The passage of the sermon that I will post this coming Sunday is one of the many difficult passages in the books of Joshua and Judges. If you have read the book of Joshua (and Judges), you know there are several difficult stories that present ethical behavior that is challenging (at best) or completely appalling (at worst). I am going to try to address these difficulties in Joshua as we move through this book, but even as I do, we need to remember that almost all of them are secondary issues at best, so I do not plan to bring them up in the sermons. But, I also cannot just leave them unaddressed, so I will try to address them in these posts.
This first thorny issue surrounds Rahab's method of protecting the spies in her house in Jos. 2. She deceives the king of Jericho, telling him that the spies had left, when she was really hiding them on her roof. So, the question that has been debated a lot throughout the history of the Church is: What do we do with that? The NT praises Rahab for her protection of the spies, so how do we reconcile that with her deception here?
First, let me say again, this is not the point of the story at all. This is actually quite a minor detail in the story as a whole, and even the structure of the passage shows us that. The author uses a common Hebrew literary technique called a "chiasm," which looks like this:
A: Opening information to set up the story
B: Secondary detail
C: The point of the passage
B': Matching secondary detail to parallel the first
A': Closing information to parallel and close out the opening
There can be more layers in the middle of parallel information, but the point is that the center of a chiasm is the important part of the story--the point of the story, and this literary technique was a way Hebrew authors highlight the most important part of their story. This chapter follows that pattern like this:
A: V. 1a -- Opening detail telling us Joshua's assignment to the spies
B: Vv. 2-7 -- Secondary details of how they entered Jericho and were protected
C: Vv. 8-14 -- Rahab's confession of faith: the point of the story
B': Vv. 15-21 -- Secondary details of how they left Jericho and escaped
A: Vv. 22-24 -- Closing detail telling us how the spies report back to Joshua
The beginning and ending hold the passage together, so they are pretty important, but the passage is primarily about Rahab's confession of faith; not her deception. The section that contains her deception is actually the most minor of the passage. So many people get hung up on Rahab's deception and miss her glorious truth that she confesses, and we do not need to get hung up on it.
In fact, I had thought about showing the ways Christians have tried to reconcile the ethics of this passage, but that still gets us distracted from the point even of her actions themselves. If we narrow in on her deception, there is still a bigger and more important theological point: God's providence.
Church family, for Rahab's confession of faith to be genuine and for her actions to be something God uses for good, it is not crucial that we justify her deception. She was a sinner like us. In fact, she was a new believer from a pagan, Canaanite city, so, of course, we should not expect that she have all her ethics straight in her first act of faith. When we do things for God out of faith, we have mixed motives or mixed actions that often, if not always, mix some sin in with the good works we try to do for God. Does that mean God cannot use them? Not at all. Sinful or not, God can use our actions anyway, and Rahab's protection of the spies shows us this. He uses the actions of sinful men and women to bring about His glorious plans (cf. e.g. Ge. 50:20Ac. 2:23). In fact, since all He has to work with in humanity is sinful men and women, He must be able to use all our actions for His sovereign plan--sinful or not.
Certainly, we cannot use that as an excuse for sinning (cf. Ro. 6:1-2), and certainly we need to think through difficult ethical issues and try to do what is faithful to God's Word. But, the amazing grace and providence of God reminds us that even if we do that and fail, we cannot mess up God's plan; even if we do that and fail, the blood of Christ covers those sins too. So, while we should think through ethical issues and attempt to be faithful to God's Word in the decisions we make, we also can rest in the fact Christ catches us when we fall. This is basically what John says in 1 Jn. 2:1, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
In the sermon from the church service that I will post on Sunday, my congregation confessed together what true faith is from the Heidelberg Catechism, which is a 450-year-old reformed set of questions and answers. Well, that catechism also has a very good question and answer about God's providence--Question 27:
Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A. Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which He upholds, as with His hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from His fatherly hand.
