Ask the Thoughtful Pastor: Medical innovations that tinker with DNA, good or evil?

Ask the Thoughtful Pastor: Medical innovations that tinker with DNA, good or evil? June 27, 2016

By Thomas Splettstoesser (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By Thomas Splettstoesser  via Wikimedia Commons
Dear Thoughtful Pastor: New medical capabilities using something called “molecular scissors” that change human DNA bring hope to those with debilitating diseases, but also profound moral concerns, especially regarding designer babies for the rich.  It opens the real possibility of ultimately creating another species, Human 2.0.  

We often hear the word hope applied to Christian hope and the afterlife, but increasingly people turn to medical science with prayer as an add-on, secondary to our own efforts to prolong this life.  Interestingly, I read that many religious leaders in Europe at first opposed the use of vaccines because it would thwart God’s will.

I prefer to think that if we are indeed God’s children, He is letting us grow up and learn to deal with the consequences of our actions as we try to create an earthly paradise free from suffering.

For me, technology is almost always at least a two way street with boundless unforeseen consequences.  To my admittedly limited brain, the idea that this is all unfolding exactly as God planned it just doesn’t seem plausible.

ask-the-thoughtful-pastorI haven’t read your thoughts on these medical breakthroughs and their moral consequences in light of Christian beliefs and teaching.  I’m sure we would all love to hear from you on this topic.

Thank you again for offering thoughtful balanced responses to your readers’ questions.

Ahhh . . . flattery will get you everywhere!  But complicated questions like this . . .?

Here’s the question underlying your question: Is life with all its challenges part of God’s “unfolding” plan for humanity or is it God’s “unfolded” plan? I know I’m switching the way you used “unfolding” but there is a reason.

In a massive over-simplifying of theological thought, there are two competing schools concerning the nature of God and creation.

One is the “unfolded” God: static, completed, unchanging. This idea, the “Unmoved Mover,” may have emerged from Aristotle’s work and later codified by 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas. This theology invariably resists changes for fear they tinker with a static and perfect creation as revealed in a static text.

The other is the “unfolding” God: one intimately involved with an ever-changing world with the nature of the changing creation also changing the nature of the Creator. This would be called “Process Theology” and emerged far more recently from Alfred North Whitehead’s work. This theology tends to embrace change and the explorations of science as part of God’s creative and re-creative work.

Certainly, the idea of evolutionary development had an impact on the formation of process theological thought. But for those who may find the idea of evolution difficult to accept, I suggest we just look at our bodies and notice the consistency of one thing: change. Nothing ever stays the same, not even for one nano-second. The earth hurtles through its orbit, our blood hurtles through the circulatory system, and everything is changed, both on the micro and macro levels.

Some changes we like; others we resist with all of our might. But we cannot stop it.

Humans consistently tinker with the world around us. In my opinion, this is part of imaging God to the world. God created; humans create. All the time.

Just about every creation can be used for good . . . or for things that are indeed less good, even destructive.

So it is with medical science. I am fully aware that without advances in medicine, it is highly unlikely that two of my three children would have survived childhood. Yet, I rue some of those advances that fruitlessly extend “life” in utterly worn out bodies that are ready to greet death with grace.

Or take cosmetic surgery: Celebrity magazines periodically run features about people who have ruined their faces by excessive “fixes.” Yet, who wants to say cosmetic surgery is all bad? Countless people lead far more normal and productive lives because of the miracles, often unremunerated, wrought by dedicated surgeons who also may do the too-tight facelift on occasion to keep the coffers full.

Yes, the well-to-do will probably use current advances to seek to create their own perfect worlds. But they will inevitably find disappointment. That kind of perfection always remains a fleeting and unattainable target. Nonetheless, in their pursuits, enormous good will come as well.

Long ago, I decided that there was nothing so evil, outside the total absence of the presence of God, that a smidgen of goodness cannot be found in it. And nothing so good, other than the perfection of the Holy One, that a smidgen of evil or self-serving motive cannot be found.

It is our human duty, gifted with brains, forethought, knowledge of history and awareness of human tendencies, to seek real wisdom. We’ll stumble and fall and get back up because that is how wisdom is gained. In that pursuit, we will slowly figure out how to hold with grace the next technological innovation or medical breakthrough in such a way that we do not lose our souls in the process.


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