What motivates them to do it? An individual's motivation arises from many sources, of course, but what are the deep-rooted tacit assumptions that impel a man or a woman to do what medical professionals are doing today as they seek to mitigate the misery of so many sufferers around the world?
I can't prove it, but I believe that the impetus that drives these men and women all across the globe can be traced back to a passage in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 35-40 where Jesus instructs His followers as to how He wants them to treat the sick, the weak and the poor:
[For] I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me. Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger and invite you in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King [Jesus] will answer and say to them, 'Truly, I say to you, to the extent that you did it to ... even the least of these, you did it to Me.'This was a revolutionary way to see one's responsibility to other people in antiquity. Other than among some Jews, there really was nothing like it in any ancient society. The idea that anyone had a moral obligation to the “least of these” was a uniquely Christian idea rooted in the teaching of Jesus Christ.
The desire to meet this obligation toward "the least of these" provided the motivation for hospitals, orphanages, almshouses, child labor laws, state welfare, charitable organizations, human rights, etc., all of which eventually emerged first in the Christian West.
In the Graeco-Roman world, by contrast, the poor and weak were often treated with contempt. It was a brutal existence in which human life was very cheap, and the life of the weak and defenseless cheaper still.
In a world which has no concept of the Judeo-Christian God it makes sense to see life this way. This is why nations which officially adopt atheism - communist and fascist - are often murderous and cruel. In the absence of God men are just ciphers, animals to be herded, manipulated and exploited in whatever way benefits those who have power over them.
The 19th century atheist Friedrich Nietzsche saw this clearly. He admired the Roman pagans for their cruelty and their love of greatness and power. He wrote that,
To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle .... Without cruelty there is no festival.and this:
Those who are cruel enjoy the highest gratification of the feeling of power.Nietzsche disdained Christian morality, calling it "slave morality." He admired what he called "master morality" which differed from slave morality in that master morality values power and pride whereas slave morality values qualities such as empathy, kindness, and sympathy.
Nietzsche correctly recognized that no secular philosophy offers its adherents any warrant for empathy, kindness and sympathy, especially when directed toward the weak and the poor.
Most secular people, for instance, accept the evolutionary account of man's origin, but evolution is all about survival of the fittest, not the survival of the weak and sickly. Darwin himself was troubled by the recognition that caring for the weak was not in the best interest of the human species. It enhanced neither fitness nor survival.
Secular folk might choose to care for the unfortunate, to be sure, but doing so is simply a matter of personal preference. There’s no duty to do so, no obligation. If they were to treat the sick, weak and poor cruelly there’s nothing in their worldview to tell them that they’re doing anything wrong.
If they do think it’s wrong they’re actually piggy-backing on Christian assumptions about human worth. Nothing in the atheistic worldview obligates one to care for the sick, and nothing in atheism condemns one's refusal to care for them.
Christians care for the weak, the poor and the oppressed because, they believe, every person carries the image of Christ. To care for the sick is to care for Christ.
According to historian Tom Holland writing in his best-selling book Dominion, when a plague broke out in Rome in 165-180 A.D., possibly smallpox, many fled the city leaving the sick to fend for themselves. The Romans were astonished that many Christians stayed behind to nurse those who suffered, some also contracting the disease.
The amazing thing to the Romans was that the Christians were complete strangers to those they cared for.
A century later another pestilence spread from Africa throughout the Mediterranean world. On Easter Sunday in 260 AD, Bishop Dionysius of Corinth praised the efforts of the Christians, many of whom had died while caring for others during the outbreak. He said:
Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves, and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains.The Roman Emperor Julian, a 4th century ruler who despised Christianity and who yearned to restore the ancient pagan rites in Rome, was bewildered by the devotion to the poor manifested by the Christians:
How apparent to everyone it is, and how shameful, that our own people lack support from us, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galileans [Christians] support not only their own poor, but ours as well.Julian perhaps had in mind people like Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, two wealthy, well-educated brothers in the 4th century who dedicated their lives to helping the poor.
Basil become bishop of Caesarea in what is today eastern Turkey, and, in the midst of an awful famine in 369, built what was essentially the first hospital. It was actually a small city, and the poor were welcomed and treated by Basil himself who gave refuge and care, even to lepers, greeting them with a kiss.
No matter how disgusting and abject the sufferers were, Basil said, Christ was in them.
His brother Gregory became bishop of Nyssa, also in present-day Turkey, and became one of the strongest opponents of slavery in the ancient world.
Among the ancients it was an accepted and common practice to simply abandon unwanted babies by the roadside, leave them on garbage piles, or to dump them down drains. Some people would rescue the infants to raise them as slaves. Females were often raised to be sold to brothels.
The practice was taken for granted, except in Jewish enclaves, until the emergence of Christianity.
One of the most influential adversaries of the practice was the elder sister of Basil and Gregory, a woman named Macrina, who would rescue the abandoned girls and take them home to raise as her own daughters.
The standard toward the sick, the poor, the slave and the defenseless reinforced by Basil, Gregory and Macrina was incomprehensible to their pagan contemporaries, but it was how Christians acted because they saw every person as bearing the image of Christ.
As Christianity gradually spread throughout the West, the Christian attitude toward the sick and poor spread as well. Even those like the atheist surgeon Dr. Rieux, the hero of Albert Camus' novel The Plague, who in the story strives at great personal cost to himself to help Algerians victimized by an outbreak of bubonic plague, are living off the capital of a Christian understanding of the human person. Nothing in Rieux's atheism provided any ground for his devotion to the dying.
Those who today are giving so much, risking so much, to help the victims of Covid-19 are following in the train of centuries of Christians who were themselves animated by Christ's words in Matthew 25. Even if some of today's healers consider themselves secular or atheistic, even if they are personally hostile to Christianity, they have still, perhaps without realizing it, adopted for themselves an attitude toward the distressed and sick which is Christianity's gift to the world.
But whether or not they realize where their roots lie these men and women are indeed true heroes.