Christian bioethics in a post-christian age

Revista Romana de Bioetica

Volumn 5, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 5-19

  Engelhardt, H Tristram ^a  

^a RICE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Christian bioethics; Secular morality

Indexed keywords

EID: 77955199389     PISSN: 15835170     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. An ancestral version of this paper was presented at the VI Congresso Brasileiro de Bioética i Congreso de Bioética del Mercosur, Foz do Tguaçu, Brazil, September 3, 2005;
2. With St. Constantine the Great's recognition of Christianity, the public space became normatively Christian and remained so with few exceptions (e.g., the reign of Julian the Apostate) until the French Revolution. It is impossible to understand the history of Europe and, because of the world dominance of Europe, world history, save with reference to this decisive occurrence;
3. For an example of the radical qualification of claims to areas of privacy within which area one might think it is possible to live the religious life, one might consider John Rawls. On the one hand, he indicates that the "ecclesiastical governance" of churches need not be democratic (Rawls, "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited", University of Chicago Law Review 64 [Summer 1997], 789).
4. Yet, on the other hand, all areas of life must conform to his principles of justice. "... if the so-called private sphere is alleged to be a space exempt from justice, then there is no such thing" (p. 791).
5. It is for this reason he holds that "the principles of justice enjoining a reasonable constitutional democratic society can plainly be invoked to reform the family" (p. 791);
6. Any secular moral perspective with content is not neutral. It assumes and affirms a particular ranking or ordering of right-making conditions. One might consider, for example, the role of John Rawls' particular thin theory of the good in driving and shaping his particular account of justice as fairness. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971; rev. ed., 1999, especially 60, pp. 347-350.
7. nd ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, chapters 1 and 2. This work has appeared as Fundamentos da bioetica, trans. Jose A. Ceschin, Sao Paulo: Edigoes Loyola, 1998;
8. The term culture wars was popularized by James Davison Hunter in Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991).
9. Although this volume focuses on the culture wars in the United States, these conflicts are global, as is shown by the activities of Mohammedan fundamentalists, as well as the American incursion into Iraq.
10. See, also, Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996;
11. The gulf between Orthodox Christianity and the Christianities of the West is starkly characterized by Bartholomew I, Bishop of New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch: "The manner in which we exist has become ontologically different." Patriarch Bartholomew I, "Joyful Light", Address at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, October 21, 1997;
12. For examples of the accommodation by post-traditional Christianity to the demands of the secular culture, consider Michael J. Gorman and Ann Loar Brooks, Holy Abortion?, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003;
13. Raymond J. Lawrence, Jr., The Poisoning of Eros, New York: Augustine Moore Press, 1989;
14. John Shelby Spong, Living in Sin?, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988;
15. In the first centuries, Christians experienced themselves as strangers in the surrounding pagan culture. Christians "dwell in their own fatherlands, but as if sojourners in them; they share all things as citizens, and suffer all things as strangers. Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is a foreign country" "Epistle to Diognetus", V.5-6, in The Apostolic Fathers, trans. Kirsopp Lake, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965, pp. 359, 361;
16. It is also important for non-Christian believers to appreciate the strangeness of traditional Christianity. However, this matter is complex, for each religion has its own perspective and therefore falls beyond the compass of this paper;
17. st century. One might think, for instance, of the disputes between the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, and the independence movements on Taiwan (aka Formosa);
18. Paul Carrick, Medical Ethics in the Ancient World, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001;
19. Thomas J. Bole III and William B. Bondeson (eds.), Rights to Health Care, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991;
20. Human needs are by themselves simply a fact of the matter in the sense of what is as a matter of fact necessary for certain human functions and undertakings. One must have a normative basis through which correctly to discern in what circumstance needs generate rights and of what strengths. Moreover, one needs an account of when states may coercively enforce such rights. For example, if there is significant philosophical dispute regarding the generation of particular rights, the question then arises as to how much certainty is required to legitimate their coerced recognition;
21. Agrippa's five tropoi also include the considerations that all arguments are contextual and developed within a particular perspective, as well as a recognition of the failure of philosophy up until now to establish a single canonical account. For an overview of Agrippa's arguments, see Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers IX.88, and Sextus Empiricus, outlines of Pyrrhonism, 1.164;
22. Recognizing the limits of secular discursive moral reflection does not foreclose the possibility of a moral truth available through noetic or mystical knowledge. For a further discussion of this issue
23. see H.T. Engelhardt, Jr., The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, Lisse, Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger, 2000, chapter 4;
24. Large-scale slaughter was done on behalf of realizing that which was held in purely secular terms to be truly human. "Revolutionary justice appeals to the future as its standard. [...] For it is certain that neither Bukharin nor Trotsky nor Stalin regarded Terror as intrinsically valuable. Each one imagined he was using it to realize a genuinely human history which had not yet started but which provides the justification for revolutionary violence. In other words, as Marxists, all three confess that there is a meaning to such violence - that it is possible to understand it, to read into it a rational development and to draw from it a humane future." Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror, trans.