Friends, we can talk about Rahab's deception and debate whether it was sinful or not (and if you want to talk about it, feel free to ask), but ultimately, what we should see in it is God's providence. He is "God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath" as Rahab confessed, which means He so rules all things that He can use our and Rahab's actions whether sinful or not. He is also the God who grants mercy, as Rahab saw, and He covers all our sins by the blood of Christ when we put our faith in Him. We can rest in that. We can try to live a faithful life and fight the battles of this Christian life as best we can resting in that truth.
But, one might respond and ask as the Heidelberg asks in question 64:
Q. But doesn’t this teaching make people indifferent and wicked?
A. No. It is impossible for those grafted into Christ by true faith not to produce fruits of gratitude.
As we will see in Rahab on Sunday, when God works true faith in our hearts, we will want to serve Him, we will want to live for Him out of gratitude. But, we will also fail in that. When we do, We have His promises in places like 1 Jn. 2:1, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
This fall at my church, I have had the pleasure of teaching an adult Sunday school class on bioethics, which is the ethics of medical decisions. It has been a great class so far, with great discussion and participation from my congregation. The class is designed to focus on practical issues that will likely come to bear on our lives personally sometime in our years and not so much on social issues, but it does still address social issues tangentially. This past Sunday what we discussed certainly does that: I began a two-week portion of the class on beginning-of-life issues. And, as God's providence would have it, a few days before I had to teach, Bill Nye decided he was going to post a video attempting to argue a pro-choice perspective. Now, to be completely honest and frank, the video is so lacking in actual, robust pro-choice argumentation that I almost skipped over writing about it. However, since Bill Nye is still popular and what he posted relates to what we discussed on Sunday, I changed my mind. But, before I discuss the video, you should watch it for yourself:
I am not going to try to critique the whole video but instead argue for why life and personhood begins at conception, which does address his argument; just not in a direct critique. There are others who have critiqued this video well enough. (See "Bill Nye the logical fallacy guy on abortion" for one such critique.) But, even though I am not going to critique his whole video, I do feel compelled to mention one thing.
Over and over again in the video Mr. Nye appeals to his listeners to "respect the facts." He emphasizes over and over again that there are scientific facts that pro-lifers need to hear and to which we need to pay attention. Yet, Mr. Nye only mentions two such "facts" in this video and both are wildly incorrect. He opens the video by saying "many more hundreds of eggs are fertilized than become humans... fertilization is not all you need; you have to attach to the uterine wall." Now, since his argument is sloppy, it is difficult to know exactly what he means, but it sounds like he is saying that hundreds more eggs are fertilized than attach to the uterus. Okay, that is fact number one, and it grossly, grossly, grossly inaccurate. It is very difficult to determine what the actual rate of implantation is, but all estimates fall between 30-80% of fertilized eggs attach (this paper estimates 70% attach/30% loss; this one also estimates 30% loss; this one estimates 25% fail to implant; and, this one estimates 20% do not attach). If we average these results, we get one out of four fertilized eggs does not attach, i.e. three out of four do attach to the uterine wall. Even if we use the lowest estimate of 30% implantation (i.e. only about one out of three attach to the uterus), Mr. Nye is still off by a factor of one hundred in his statement. Now, his entire argument is a logical fallacy, which I will get to below, but the point is that his "facts" are not facts at all but something he is either grossly misinformed about or is simply making up.
His second "fact" is that the Bible was written 5,000 year ago. Now, he does not technically say "Bible." He says, "I know it was written or your interpretation of a book written 5,000 years ago, 50 centuries ago, makes you think..." [sic] Given that pro-lifers are often Christians, one can only assume he is referring to the Bible. Well, again Mr. Nye is either misinformed or making things up, because the first books of the Bible were written in the 15th century BC, which means it began to be written about 3,500 years ago. Now, this is not as grossly inaccurate as his implantation "fact," but it still shows sloppy argumentation. If Mr. Nye wants us to "respect the facts," then perhaps he should give some and perhaps he should try to get it right when he does.
