What Is A Christian Response To Genetic Engineering?

What do you think about genetic engineering?  Are there biblical concepts that would seem to support this or to argue against it?

Genetic Engineering

Today, scientists are making huge strides in manipulating genes and doing some amazing things.  Since genetic engineering is not mentioned in the Bible, it is difficult to determine whether genetic engineering is within the parameters of God’s will or not but many believe that it’s playing with fire.  God did give mankind dominion over the earth (Gen 1:26-30) but did God intend this to mean that we should also manipulate the genes of living organisms?  Even though He told Adam and Eve to subdue and rule over every living thing, which would necessarily include plants and animals, would this include genetic engineering?  To keep and cultivate the garden is not the same thing as keeping it and manipulating it to his own advantage is it? After the fall, things changed.  It was no Garden of Eden after the fall but does this give us permission to engineer plants and animals to our advantage?  Doubtless there is a risk to manipulating plants and animals because we are entering into territory that is still, for the most part, unexplored.  There is the risk of opening up a Pandora’s Box and suffering from unintended circumstances by manipulating forces we still do not completely understand.  Messing around with the inner workings of organisms can sometimes produce results that were never intended.  For example, altering food plants, animals, and bacteria may change what is beneficial to mankind to something that moves outside of the control of scientists.  Only time will reveal whether it is for our good or whether we’ve created a monster.  Even now the creation seems to be groaning under the weight of sin (Rom 8:22).  It’s hard to say dogmatically that genetic engineering is wrong because the Bible is silent on this but there are always consequences for our actions and we always reap what we sow but much later than we sow.  The Bible says “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Gal 6:7).

The Creation’s Intention

Everything on the earth is intended for man’s good but in actuality, it is for God Himself that all of creation came to be as it says; “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him” (Col 1:16).  Even though we are told to have dominion over the earth (Ge 2:15-20) we are only stewards and not owners.  The fact is that “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1; 1 Cor 10:26) so even we are not really our own…we were bought with a price (1 Cor 6:20).  God has warned that He will punish those “who destroy the earth” (Rev 11:18c). The Chinese are actually putting human genes into pepper and tomato plants to make them grow faster while Canadians are doing the same thing with human genes and fish.1

Engineered by God

Since the human body of the believer is said to be the temple of God and we are not really our own (1 Cor 6:19-20) I believe we should use caution in altering the genetic makeup of human beings to suit our preferences.  Yes, we should be taking care of our bodies (Eph 5:29; 1 Tim 5:23) but we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) and the psalmist wrote that God “formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13) so why mess around with God’s handiwork?  Since God’s “hands made me and formed me” (Psalm 119:73) that should be good enough. We really don’t completely understand “how the body is formed in a mother’s womb” and we “cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things” (Eccl 11:5) nor do we know precisely how God “clothed [us] with skin and flesh and knit [us] together with bones and sinews” (Job 10:11).

Conclusion

Hosea wrote “you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors” (Hosea 10:13).  I understand that this was not written about genetic engineering but the principle could apply in this case.  If we are engineering genetics for the benefit of mankind, as I think most scientists and biologists are, it could help us in the long run by giving us drought, insect, and disease resistant plants but manipulating the gene pool of human beings is a completely different issue.  That could produce a desire for a super race of human beings where prospective parents can shop and select certain characteristics that are desired in children.  To make genetic improvements of plants with the express purpose of increasing food supplies on the earth is one thing but to alter human genes to suit our preferences is an entirely different can of worms that once it is started, may be impossible to stop.  Are we going beyond what God intended for us to be stewards of the earth?  God someday will alter us in a most glorious way as it says in Colossians 3:21 that God is the one “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself” and “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).  Even “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18).  With a fallen mankind, there is no doubt that genetic engineering is a risk.  Is it one that that is worth such a risk?

Another Reading on Patheos to Check Out: What Did Jesus Really Look Like: A Look at the Bible Facts

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book  Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon

1.   Research Professor, Institute for World Religions  Lecturer, Philosophy Dept., San Francisco State University by Ron Epstein, Based on a talk presented at the AHIMSA discussion forum on March 17, 1998 and published in  Ahimsa Voices: a Quarterly Journal for the Promotion of Universal Values, 5(4), Oct. 1998, pp. 6-7.