Reflection: Disease as Spiritual Warfare: A Biochemical Geneticist's Perspective
Richard Gunasekera is Associate Dean and Professor of Academic and Research Affairs, and Professor of Biological Sciences at Biola University. He also serves on the Board of William Carey International University.
In a chapter being prepared for the forthcoming book, All Creation Groans: Toward a Theology of Disease, the author explains how infectious agents insert DNA segments into the genome of a person, causing suffering, pain, disease, and death, which is the opposite of what Jesus came to bring: “I am come that they might have life” (John 10:10). In his extended chapter he offers a scientific theory as to the origins of disease via the activity of external agents from an analysis of the genetic and DNA data revealed in the Human Genome Project and related microbiological scientific research. He postulates that genetic and other related diseases, both by transmission of inherited genes and mutations of DNA in the adult—leading to cancers and various genetic diseases—and/or viral, bacterial, and other infectious agents inserting DNA into the very genome of humans, can be considered the work of an adversary.
Dr. Gunasekera’s chapter concludes with these reflections.
Disease as Opposition to God’s Will
What better way to corrupt God’s creation of life than by distorting the very blueprint molecule of life (DNA), the core of the very human being, the heart of the cell?
What is most interesting in the case of cancer is, a) DNA corruption in otherwise good DNA sequences and b) the elusive nature of the cause for the carcinogenesis. In the case of viral infections, the virus injects its DNA or RNA into the hosts after hijacking the cells of the host. This foreign viral DNA (or RNA) can eventually get incorporated into the genome and cause havoc. These factors provide an explanation for why these diseases, which attack the very core of the blueprint of life in any cell, could be considered the direct work of the destroyer (Rev. 9:11). Scripture informs us that the evil one destroys by distorting, counterfeiting, and masquerading. Disinformation (false teaching) and deception are clearly the works of the enemy and scripture records that Satan is well known for deceiving people (Col. 2:8, 1 Tim. 4:1, Gen. 3). Perhaps cancer and genetic mutations are his ultimate weapon, caused by distorting the “truth” of the healthy DNA sequences.
Scripture states that God’s Edenic creation was perfect and good. At the genomic level this could mean a putative human genome without mutation and error. However, as the Genesis narrative records, evil came into this world when the serpent marred God’s kingdom by enticing man to rebel against God, which caused death to come into the world—the consequence God had warned the first humans about. This death now seems to be programmed into the very DNA of man.
DNA is now degenerate, leading the entire human race to experience disease and death. The 2012 ENCODE Project confirms that the 98% non-coding DNA have causality to disease which may suggest corruption of the genome by the deceiver. Hence, the causality of genetic diseases (from inherited genes or from random mutations which lead to cancer), infectious agents such as retroviruses which insert their DNA into the very genome of other organisms, causing suffering, pain, and death, could be, in turn, attributed to intentional opposition to God’s Kingdom. In other words, disease is spiritual warfare.
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