That is all I really want to say about the video directly. Again, there are good critiques written (e.g. see the one linked above). Instead, I want to argue why both Scripture and the scientific data point to life and personhood beginning at conception. Now, I have added "personhood" because most contemporary and decent pro-choice arguments have given up trying to argue for life not beginning at conception. That is because there is really little debate anymore that a human embryo is life from its earliest days. What is argued more often today is that zygotes, embryos, fetuses, or whatever term one uses are not persons and therefore do not deserve to be protected with the rights of personhood. Peter Singer of Princeton, for example, argues that a person is "A being of rational awareness--who they are existing beyond simply the physical organism." He even acknowledges that this excludes infants, but he does say that the law can protect them, if it so chooses. (Just to elaborate a little more: Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood and, therefore, "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person.") So, we need to determine where personhood begins, where life begins, and if these are the same point. (I have already written some on personhood here in response to the Kermit Gosnell case, and here from the standpoint of the image of God.)
I think we can answer these questions all at once by looking at both the biblical and scientific information. I am first going to give a quick overview of the biblical data. It is going to be fast for two reasons: 1) most who take the Bible seriously do not really question that a human life is a person from its earliest days and 2) those who do not take the Bible seriously are not going to find this part of the argument very convincing anyway. If you are of that persuasion, stick with me please. You will get educated on what the Bible says on this subject and also (hopefully) see that the scientific data agrees (when interpreted rightly, and I make that caveat that because of what I have written about data and interpretation in this series on science).
Scripture:What does the Bible say about the beginning of life? Well, Christians must admit from the start that it does not really say anything directly about where life begins. There is no statement in Scripture that says, "Life and personhood begin at conception," but there are a lot of indirect statements in Scripture that show the Bible teaches that humans beings are life and persons from the earliest days in the womb. Here are a few passages that show us this:
Ex. 21:22-25: Here we see in the OT law code that if a woman is injured in such a way that she gives birth prematurely (which would cover miscarriages) and the baby dies, the responsible party receives the death penalty. Here we see that the in utero life is as valuable as the fully developed life that caused its harm or death.
Jdg. 13:13-14: Here we are in the beginning of the story about Samson. His mother is being told that she will conceive a child that will be a judge of Israel. His mother is also told that Samson is to be a Nazarite from the womb (for what that is, see Nu. 6). As a Nazarite, there were certain things that Samson could not eat or touch because they would make him unclean. But, in this verse we learn that Samson's mother also could not eat or touch those things because they would make Samson unclean through her. So, Samson in the womb, from conception onward could potentially become unclean. But, he would become an unclean what? An unclean person. Masses of tissue cannot become unclean with respect to the OT legal code.
Ps. 51:5: Ps. 51 is a very informative passage in general. David talks about himself in the womb and he uses personal pronouns to refer to himself. And, in this particular verse he identifies as an implicated sinner from conception. Tissue cannot be a sinner, but persons are sinners. Now, it is worthy of note that David's idea of conception was probably different from ours, but it does show that from the earliest days of pregnancy, in utero babies are considered human persons in Scripture.
Ps. 139:13-16: Here David again talks about his in utero self in personal terms, and he knows that God paid special, personal attention to him from the earliest days of pregnancy onward. The Bible does not speak this way about animals, much less masses of impersonal tissue but only about persons who can have a personal relationship with God.
Jer. 1:5; Lk. 1:14-15: I will take these two together since they are similar situations. In these passages we see that Jeremiah and John the Baptists were "consecrated" (i.e. sanctified) and "filled with the Holy Spirit" in the womb. These men were regenerate (a theological term for new spiritual life being given, cf. e.g. Eze. 36:26; Jn. 3:5) from the womb. The question is a regenerate what? They were regenerate persons. Masses of impersonal tissue cannot be regenerated in theological terms.
Those are just a few examples of how the Scripture views life in the womb, and it views life in the womb as human persons from the earliest days of pregnancy onward. Now, we must admit that Scripture does not have the precision of a scientific study, but it does take us a long way back. Fortunately, God has revealed His truth in nature as well as in Scripture, and where Scripture is not as precise, nature picks up and we see that knowledge in the detailed studies of human development that modern scientific studies have revealed.
Scientific Data:What does the scientific data have to tell us about where human personhood begins? Most Christians would, of course, argue for the decisiveness of fertilization as the point where life and personhood begins, but why is that the case? Would medical information support that claim? I think so, and here is why.
