Continuing the Discussion
June 13th, 2006 | by Scott |If you haven’t been following the discussion from the “Stem Cell” entry. I want to bring some thoughts to the forefront. Jeff Richardson argues that we need to acknowledge the inevitability of our direction and develop consistency on some important issues:
Unrestricted personal freedom - no matter how much governmental oppression it requires - is our destiny. It is a Dickian dystopia approaching quickly where personhood will become a highly subjective classification unless moral voices can somehow reverse the trend of personal choice and the veneration of human life (as opposed to its sanctity).
Christians, to be “successful” with issues like abortion, stem cell research, GMH, cloning, etc. are going to have to go back to the drawing board and develop a consistent position on human life (biology), personhood (theology) and freedom (policy). Otherwise, little by little, we will continue to lose ground on what I believe to be a “high view” of humanity.
So, I ask you, wise reader: What does it mean to be human? How do we live as salt and life in this world? In what ways do we best love God and love His people?
13 Responses to “Continuing the Discussion”
By Scott on Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
How’s this for an answwer:
“What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be human? I cannot help but suspect that at one time in the history of thinking that people believed that it meant that we were spiritual and that we could make choices and were capable of aspiring to higher ideals… like maybe loyalty or maybe faith… or maybe even love. But now we told by people who think they know, that we vary from amoeba only in the complexity of our makeup and not in what we essentially are. They would have us think as Dysart said that we are forever bound up in certain genetic reigns - that we are merely products of the way things are and not free - not free to be the people who make them that way. They would have us see ourselves as products so that we could believe that we were something to be made - something to be used and then something to be disposed of. Used in their wars - used for their gains and then set aside when we get in their way. Well, who are they? They are the few who sit at the top of the heap - dung heap though it is - and who say it is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven. Well, I do not know that we can have a Heaven here on earth, but I am sure we need not have a Hell either. What does it mean to be human? I cannot help but believe that it means we are spiritual - that we are responsible and that we are free - that we are responsible to be free.”
Anybody know where that comes from? Jeff, I know you do.
By Jeff on Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
I did always wonder who Dysart was…
By Scott on Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
Wikipedia says it’s a small town in Fife, Scotland.
Who do you think he is referring to there?
By Jeff on Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
Can’t find anything that fits. Think he’s related to Sting’s friend, Nabokov?
By Scott on Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
Hey, I just downloaded a lecture from Christian Audio by Dallas Willard entitled “What Does it Mean to be Human?”
I’ll let you know how it is.
Dysart is the vacuum cleaner guy.
By Doug Freeman on Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
According to some today, we are not human but are decendants from monkeys. Looking at some of them i believe they have a round trip ticket.
By Jeff on Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
Uhh…I think the vacuum guy is Dyson…
Let me know on the Willard thing. He’s truly been a great influence on me.
By Jason Bybee on Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
Just letting you guys know you’re way over my head here, but I’m enjoying the parts of the conversation that make sense to me. When you get it all figured out, give me a Cliff’s Notes version, OK guys?
By Lachen on Jun 14, 2006 | Reply
Dyson is the vacumn cleaner guy. Dysart must be a distant cousin.
By Lachen on Jun 14, 2006 | Reply
Humanity is defined by God as being made in His image, for a purpose of His determination, and in bondage to sin which prevents us from attaining the life, abundant without His help. Anything less than that FULL recognition is not humanity as God (our maker, author, and Lord) intends but the wan substitutions we come up with from our lofty positions we create in our own mind.
again, just thoughts. I enjoy Willard too, though I am kind of an Oswald Chambers meets Max Lucado (the “Sweet Spot” book was outstanding) meets Lewis meets Bill Hybels kind of reader of late.
By Phil Wilson on Jun 14, 2006 | Reply
I believe that being human seems to me to be both biological and spiritual. Or perhaps better, being alive is biological and being human is spiritual. And the only way I can put it is in this description from Battlestar Galactica…
Humans created the Cylons (robots) as servants. The Cylons rebelled, were defeated in battle, and left to lick their wounds for 50 years or so. They returned (looking like humans) and kills all the humans that created them, save 50,000 who escaped.
One of the Cylons infiltrated a ship and when she was discovered, she was put into a cell and, initially to illicit information from her, was brutally gang raped by the members of that crew, until the rapes became the actual purpose and not getting information from her.
Now, then, did the crew of that ship cease to be human? Maybe. They did something that debased (dehumanized?) someone else, and in the process the members fo that crewlost the part of themselves that is good, and they sunk even lower than animals in using sex as a weapon, as a tool of destruction.
Now, that’s a parable (the episode Pegasus from Season 2, if anyone’s interested), but I think it shows this idea that being human can sometimes be a matter of choice in our actions toward each other. In the case of the Pegasus, or let’s make it Abu Ghraib prison, I do not think that humanity is irretrievably lost. However, there must be healing for the people who committed the atrocities. I think sometimes that being salt and light in the world is to expose the dark places of the human soul and experience, and allow God to work healing into those places. Where the totured can get to a point to forgive the torturer and just as importantly the torturer can forgive him or herself.
By Scott on Jun 14, 2006 | Reply
Great thoughts, Phil. It’s telling that God in Genesis 9 (after the fall) still maintains that man is made in His Image.
What was broken was not how we were made, but what we proceeded to make of our creation.
Willard says that the chief end of man is to love and serve and to be loved and served.
It all comes down to the greatest commandments, doesn’t it?
By Lachen on Jun 14, 2006 | Reply
Phil, you and my husband would have a LOT to talk about. Eccumenically, Biblically, spiritually, as well as all things Battlestar Gallatcia. It is a mix of topics that is not as rare or polarized as I once believed.