This Mortal Flesh: Incarnation and Bioethics

By Brent Waters

Although a proper concern for health is compatible with Christian faith, recent and anticipated advances in extending human longevity are often based on philosophical presuppositions and religious values that are adverse to core Christian beliefs and convictions. In this solid text, theologian and ethicist Brent Waters reflects on the formation, practice, and meaning of the Christian moral life in light of selected bioethical issues. Theologically grounding his reflections on the doctrine of the incarnation, Waters considers issues such as biotechnology and physical/cognitive enhancement, reproductive technology, human genetics, embryonic stem cell research, and regenerative medicine. He also examines the "posthuman project," exploring what it means to be human in light of the denial of mortality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781441210913

Brent Waters

Brent Waters is Jerre and Mary Joy Stead Professor ofChristian Social Ethics at Garrett-Evangelical TheologicalSeminary, Evanston, Illinois, and the author of TheFamily in Christian Social and Political Thought,This Mortal Flesh: Incarnation and Bioethics, andFrom Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology andTechnology in a Postmodern World.

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© 2009 by Brent Waters

Published by Brazos Press

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.brazospress.com

Ebook edition created 2019

Ebook corrections 03.13.2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4412-1091-3

Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

To Ronald Cole-Turner

Contents

Cover    1

Half Title Page    2

Title Page    3

Copyright Page    4

Dedication    5

Preface    9

1. How Brave a New World? God, Technology, and Medicine    15

2. A Theological Reflection on Reproductive Medicine    49

3. Are Our Genes Our Fate? Genomics and Christian Theology    61

4. Persons, Neighbors, and Embryos: Some Ethical Reflections on Human Cloning and Stem Cell Research    77

5. Extending Human Life: To What End?    91

6. What Is Christian about Christian Bioethics?    115

7. Revitalizing Medicine: Empowering Natality vs. Fearing Mortality    131

8. The Future of the Human Species    149

9. Creation, Creatures, and Creativity: The Word and the Final Word    167

Notes    185

Bibliography    197

Index    203

Back Cover    206

Preface

The purpose of this book is to encourage and assist Christians to reflect on the formation, practice, and meaning of their faith in light of selected bioethical issues. In many respects, medicine or healthcare serves as a surrogate religion within late modern society. Although a concern for health is compatible with Christian belief and practice, recent and anticipated advances, for instance, in extending longevity and enhancing performance are often based on philosophical presuppositions and religious values that are inimical to core Christian convictions. Consequently, the church must have some critical awareness of these presuppositions and values to counter their corrosive influence on the formation and enactment of the Christian moral life. The critical apparatus used throughout the book is to employ and explicate the doctrine of the incarnation in examining a range of selected bioethical issues. Each chapter represents an exploration into what it means to take mortal and finite bodies seriously, since they have been affirmed, vindicated, and redeemed by God in Christ, the Word made flesh, particularly in light of current attempts to overcome the limits of finitude and mortality. In attempting to overcome these limits is medicine unwittingly initiating a new age of Manichean disdain for the body, Gnostic search for immortality, and Pelagian quest for perfection? In addressing this question, the tone of this inquiry is neither prescriptive nor imperative, but interrogative, encouraging the reader to pursue further study and reflection.

The first chapter focuses on the convergence of biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, and medicine in developing various physical and cognitive enhancements. These enhancements are needed to augment individual autonomy and mobility as the premier late modern values. Moreover, the underlying premise for such enhancement is that humans should use technology to make themselves better than human in order to develop and take advantage of their full potential. Although these enhancements purportedly offer longer, healthier, and happier lives, I argue that they represent an implicit loathing of the body, and, more importantly, the finitude and mortality it represents. In response, I contend that such loathing is unwarranted, for it is as mortal and finite creatures that God in Christ affirms, vindicates, and redeems human beings.

The following chapter initiates a series of investigations of specific issues that cumulatively disclose healthcare as the salvific religion of late modernity, and medicine as the principal means of achieving its proffered salvation. Chapter 2 concentrates on reproductive technology. It begins by examining the problems of infertility in the Old Testament, and contending that the problem at issue there is not identical to what is portrayed as its late modern counterpart that can be rectified through recourse to various reproductive technologies. In reaction to the claim that autonomous persons have the right to pursue their respective reproductive interests, utilizing whatever collaborative and technological assistance might be required, I argue that Christians should think about the vocation of parenthood in respect to their witness of offering hospitality to children instead of correcting the problem of infertility.