In summary this is the argument: from the knowledge that we have of the human development process, fertilization is a unique, radical, and decisive event unlike any that occurs later on in development, and if one is going to assign personhood as an objective, non-arbitrary point, it must be here. Before fertilization, sperm and eggs are merely cells and do not have any possibility of developing into a full-grown human being or anything beyond themselves. Before fertilization, sperm and eggs really are part of the father and mother's bodies. But, after fertilization, the embryo is genetically unique and distinct, and he/she experiences an unbroken, continuous development unless something outside the embryo acts upon it, and at no other point does the child undergo a decisive and radical transformation into some other sort of being.
Fertilization is a process that takes about 24 hours, during which the egg's cytoplasm and sperm's nuclear contents merge in a process called syngamy and form the 46 chromosomes that define a human's physical existence. This newly formed entity is called a zygote and it is clearly genetically different from both the sperm and egg. The mitochondrial DNA matches the mother, the Y-chromosome (if it is there) matches the father, but the autosomal DNA is a completely unique genetic makeup, making the lifeform something completely new. WebMD notes (Emphasis added):
At the instant of fertilization, your baby's genome and sex are set. If the sperm has a Y chromosome, your baby will be a boy. If it has an X chromosome, the baby will be a girl.
At this point, the embryo will continue to develop towards fully independent life. This is crucial: the sperm and egg are living cells but have no possibility of independent life or life of further development (i.e. not persons), but the embryo is a new, genetically unique and complete individual that will follow human development unless otherwise interrupted by something outside itself. He/she is no longer part of the father or mother but a being all its own. The embryo is precisely not the mother's body, even though Mr. Nye and so many others keep sounding that mantra. Once fertilization occurs, the child is not a growth of cells or tissues like some kind of tumor in the woman's uterus. It is a genetically unique life that is distinct from both the father and the mother. And, it is scientific knowledge, to which Mr. Nye so often appeals, that gives us this insight. Christians and other's who are pro-life are not basing that determination based solely on Scripture but on what Scripture and scientific knowledge show us. Scripture only takes us so far (though it is far enough to protect persons in the womb), but scientific data takes us all the way back to conception. Mr. Nye is correct when he says:
You wouldn’t know how big a human egg was if it weren’t for microscopes, if it weren’t for scientists, medical researchers looking diligently. You wouldn’t know the process. You wouldn’t have that shot, the famous shot or shots where the sperm are bumping up against the egg. You wouldn’t have that without science.
But, that knowledge leads in the opposite direction of the conclusion that he (and others) is attempting to draw. Perhaps before the modern scientific knowledge about human development one could argue that the fetus is part of the "woman's body," but now scientific knowledge has shown us that from the moment of conception onward, it is not her body. It might be in her body and it might be dependent on her body for initial development, but it is not her body. It is a distinct, unique human being. (Some out there might be aware of the "violinist" argument that attempts to say that it does not matter that the baby is not part of the mother's body. I do not have the space to deal with that here and others have dealt with it adequately. For a critique of that argument, see this article.)
So, again, this is a radical transformation in which two entities (genetically different from one another) combine to form a genetically unique living human that will become a full-grown human under normal circumstances. If one is going to assign personhood not based on something external to the embryo and/or arbitrary in its development, that must be here. Other proposed points do not reflect any similar level of change within the human being or other points propose a definition of personhood that is arbitrary, at best. Let's take a look at the other proposed points. I will start at the latest points and move to the earliest (with the exception of the last, for a reason that will be explained then).
Birth: While birth is certainly a decisive event in human life, the baby undergoes no change in itself. Its location changes, but the baby does not change in any defining way. The day on which the mother happened to go into labor had no effect on the baby's ability to living independently of the mother (again, under normal circumstances) and no effect on its existence other than location. In fact, a few years ago, in The Journal of Medical Ethics, a couple of doctors argued for the validity of after birth abortions. This, of course, is the logical extension of pre-birth abortions because there is no moral or personal distinction between the unborn child and the newly-born child. Moving down the birth canal does not change the personhood of the baby. (Of course, this logical extension should lead our culture to realize killing the unborn is wrong, but unfortunately, some, like the above linked article, use that realization to argue for infanticide.) So, again, birth is an important event, but it changes nothing about the personhood of the baby.
