On the last Sunday in August, at his home in Greenwich Village, the “poet laureate of medicine” entered into his eternal Sabbath. Oliver Sacks was a neurosurgeon and a poet, a modern renaissance man who saw connections overlooked by the rest of the medical community. The author of several books and numerous articles, Sacks spurred research into neurological disorders and inspired a new generation of neurosurgeons. Yet, for all his contributions to the medical community, what is his real legacy? How do Christians respond to secular intellectual champions, especially those who pioneer fields of intellectual work vitally significant to the Christian mission?
What do we do with Sacks?
After earning an education at Oxford and completing residency in California, Sacks moved to the Bronx. He began working with several post-encephalitic patients and tried to treat them using L-dopa (an artificial precursor to the neurotransmitter dopamine). Many of his patients, long living in a comatose state, began to awake. Sadly, the patients soon re-entered their comas, but his work led to future treatment, something certainly in line with the Christian medical agenda. Sacks continued to work as a clinician for the next several decades. His books provide valuable insight into the modern world of neurophysiology, and his career reminds the public of the value of questioning tradition and pursuing alternative answers which better fit the data.
There is, however, a dark side to such a questioning attitude. Although raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, Sacks turned away from his faith following his bar-mitzvah. His final essay, “Sabbath,” provides a glimpse into his last thoughts. In the article, he comments on his decision as a young adult never to return to the Holy Land and recalls his childhood “rupture” of religious indifference. Sacks came out as a homosexual to his parents as a teenager, and his mother scolded him harshly. Sacks recalled: “her harsh words made me hate religion’s capacity for bigotry and cruelty.” This chasm of dissonance never completely resolved itself for him. And yet, his writings on the “Sabbath… of one’s life” reveal a profound understanding that surpasses that of many believers.
What do we do with Sacks?
I unabashedly admit that I find Sacks an addicting author. His neurological insights, his endearing turns of phrase and his provoking philosophical ponderings make me consider eternal things far more than some devotionals. Something inherently true speaks to me from his writings, despite an unavoidable spiritual dissonance, and I find an articulate explanation in Justin Martyr’s philosophy of the Logos. The 19th century church historian Philip Schaff summarizes the idea: “The Logos is the pre-existent, absolute, personal Reason, and Christ is… Logos incarnate. Whatever is rational is Christian, and whatever is Christian is rational. The Logos… scattered seeds of truth before his incarnation, not only among the Jews, but also among the Greeks and barbarians…”
If true, then seeds of Logos may also be scattered among men of the current age, and perhaps Sacks is part of this harvest. True writing is rational, and consequently Christian, though its author resides in Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell.
It is an enticing dichotomy to separate writings into “right” and “wrong” based on their authors’ professed faith. Yet, the spectrum of truthfulness often requires a greater range of discernment. Many of the moral failures of the modern age were committed in the name of Christianity, and an equal number of intellectual successes were denounced by the church as heresy. When we encounter the thoughts of Dr. Oliver Sacks and other secular intellectuals, perhaps we should be more careful to critique them based on the merit of the argument, not the religious orthodoxy of the author.