25. John O'Neill, Boston: Beacon Press, 1969; orig. publ. 1947, pp. 30, 97;
26. Alexandre Kojève, through his peculiar Marxist reading of Hegel, interprets Hegel as holding that history ended at the Battle of Jena (6 August 1806) with the dominance of the liberal state in central Europe. History here is understood as ideological progress, as the development of new categories for the unity of humans in political and social life. In this account, with Napoleon's victory at Jena, the end of ideological struggles is anticipated, which is the end of true history, in that liberalism will lead to a culture within which humans like animals will simply pursue the satisfaction of their immanent desires. "The disappearance of Man at the end of History, therefore, is not a cosmic catastrophe: the natural World remains what it has been from all eternity. And therefore, it is not a biological catastrophe either: Man remains alive as animal in harmony with Nature or given Being. What disappears is Man properly so-called - that is, Action negating the given, and Error, or in general, the Subject opposed to the Object. In point of fact, the end of human Time or History - that is, the definitive annihilation of Man properly so-called or of the free and historical Individual means quite simply the cessation of Action in the full sense of the term. Practically, this means: the disappearance of wars and bloody revolutions. And also the disappearance of Philosophy; for since Man himself no longer changes essentially, there is no longer any reason to change the (true) principles which are at the basis of his understanding of the World and of himself. But all the rest can be preserved indefinitely; art, love, play, etc., etc.; in short, everything that makes man happy." Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, ed. Allan Bloom, trans.
27. James H. Nichols Jr., New York: Basic Books, 1969, pp. 158-159. Remarkably, Kojève holds that "the final stage of Marxist 'communism' " was reached in the "classless" consumerist society of the United States in the late 1940's and early 1950's (p. 161);
28. Fukuyama, drawing on Kojève's interpretation of Hegel, develops the view that "the historical process rests on the twin pillars of rational desire and rational recognition, and that modern liberal democracy is the political system that best satisfies the two in some kind of balance." Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, New York: Basic Books, 1992, p. 337.
29. On the basis of this view, he pictures human history as a wagon train of different cultural perspectives on its way to the satiation of human desire and craving for recognition, which can only be fully achieved in a consumerist social democracy. "Alexandre Kojeve believed that ultimately history itself would vindicate its own rationality. That is, enough wagons would pull into town such that any reasonable person looking at the situation would be forced to agree that there had been only one journey and one destination" (p. 339);
30. It is important to note that traditional Christíanity as a rule discourages persons from seeking martyrdom, but instead requires them to accept martyrdom only when the alternative is to deny the faith. See Canon IX from the 15 Canons of Peter, Pope of Alexandria (fl. 304);
31. For example, traditional Christians refuse to affirm Jiirgen Habermas's Diskursethik because, in denying noetic knowledge and reference to matters of ultimate importance, it radically distorts the human condition. See Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1981, 2 vols.;
32. St. Athanasius the Great (A.D. 295-373) summed up the doctrine of salvation in terms of God becoming "man that we might be made God." "De inearnatione verbi dei" ş 54.3, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), vol. 4, p. 65.
33. For an account of salvation as theosis or deification, namely, of what it means through participation in the uncreated energies of God for men to become gods through grace (John 10:34-35)
34. see Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ, trans. Normal Russell, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1987, and Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man, trans. Lia- dain Sherrard, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984;
35. Theologians in the strict sense are not those who merely know about God, but those who know God. Such knowledge is the fruit of a life of asceticism and prayer. As Evagrios the Solitary from Pontus (A.D. 345-399) underscores, "If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian." Evagrios the Solitary, "On Prayer," in The Philokalia, eds. Sts. Nikodimos and Makarios, trans.
36. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware, London: Faber and Faber, 1979, vol. 1, p. 62;
37. The mystical theology at the root of the Christianity of the first millennium understands that through purification, illumination, and union with God one comes to know truly. "Therefore we do not engage in idle talk and discuss intellectual concepts which do not influence our lives. [...] the change of man's essence, theosis by grace, is a fact that is tangible for all the Orthodox faithful. [...] Therefore, the Orthodox Christian does not live in a place of theoretical and conceptual conversations, but rather in a place of an essential and empirical lifestyle and reality as confirmed by grace in the heart [Heb. 13:9]. This grace cannot be put in doubt either by logic or science or other type of argument" (Bartholomew I, "Joyful Light");
38. For an overview of the mystical theology of Orthodox Christianity in contrast to that of the West, see Metropolitan Hierotheos, The Mind of the Orthodox Church, trans. Esther Williams, Levadia, Greece: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1998, pp. 213-239;
39. A classic statement concerning the theology of the Church of the first millennium is provided by Evagrios the Solitary (A.D. 349-399). "If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian." "On Prayer," in Sts. Nikodimos and Makarios, The Philokalia , trans, and ed. G. E.HY. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware, Boston: Faber and Faber, 1988, vol. 1, p. 62.
40. Evagrios's remark reflects the Christian understanding that false worship leads to perverse moral understandings (Rom 1:18-32), and rightly-ordered true worship and repentance are required for correct moral knowledge (Rom 2:10-16). One should note that the Christians of the first millennium (St. John Chrysostom in particular) appreciated that the ability to see in one's heart the character of proper behavior requires proper worship. St. John Chrysostom, Homily V on Romans;
41. For this reason, Vattimo regards the Enlightenment and even the "nihilism" of post-modernity as a continuation of, and realization of the higher truth of, the Western Christian moral synthesis. For example, Vattimo states, "the West is secularized Christianity and nothing else. In other words, if we want to talk about the West, Europe, modernity - which, in my argument, are held to be synonymous - as recognizable and clearly defined historical-cultural entities, the only notion we can use is precisely that of the secularization of the Judeo-Christian heritage.
42. See Gianni Vattimo, After Christianity, trans. Luca DTsanto, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, p. 73.
43. As to nihilism and Christianity, he asserts, "postmodern nihilism constitutes the actual truth of Christianity." Vattimo, "The Age of Interpretation", in Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo, The Future of Religion, ed. Santiago Zabala, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, p. 47.
44. Whether intentionally or not, Vattimo transmogrifies Christianity into anti-Christianity, Christ into anti-Christ. "This is my question and problem as a Christian because when I say that 'thanks to God I am an atheist'... I have become an atheist thanks to Jesus' existence." Vattimo, "What is Religion's Future After Metaphysics?" in The Future of Religion, p. 63;
45. For traditional Christianity, academics who explain Christian dogma and attempt to find words adequate to its meaning are theologians only in a secondary or derivative sense;
46. The character of morality and theology foundationally changed in the West at the beginning of the second millennium. Morality, which had been appreciated in the light of a noetic experience of God, was recast in terms of the demands of a particular account of philosophical rationality especially indebted to particular theories of natural law. Theology for its part was articulated through a dialectic between a past revelation and the current demands of reason. On the one hand, there is held to have been a past encounter with God, which produced canonical Scriptures, as well as a set of written records considered to constitute a normative Church tradition. On the other hand, there are held to be the demands of reason, which can interpret this past encounter in terms of the requirements of a contemporary rationality. Put in this light, theology became a purely deductive science. "Theology retains the severe character of a science, advancing syllogistically from premisses to conclusion" (John Henry Newman, "Christianity and Physical Science", in The Idea of a University, New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1996], p. 208. As a further consequence, this state of affairs created a developmental academic theology cum moral theology isolated from an ongoing experience of the holy. It is important to recognize that this paradigm shift involves a recasting of what is acknowledged as exemplar knowledge, namely, direct, noetic, or mystical experience of God and reality, in favor of that which is vindicated through discursive rational reflection. To offer an analogy, this transformation of theology constitutes a change equivalent to what would be involved in transforming the empirical practice of medicine into a deductive analytic system. This change in theology altered the sociology of theological knowledge. It changed who was recognized as an exemplar knower. Holy men who through purity of heart have noetic or mystical experience were displaced in favor of academics committed to an understanding of exemplar knowledge grounded in philosophical reflection and the critical examination of ancient texts (e.g., the Bible);
47. Consider, for example, the observation of St. Isaac of Syria (A.D. 613-?) regarding noetic knowledge, namely, that those who experience God "can soar on wings in the realms of the bodiless and touch the depths of the unfathomable sea, musing upon the wondrous and divine workings of God's governance of noetic and corporeal creatures. It searches out spiritual mysteries that are perceived by the simple and subtle intellect. Then the inner senses awaken for spiritual doing, according to the order that will be in the immortal and incorruptible life. For even from now it has received, as it were in a mystery, the noetic resurrection as a true witness of the universal renewal of all things." St. Isaac the Syrian, The Ascetical Homilies, trans.
48. Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, MA: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1984, Homily 52, p. 261;
49. John Paul II, for example, argues against "the distrust of reason found in much contemporary philosophy, which has largely abandoned metaphysical study of the ultimate human questions...." Fides et Ratio,Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1998, § 61, p. 92.
50. Not only does he regard philosophy as a cardinal source of support for Christian culture, but in addition holds that "the study of philosophy is fundamental and indispensable to the structure of theological studies and to the formation of candidates for the priesthood" (§ 62, p. 93). Granted that St. John Chrysostom recognized true philosophers to be ascetics, the church of the first millennium would have found John Paul II's view puzzling
51. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971, p. 8;
52. Because the Christianity of the first millennium understood itself as embedded in Tradition, that is, in the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit, Who secures an unbroken experience of revelation, it could hold that "we keep unchanged all the ecclesiastical traditions handed down to us, whether in writing or verbally..." ("Decree of the Holy, Great, Ecumenical Synod, the Second of Nice" in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, eds.
53. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994, vol. 14, The Seven Ecumenical Councils, p. 550);
54. One might compare, for example, Daniel A. Dombrowski and Robert Deltete, A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion, Chicago: University of Illinois, 2000
55. James F. Drane, More Humane Medicine: A Liberal Catholic Bioethics, Edinboro, PA: Edinboro University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003,
56. Daniel C. Maguire, Death by Choice, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974, with John Breck The Sacred Gift of Life: Orthodox Christianity and Bioethics, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1998
57. Scott B. Rae and Paul M. Cox, Bioethics: A Christian Approach in a Pluralistic Age, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999;
58. Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery'; thou shalt not commit sodomy; thou shalt not commit fornication; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not use magic; thou shalt not use philters; thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide...." Didache II. 2, in Kipsopp Lake (trans.), The Apostolic Fathers, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965, vol. 1, pp. 311, 313.
59. nd century, a similar proscription: "thou shalt not procure abortion, thou shalt not commit infanticide" (op. cit., vol. 1, p. 403);
60. St. Basil the Great, for instance, makes it clear that abortion is to be condemned as equivalent to murder, even were the embryo not ensouled. See Letter 188. In contrast, Thomas Aquinas draws on the biological and philosophical reflections of Aristotle to erect a morally crucial distinction between the human embryo before ensoulment with the human immortal soul and the embryo after ensoulment. For Aristotle's treatment of ensoulment, see De Generatione Animalium 2.3.736a-b and Historia Animalium 7.3.583b. Aristotle also holds that As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a law that no deformed child shall live. But as to an excess in the number of children, if the established customs of the state forbid the exposure of any children who are born, let a limit be set to the number of children a couple may have; and if couples have children in excess, let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun; what may or may not be lawfully done in these cases depends on the question of life and sensation. [Politics VII.1335b20-26]
61. Given Aquinas's commitment to Aristotelian philosophy, and because Aristotle favors early, not late abortion, Aquinas speaks indulgently of Aristotle's policies in this area. See Aquinas, Aristoteles Stagiritae: Politicorum seu de Rebus Civilibus, Book 7, Lectio 12, in Opera Omnia, Paris: Vives, 1875, vol. 26, p. 484.
62. Thomas Aquinas addresses this point in Summa Theologica I, 118, art. 2, and 2-2, 64, art. 8; and Commentum in Quartum Librum Sententiarium Magistri Petri Lombardi, Distinc- tio 31, Expositio Textus, in Opera Omnia, vol. 11, p. 127. The development of this distinction between ensouled and non-ensouled embryos provides a very important illustration of how, when grounded in philosophical reflection, theology itself becomes recast in the image and likeness of philosophical concerns rather than the teachings of the Fathers;
63. It is important to recognize that the Orthodox Jewish understanding of human moral obligations distinguishes between those obligations incumbent on Jews, versus those incumbent on Gentiles, bnai- Noah. See Barach Brody, "The Use of Halakhic Material in Discussions of Medical Ethics", Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 8 (August, 1983), 317-328.