Viability: Others suggest that viability is the radical point where personhood begins--the point where the baby could survive outside the mother. Hopefully you can see that this is as transparently false as birth as a possibility. The point of viability is quite independent of the child itself. Viability depends on medical technology. This recent paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association shows how dramatically things have changed when it comes to viability even in the past 20 years. It shows that in 1993, only 52% of infants born at 24 weeks survived. Compare that with 2012: 65% survived. The percentage increase in healthy premature infants is also striking: 47% of infants born at 27 weeks in 2012 survived without major illnesses, compared to 29% in 1993. As medical technology progresses, viability gets pushed further back in pregnancy.
Therefore, it is impossible to determine a decisive viability point in the child's development because it depends on medical technology. It is conceivable and even likely that eventually human beings will be able to develop in a lab. Furthermore, because it depends on medical technology, a baby that is viable today may not have been viable 50 years ago. Did human personhood change in the past 50 years? Or, to make it even more acute: If a mother travels form America to Cuba, a baby that is viable in the morning can become unviable in the afternoon. How does that change its personhood? Assigning personhood to viability is completely arbitrary.
Quickening: Others have suggested "quickening," which is the point at which the mother can first feel the baby move. This has historical precedence even in Christianity because hundreds of years ago (i.e. before we understood human development like we do now), it was believed by a few theologians that quickening was the point the soul was placed in the baby. But, quickening fails to demonstrate a decisive change to personhood from both a scientific and biblical perspective. From a scientific perspective, knowledge of human development shows us there is no substantial change in the child at that point, but that is simply the point at which they started moving enough for the mother to feel it. Furthermore, any mother who has had more than one baby knows that in the second pregnancy she could feel it earlier because she knew what she is feeling for. How can that affect personhood? It does not. From a biblical perspective, there is no information in Scripture about when the soul comes into existence or even if it is directly created by God or comes about by a physical process God designed. And, the above mentioned biblical data would certainly push personhood further back than quickening.
Full Nervous System Integration: Still others have suggested that personhood should be placed at the point where the fetus' nervous system is fully integrated (roughly about the 20th week of pregnancy). With this argument, rationality is made completely integral to personhood, and it is argued, then, that the fetus does not have the physical apparatus capable of rationality until this point, therefore the child is not a person until this point.
Attempting to place personhood at this point has several problems (at least). First, this argument depends on definition of personhood that overemphasizes rationality. I would first point out that to some degree "rational" is a subjective term. Furthermore, some elderly with Alzheimer's are not rational, at least not as we would define it in normal usage. Are they no longer persons? Sometimes a mental handicap makes the individual unable to be achieve rationality beyond that of an infant, so should we not consider them persons? A definition of personhood which depends heavily on rationality is dubious, at best. Second, just because the nervous system is integrated and the neurological structure for rationality is there, the fetus hardly thinks or acts rational at that time. That activity requires much more development that extends into early childhood. And, even before the nervous system is integrated, the potential is there; just at an earlier stage of development. And, finally, there is no consensus on when the nervous system is truly, fully integrated, so there is no identifiable point in time anyway. Therefore, attempting to assign personhood to the point of full nervous system integration is as arbitrary as any other point.
Implantation: Finally, we are back around to what Mr. Nye seems to suggest in his video: that implantation is the point at which life and personhood begins. (Although, again, since his argument is not very coherent, it is difficult to tell what point he is actually trying to make.) But, let's think about implantation. This generally happens 3-4 days after fertilization, and it is argued by many, not just Mr. Nye, that this is the point at which we should start to protect life, i.e. where personhood begins.
There are two parts of this argument that need to be addressed. First, those who simply say that personhood should begin at implantation commit the logical fallacy of assuming that location can somehow affect the personhood of an entity. Nothing changes in the embryo itself when it attaches, but it simply continues to develop like normal. In fact, comparing a successful pregnancy to an ectopic pregnancy shows that development does not change at all whether the baby is in the uterus or a Fallopian tube. The only thing that changes is location. How can a change of location change personhood? The answer is "It can't." (For more argumentation along this line, see this article on the SLED test.)