Chapter 3 examines recent developments in human genetics and their promising medical applications. Although these developments are admittedly beneficial, the popular perception of genes determining an individual’s fate should be resisted, to avoid the prospect of genetics becoming the new astrology. In countering genetic fatalism, I examine the relation between Christ and destiny and how it might be applied to the relation between genetics and medicine.

The next chapter visits the highly controversial issue of human embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. It is argued that the current debates over the personhood of embryos are not productive, since they cannot relieve the current political gridlock over the moral status of the human embryo. As an alternative for public moral debate, I propose that embryos should be regarded as neighbors. Subsequently, I discuss selected ethical implications and suggest public policy guidelines governing research and the role Christians might play in their formulation.

Chapter 5 assesses current and anticipated developments in regenerative medicine. The principal argument is that this revolutionary movement in healthcare is premised on the portrayal of aging as a disease that can and should be treated aggressively. If aging is a disease that can be treated, however, then it can also presumably be cured, a presumption that is tantamount to waging a war against mortality. Winning this war, however, effectively requires humans to aspire to become posthuman. In response, I argue that such an endeavor is futile, since it is based on a corrupt portrayal of Christian eschatology in which immortality is achieved by rendering death mute. In contrast, Christians allow death to speak but do not grant it the final word, since they are resurrected into the eternal life of the Triune God. The following chapter builds upon this inquiry by claiming that regenerative medicine and, more broadly, the posthuman project are based on the misleading assumption that the human condition can best be relieved by using technology to transform mortal flesh into immortal data. In contrast, I contend that genuine hope is grounded in the incarnation in which the Word was made flesh.

Chapter 7 asserts that the posthuman project generally and medical attempts to radically extend longevity in particular stem from the unreasonable presupposition that death is unfair and irrational. Following Hannah Arendt, natality and mortality are the principal brackets that delineate and define the human condition. Late modernity’s fixation on the latter to the detriment of the former distorts social and political ordering by asserting the tyrannical control of the present generation over both past and future counterparts. Such tyranny is in play in posthuman rhetoric in its advocacy of technologies that are designed to extend personal survival for as long as possible (perhaps forever). In contrast, Christians consent to their mortality, which enables them to be self-giving to future generations. This more just intergenerational relationship is suggested by the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The following chapter continues this inquiry by criticizing the posthuman project as a combination of nihilism and Pelagianism, the will to power combined with a desire for perfection, however ill conceived such a notion might prove to be. In this respect, posthumanism is a classic example of St. Augustine’s understanding of sin as disordered desire. In response, I maintain that properly ordered desire rests in aligning the human will with God’s will, however imperfectly it is perceived and practiced, and that perfection lies in eternal fellowship with the Triune God as an eschatological promise that is received as a gift of grace rather than attained through the technological transformation of the human species.

The final chapter examines the ultimate late modern hope of achieving immortality by transforming human identity into data that can be stored and downloaded into robotic or virtual reality hosts. I argue that this hope stems from the prevalent, but mistaken, late modern belief that information is superior to narration, that the image has supplanted the word. This supplanting is problematic for Christian faith, since the gospel is a narration of God’s judgment and grace rather than the conveyance and manipulation of divine information. Consequently, Christians need to recover the centrality of the Word, that their lives, as mortal and finite creatures, may be conformed to Christ.

