The Secular–Sacred Divide in Medicine
Oxford Medicine Online October 1, 2018 Michael J. Balboni, Tracy A. Balboni
Modern Western consciousness is built on a series of fundamental splits—between body and soul, science and revelation, immanence and transcendence—that leave no unity between opposing spheres. Medicine, as a social institution, aligns with the side of these divides that excludes religion. This dualistic thinking shapes social structures that privatize religion, secularize time and space, and strictly separate church and state.