There is, however, another version of this argument that references the rate of implantation, which may be what Mr. Nye was attempting to argue, just with inaccurate numbers and little clarity. The argument is generally presented as follows: "Well, one in four fertilized embryos does not implant naturally, so this if it happens naturally, what is the problem with making it happen with a pill?" To this we can respond: just because something happens naturally (i.e. out of the control of the mother and father) does not make it moral for us to do it intentionally. One might simply point out that infant mortality rate in some third-world countries is one in four, so does that give parents the right to kill their newborns? And, of course, no one would say yes to that.
Both of the above versions of the implantation argument fail to demonstrate a change from non-person to person. Furthermore, even if personhood were to begin here, it would rule out almost all forms of abortion except for some forms of birth control and the so-called "morning after pills." Now, do not get me wrong, I still argue against those because life and personhood both begin at conception, but arguing for implantation as the point of personhood does not really help the major pro-choice agenda.
Individuation: There is one final point that some attempt establish personhood, which is more challenging than all the previous ones, which is why I broke the pattern of moving further back in human development and saved it for last. There is a stage in pregnancy that is often called "individuation." This is the point at which twinning is no longer possible, which is about two weeks after fertilization.
Twinning (or more precisely monozygotic twinning) is where a single embryo can split into two embryos of the exact same genetic makeup and therefore these can develop into identical twins. This is rare (three to four occurrences per one thousand births) but possible and perhaps even possible in any pregnancy (but no one is sure, see below about the mystery of this process). It is even rarer but still possible that the embryos will recombine into one embryo again. But, it is not possible, as far as we presently know, for this to occur after two weeks, which is where individuation is said to happen. So, some use this argument for the two-week mark to be the point where personhood begins. As the argument goes, we cannot claim the embryo is an individual because it could potentially become two (or more) individuals for the first two weeks. It is not an individual until that possibility has passed, it is argued. Advocates of this argument would say the embryo is a living being at fertilization but not a person because they have not individualized yet.
I think you can probably see why this is the most challenging and robust point to challenge conception for personhood. It does sound compelling at first because how can someone be a person and not an individual? Most of us would say, "Well, they cannot." But, there are some major problems with this point that I think render it unacceptable as well.
First, I would argue that twinning is extremely rare. Most embryos experience a continuous line of development from conception onward and nothing decisive happens at the two-week mark that changes that its being. While twinning may effect a change in the being, the lack of twinning does not change the being. So, for most pregnancies, there is no reason to argue that the embryo is not an individual before this point since if they do not twin, nothing decisive happens.
Second, why embryos twin or do not twin is entirely a mystery at present. No one knows if it is something genetically inherent in the embryo or whether it is forced on it from an outside source. But, those seem like the two possibilities, so let's examine both:
If twinning is caused by something genetically inherent in the embryo, then most embryos have no potential of twinning and therefore they are individuals from the beginning. And, furthermore, since it is part of the embryo's genome, could we not say that before twinning we have two (or possibly more) individuals? If it is genetically guaranteed that the embryo will twin, then we have multiple individuals in the process of development before the two-week mark, they simply have not separated yet. And, if we have multiple individuals from conception onward, then there is still no compelling reason to argue they are not persons.
If twinning is caused by something external to the baby, then just because something can force a change in an entity does not mean that entity is not an individual. That does not necessarily follow at all.
Twinning is a mysterious process, and the current state of scientific knowledge does not prove the lack of individuality in the first two weeks. At this point, one could invoke the "hunter" analogy. When a hunter sees something rustling in the bushes, any responsible hunter knows they must not shoot until they know what is rustling. Just because it is mysterious does not give the hunter the right to squeeze the trigger. This type of reasoning applies to the mystery of the twinning process. Prudence and responsibility require that we err on the side of caution, not taking the risk and hoping everything comes out okay.