The book consists of material that has been published previously and lectures delivered over the past few years. Much of the material has been substantially edited to update pertinent information and to avoid redundancies, although some key arguments or descriptions are repeated to maintain the flow of particular chapters. Chapter 1 is a highly condensed version of the Harry C. Vollmar Lectures that were delivered in Bay View, Michigan. Chapter 2 appeared originally as an article in New Conversations (2002), and an edited version is included with the permission of the publisher. Chapter 3 was delivered initially as a lecture at the Creative Learning Institute in Rochester, Minnesota, and a similar version was delivered at St. Andrews College, Laurinburg, North Carolina. Chapter 4 was delivered originally as a lecture at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Wauwatosa, and similar versions were delivered at International College, Naples, Florida; Grove City College, Grove City, Pennsylvania; and the De Pree Leadership Center, Pasadena, California. Chapter 5 was delivered initially as a lecture at Hong Kong Baptist University and subsequently published in King-Tak Ip, editor, The Bioethics of Regenerative Medicine (Springer, 2009). An edited version is included with the permission of the publisher. Some material is also adapted from my book From Human to Posthuman, published by Ashgate. Chapter 6 appeared originally as an article in Christian Bioethics 11:3 (December 2005), and an edited version is included with the permission of the publisher. Chapters 7 and 8 were delivered initially as lectures at Trinity International University, Bannockburn, Illinois, and reprinted as articles in Ethics and Medicine 25:1 (summer 2009) and 25:2 (fall 2009) respectively. Edited versions of these articles are included with the permission of the publisher. Chapter 9 was delivered originally as a lecture at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois.

I am grateful to Steve Ayers at Baker Publishing Group for his initial encouragement to pursue this project, and I am indebted to Rodney Clapp, editorial director of Brazos Press, who has helped clarify the tone and scope of the book throughout its development and eventual completion. Jeremiah Gibbs, a doctoral student at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, has served ably as my research assistant, often going beyond the call of duty, and I am particularly thankful that he took on, with remarkable good humor, the odious chore of compiling the index. I am also obliged to Dean Lallene Rector and President Philip Amerson of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary for granting me a sabbatical to complete the necessary writing and editing, and more broadly for their continuing support and encouragement. I have been blessed with good students and colleagues over the years who have been generous with their time in conversing with me on a number of topics addressed in this book, especially Dong Hwan Kim, Jason Gill, Sondra Wheeler, Robert Song, Ben Mitchell, Chris Hook, George Kalantzis, Steve Long, and David Hogue. I have benefited greatly from their keen observations and critical comments. As always my wife, Diana, patiently endured my preoccupation with the topic of this book, serving as a constant reminder that vulnerable and finite people are bound together through strong and enduring bonds of love. Finally, the book is dedicated to Ron Cole-Turner, to acknowledge both our long collaboration on a number of projects and publications pertaining to bioethics and, more importantly, our equally long friendship. He will no doubt quarrel with a number of claims I make in the following pages, but it is largely his work that prompts me to think about bioethics in light of core theological convictions, and I hope these essays will invite further conversations.

    1    

How Brave a New World?

God, Technology, and Medicine

I rarely mention bioethics in this chapter. Rather, technology is the principal focus of my inquiry and exposition. To understand the import of contemporary healthcare, the dominant formative role of technology cannot be ignored. This is the case not only because healthcare is delivered increasingly through high-tech treatments and devices, but that arguably technology is the ontology of late modernity. Consequently, bioethical issues are embedded within this ontology and cannot be separated from a late modern culture that places its hope in the technological mastery of nature and human nature. In this chapter I examine some selected aspects of this drive toward mastery and provide a critical and interpretive framework for addressing a range of bioethical topics in subsequent chapters.

What Is This New World?

In the opening paragraph of Brave New World, we encounter the motto of the book’s fictional World State: COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.1 Huxley describes how various technologies are used to achieve these ambitious goals. Sexual pleasure and procreation have become entirely separated. Babies are conceived and gestated artificially in hatcheries, where they are also genetically engineered and socially programmed to conform their behavior to a rigid caste system. Since the possibility of pregnancy has been removed, individuals are free to have as many sex partners as they might choose; marriage and family have been effectively abolished.

The drug soma is readily available and taken frequently. It amplifies pleasurable experiences and emotions while blunting their negative counterparts, thereby preventing depression and antisocial behavior. There is an abundance of leisure time to take advantage of entertaining diversions such as the feelies, a cinematic experience that adds tactile stimulation to the film’s visual and audio effects. At the end of life, hospitals offer euthanasia services that proffer a death free of pain and anxiety.

Not everyone, however, is included in this utopia. There are savages who have chosen not to partake of these technological blessings. They are confined to reservations so that their Luddite superstitions will not contaminate the welfare of the larger and more progressive society. They are regarded as a public nuisance and an enemy of the state who must be monitored and sequestered.

