should we bother?” You see we only have two options. If God exists and doesn’t respond to suffering, then we face the problem of a good God allowing nasty things to happen. Alternatively, if God doesn’t exist then why would we bother with doing good at all? If there’s no God, then humans must be driven by self interest, not justice or fairness or wanting the best for others.
I don’t subscribe the idea of no God, it’s illogical. However I do subscribe to the idea that in many aspects of life God does not act in ways we expect or necessarily want.
Human suffering is a human problem. When we’re at our best we deplore all forms of suffering and work to rectify it. But why? Because we are made in the image of God. When God chooses not to act and we know good must be done, we act on God’s behalf. We respond to the image of the one who created us. In doing so God acts through us.
We live in this constant tension. On one hand humanity often creates it’s own suffering, yet on the other hand we have a deep need to address it. In doing so we often fulfill the will of God because we are in partnership with God.
Someone designed Prozac for two reasons: to alleviate suffering and make money. It may seem that the two are mutually exclusive but I think that the former is the most powerful driver for any biochemist.
It’s not that Prozac does what God can’t. Rather, Prozac achieves a partial end to God’s intention for all people - a sense of life, vitality, hope and meaning. The real end to those things comes through knowing and experiencing that God personally. Yet the path to that experience often comes through the image of God expressed in the beneficial action of others.
Pozac, doctors, counselors, social workers and aid organisations all exist because God does. If you think about it, you’ll see it too.