In conclusion: Scripture compels us to the conclusion that a fetus is a human being and person from the earliest days, and where Scripture is not explicit, scientific knowledge comes back and shows us that there is radical change in the fetus only at fertilization, so if one is going to assign personhood not based on an arbitrary time or something outside of the child, then conception is the only identifiable, definable, objective point. All other points are extraneous definitions put on the child by others, and external definitions are subjective, not objective. And, subjective definitions are dubious, at best. If there is no authoritative, objective point, then personhood becomes defined by community (which is what Singer tries to do) or the laws that protect non-persons are defined by community. Either way, if definitions are made by the community, then a vote determines the life or death of millions. And, if that is the case, why do we get angry about atrocities like, for example, what the Nazis did? They defined personhood in such a way that Jews did not count in their community. In fact, they had a name for it: Untermensch--sub-human. Only by putting personhood and life at conception can we avoid such arbitrary dehumanizing of those made in God's image and give them the dignity and value they deserve.
"Of course, sin ordinarily tries to bag a good of some kind: people want power or pleasure or wealth or self-esteem or happiness. Their sin consists in seeking these things in hurtful ways or excessively or preeminently or even exclusively. But as human life degenerates, as people explore deeper and deeper recesses of evil, they begin to seek pleasure not in such created goods as sex or material plenty or the exercise of dominion. They seek it instead in the very dynamics of sin.... They take satisfaction from showing who is boss, from showing that no one else will legislate for them. Or they take the vandal's pleasure in the destruction of beauty and wholeness. This contrariety, as opposed to blank carelessness, is the first ingredient of sin done 'for the hell of it.'
"People who joy in evil show that some wire has gotten crossed in them; their moral polarity has switched. Such corruption climaxes, as the Roman historian Livy says in a famous statement, in the transforming of human love from a benevolent disposition to a fatal attraction. Livy is describing the debauchery of the last century of the Roman republic, but he might just as well have been describing the hunger that makers of slasher films are trying to feed. What Livy describes is the inevitable destination of uninterrupted human evil. 'Of late years,' he says, 'wealth has made us greedy, and self indulgence has brought us, through every form of sensual excess, to be, if I may so put it, in love with death.'" ~ Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin(pp. 50-1)
When my son was born, I must admit, I was not prepared for how much I would love him. I have never been a person who was fascinated by children or even had much of an interest in them. I did not hold babies, dote over them, or volunteer for the church nursery (okay, I worked it once but it was under duress). Do not get me wrong, I thought children were great, just from a distance. I actually felt guilty while Erika was pregnant because I was not as excited as I thought I should have been. Again, do not get me wrong, I was happy to know my first child was coming, but I was not nearly as excited as most other people I knew. I kept telling myself it would all change when he is born and others told me that too. And, while I knew that was true, I was still unprepared for how much I would love him and the power that love would have over me. Now, even when I go a few hours without seeing Gabriel, I want to be with him, to see his beaming smile, and to give him a hug (to all my family and friends, yes, I said it, a hug).
I say all that to attempt to demonstrate why I do not want to write this blog post right now. I do not want to think about Kermit Gosnell. I do not want to think about the atrocities he performed. I did not want to think about the atrocities performed in abortion clinics all over the world in the name of "women's rights" or "family planning" or "women's health." I have avoided writing about the Gosnell case because it hurts too much to think about someone killing my son right after he was born. Thinking about it makes my chest physically hurt, and I cannot help but think about it whenever I hear about this murderous rampage. I think about babies born, crying and terrified of this new, cold world, and then I think about someone taking that helpless human and killing them. I think about babies who need immediate care, just like my son needed immediate care when he was born, and their cries bringing instruments of death instead of nurturing love. I think, "What if that were my son?" and "How can someone be so cold and cruel to helpless, needy babies?" It hurts, and I have avoided writing about it because I want to avoid thinking about it. It is easier to avoid thinking about it. However, if I stick my head in the sand, then I am no better than the cowards in the majority of mainstream media who have avoided reporting this story. Fortunately, social media (one of its few redeeming uses) has spread this case across the Internet, even though many media outlets have been avoiding it like the plague (here, here, and here are few who have the courage to report it).