Except for the savages, the inhabitants of this brave new world are happy, healthy, and content. Their lives are largely free of physical pain and emotional stress. They are spared the expense and burden of childrearing, and face the prospect of an easy death. Yet there is a price to be paid, for it is also a world virtually devoid of passion, much less love, a world in which freedom has been debased to little more than self-indulgence. More troubling still is that Huxley’s fictional world is not all that different from our own late modern world.

Brave New World is a remarkable book, given that it was written in 1932. The point is not to assess Huxley’s predictive abilities. Many of his predictions were simply wrong. Babies, for example, are not born in hatcheries. What Huxley perceived correctly was that the approaching development of biomedical technologies would have a profound influence in shaping social institutions and political structures. When sexual pleasure is separated from procreation, there is little need for marriage and family. The desire to avoid pain and suffering makes euthanasia an attractive option. Physical and mental health can be improved with drugs and other medical interventions.

What Huxley perceived with great clarity is that technology forms the patterns of daily life, as well as the values and convictions of the people who live out their lives within these patterns. Technology requires that the meanings of community, identity, and stability are defined in a particular way. To think about technology is to ponder the question of our very being as late moderns: who are we, and what are we aspiring to become? Consequently, Huxley’s book may serve as a mirror that both clarifies and distorts these questions.

A similar sentiment is captured in George Grant’s adage, In each lived moment of our waking and sleeping, we are technological civilisation.2 What Grant means is something more than the fact that late moderns spend a great deal of their time in the company of machines and gadgets. It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine what it would be like to live in world devoid of any objects crafted by human beings. We cannot define who we are or express what we aspire to become in the absence of technology. The question posed by Grant, however, is, What are the underlying values and convictions that are operative in placing our confidence in technologies that purportedly enable us to live better lives?

To answer that question we must first turn our attention to that troubled philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. According to Grant, There is no escape from reading Nietzsche if one would understand modernity.3 His words raise to an intensely full light of explicitness what it is to live in this era.4 He is, as characterized by Joan O’Donovan, the premier seer and conscience of the late modern world.5 There are many aspects of his thinking that warrant examination, but a brief summary of his idea of the historical sense will suffice.

Nietzsche’s chief complaint with his fellow philosophers is that they waste their time contemplating an eternal Good that simply does not exist, but is a fantasy projected upon an indifferent world. All we have is a history we have constructed, and a future that we think we want to construct. Human beings—both individually and collectively—are little more than bundles of either aggressive or passive wills. It is this will to power, rather than any moral or spiritual notions of the Good, that defines who we are and what we aspire to become. And as Nietzsche’s astute interpreter Martin Heidegger has observed, it is through technology that the will to power is effectively asserted.6 To return to the motto of Huxley’s brave new world, we construct our communities and identities, and it is the sheer power of our will and what we will that provide the stability for undertaking these construction projects.

Community

The will to power is asserted first and foremost in the attempt to master nature. Natural resources are extracted from the earth and transformed into energy or artifacts. Cities increasingly dominate the global landscape and are connected by elaborate transportation infrastructures and communication networks. The natural habitat of late moderns is largely one of their own fabrication. Their corporate identity is that of homo faber—the creatures who construct a reality that they will into being through the power of their technology.

In constructing our communities the constraints of time and place are increasingly eased and ignored. Many communities are now comprised of people who are not in close geographic proximity to one another. The communities that we find most meaningful are not necessarily the ones we were born into, but those we choose to join or help create. We are born, for instance, in specific towns and countries, but that does not preclude the possibility of frequently relocating or emigrating.

Yet nowhere is the growing irrelevancy of time and place more apparent than in the changing patterns of how and when we work, and the widening gap between where we work and where we reside. Quite a bit can be accomplished without having any face-to-face contact with another person, at a time and location of our choosing. Imagine, for example, that I need a new laptop computer. While on a trip in a hotel room late at night I order a computer online and request delivery on the day I will return home. In the few minutes that it took me to complete this task, I initiated a series of global transactions. Although the headquarters of the company from which I purchased the computer is located in Texas, the server hosting the Web site is in Vancouver. An office worker in Dublin reviews and processes my order. The hardware and software were manufactured in such places as Bucharest, Seoul, and Taipei. My computer is assembled in Shanghai and air-freighted and delivered to my door at the