64. For example, while according to Talmudic interpretations Jews are permitted to perform abortions, the performance of an abortion by a bnai-Noah merits capital punishment. See Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 57-59;
65. One notices the indebtedness of the dominant secular culture to the Western Christian Middle Ages when, for example, one confronts the secular reflections of contemporary Confucians. See, for example, Ruiping Fan, "Reconstructioninst Confucianism in Health Care: An Asian Moral Account of Health Care Resource Allocation" Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 276 (2002), 675-682;
66. St. Timothy, Pope of Alexandria (fl. 372), in answer to a question, allowed burial when the suicide was insane. Question XIV, "The 18 Canons of Timothy, the Most Holy Archbishop of Alexandria" H.T. Engelhardt, Jr., The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, Lisse, Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger, 2000, pp. 327-329, 347.
67. See, also, St. Ambrose of Milan, De virginibus VII.32-35);
68. Moses Maimonides stresses, with regard to the obligations incumbent on the sons of Noah, that "Anyone who accepts upon himself the fulfillment of these seven mitzvoth and is precise in their observance is considered one of 'the pious among the gentiles' and will merit a share in the world to come. This applies only when he accepts them and fulfills them because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Torah and informed us through Moses, our teacher, that Noah's descendants had been commanded to fulfill them previously. However, if he fulfills them out of intellectual conviction, he is not a resident alien, nor of 'the pious among the gentiles,' nor of their wise men." Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, trans. Eliyahu Touger, New York: Moznaim Publishing, 2001, Hilchot Melachim UMilchamotehem, viii, 11, p. 582. The point is that a righteous heathen will only have a portion in the world to come if he both observes the laws given to Noah and recognizes them as divinely revealed and required. In his commentary on the Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim UMilchamotehem, viii, 11, Rabbi Touger notes, "Thus, there are three levels in the gentiles' acceptance of their seven mitzvoth: a resident alien who makes a formal commitment in the presence of a Torah court; 'the pious among the gentiles,' individuals who accept the seven mitzvoth with the proper intent, but do not formalize their acceptance; and a gentile who fulfills the seven mitzvoth out of intellectual conviction" (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, p. 583). The last genre of bnai-Noah have no share in the world to come. For a further discussion of these matters
69. see Stephan Schwarzschild, "Do Noachites Have to Believe in Revelation?" The Jewish Quarterly Review 52 (April, 1962), 297-308
70. Do Noachites Have to Believe in Revelation?" The Jewish Quarterly Review 53 (January, 1963), 30-65.
71. Tn summary, living a moral life out of rational conviction but not out of obedience to God does not suffice for salvation. This point was appreciated but radically rejected by Benedict Spinoza (A.D. 1631-1677). "Maimonides ventures openly to make this assertion: 'Every man who takes to heart the seven precepts and diligently follows them, is counted with the pious among the nations, and an heir of the world to come; that is to say, if he takes to heart and follows them because God ordained them in the law, and revealed them to us by Moses, because they were of aforetime precepts to the sons of Noah: but he who follows them as led thereto by reason, is not counted as a dweller among the pious, nor among the wise of the nations.' Such are the words of Maimonides, to which R. Joseph, the son of Shem Job, adds in his book which he calls 'Kebod Elohim, or God's Glory', that although Aristotle (whom he considers to have written the best ethics and to be above everyone else) has not omitted anything that concerns true ethics, and which he has adopted in his own book, carefully following the lines laid down, yet this was not able to suffice for his salvation, inasmuch as he embraced his doctrines in accordance with the dictates of reason and not as Divine documents prophetically revealed." Benedict de Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise, trans. R.H.M. Elwes, New York: Dover, 1951, p. 80. Needless to say, Spinoza was not alone in trying to think his way around Moses Maimonides's position;
72. The dominant secular culture takes the second of the two great commandments and isolates it from the first and greatest commandment in terms of which alone love of one's neighbor is rightly oriented. "He said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment" (Matt 22:37-38).