being ‘cut out’ or ‘shut out.’ You are being given an
option, an either-or choice of treatment or the rejection
of treatment. But it does come down to a choice of life
or death. Do nothing about the cancer that has invaded
you body, and you will die. Accept and receive the only
known treatment for this kind of cancer, along with its
accompanying side-effects, and you will live (longer).
The only ‘exclusion’ here is that you will ‘exclude’
yourself from life, and consign yourself to death, if you
refuse the singular treatment available to you. But, that
is your choice!”The correspondence of this analogy to the availability
of life in Jesus Christ through the Christian gospel is self-
evident, but allow me to make some observations.
The “natural man” (cf. I Cor. 2:14) wants a plurality of
options, whether it is medical treatments or ideological
beliefs. Why is this so? Because the “natural man” views
himself in the elevated position of being an autonomous
arbiter, freely choosing what he determines to be the best
option. Having deified human reason in his own cognitive
abilities and opinions, the humanistic rationalism of fallen
man insists on a “multiple-choice” from among a plurality