Yesterday I participated in a workshop titled Faith on the Edge: Christian Ethics in Fertility, Birth Control, and Genetic Engineering presented by Dr. Robert W. Weise of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. In this series of posts, I will work through the many insights gained at the workshop.
Before we can make decisions about the proper and improper use of biotechnology, we must first frame our thinking. For Christians we begin by going back to the first chapter of Genesis. The foundation for our thinking is that God is the Creator of all there is and we are His creatures. In other words, we cannot hope to make sense of the ethical dilemmas presented by modern technology until we get the Creator – creature distinction right.
Many if not most of the concerns raised over embryonic stem cell research, cloning, assisted reproductive technologies, genetic manipulation and the like stem from the inversion of this distinction. Simply put, too often these technologies are tools for man to supplant God.
Continuing in Genesis, we find examples of the proper and improper use of technology. In Genesis 6 God commands Noah to "Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch" (Gen. 6:14). The purpose of the ark was to preserve life and thus it was built by man for the glory of God. Contrast this to the account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. "'Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth'" (Gen. 11:3-4). Here, we have the misuse of technology for the glory of man.
In sum, the first step in rightly framing our thinking about biotechnology and its uses is to remember that God is the Creator and we are His creatures.
Next: The human creature: fearfully and wonderfully made.
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