In my unwilling but persistent thoughts about this case, I have often come back to the question of why or how someone can think aborting a child or murdering the newly-born child can be acceptable. Murder is always atrocious but when it is a helpless child that needs the world to nurture it (not kill it), that question becomes even more acute. What would cause someone to take a crying, helpless baby and severe its spinal cord? What would cause someone not to feel remorse when they hear a baby's cries immediately stop and their body go limp because of an action they took? What would cause them to do it over and over again? As Plantinga says in the above quote, when unchecked, the corruption of sin eventually leads to pleasure sought in the very dynamics of sin. It led to the Roman citizens to become "in love with death," and one could say the exact same thing about America. Sure, we do not have gladiator battles anymore, but we have legalized abortion, sanctioned the death of over 40 million babies, and continue to defend it under the guise of "women's health" or "family planning." But, why is America in love with death? Why would Gosnell casually murder babies "precipitated" (i.e. born) in his office? What is the cause? I have not been able to come up with an answer. And, Plantinga is helpful here too:
Inquiring into the causes of sin takes us back, again and again, to the intractable human will and to the heart's desire that stiffens the will against all competing considerations. Like a neurotic and therapeutically shelf-worn little god, the human heart keeps ending discussions by insisting that it wants what it wants.
The trouble is that this is only a re-description of human sin, not an explanation of it--let alone a defense of it. Our core problem, says St. Augustine, is that the human heart, ignoring God, turns in on itself, tries to lift itself, wants to please itself, and ends up debasing itself... the person who curves in on himself, who wants God's gifts with God, who wants to satisfy the desires of a divided heart, ends up sagging and contracting into a little wad....
Moreover, even when we have sorted and classified the motives of a sin, we still haven't fully explained it. Why not? The reason is that to identify a motive is to discern only what pushes a person in the direction of some act, not why he actually commits it. We still do not know why a person succumbs to the motive. After all, lots of people feel motivated to steal others people's possessions but manage to avoid giving in to these motives.... The fact is that we know more contexts than motives of human evil, and we know more motives than causes, we almost never know all three... Only God knows the percentages in these matters. Only God knows the human heart. (pp. 62-3)
Only God knows the deep, dark recesses of Gosnell and other abortionists' hearts. We can identify motives and contexts in which these people might make their decisions, but why they choose to act when others do not is a mystery. Even Paul admits this, calling it the "mystery of lawlessness." (And, if I am honest, I have to admit that it is only by God's grace that I have not moved in the same direction as Gosnell or any of the others. God knew my deep, dark sin--indeed, He still knows it--and replaced the stone I mistakenly called a heart with the true thing. One thing I need to remember in my rage is that Gosnell is not beyond the power of the gospel. If God could move my heart, He can move his.)
Even though an actual cause may beyond my ability to assess, I think I can give the context, or at least part of the context, in which these decisions take place. In short, it is the philosophical move away from inherent value in humans (i.e. because we are made in the image of God) to functionalism. Functionalism is the idea that rights come from a set of criteria that a human (or something else like dolphins) has to meet in order to be considered a person. The argument proceeds like so: First, the assertion is made that persons (not humans) deserve rights. Second, a distinction is drawn between "humans" and "persons" based on a set of criteria (e.g. rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness), which is, of course, debatable and largely determined by the opinions of a few. Finally, if the human (or something else) meets the set of criteria, then they are said to be a person and deserve rights. If they do not, then they have no rights (or at least no rights equal to the rights of persons). This distinction between "human" and "person" based on a set of criteria gives us the context for abortion. One can (and indeed our culture has) narrow the criteria for personhood to exclude the unborn. When something is a "fetus" and not a "baby" (which suggests personhood), then the rights of the person (the mother) trump the rights of the non-person (the baby) and it becomes okay to "terminate" the pregnancy. As Mary Elizabeth Williams (about whom I have written in the past) has argued, "...a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She's the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always." (Emphasis added) She calls the unborn baby a "human life" but did you catch the adjective at the end (I hope so; I italicized it)? The "non-autonomous entity" does not have the same rights as the mother. Why? Because of the distinction drawn by functionalism. Being human is not enough.
Unfortunately, functionalism does not stop at the general abortions pro-life advocates are used to protesting. This road leads right to Gosnell and beyond. Peter Singer (professor of bioethics at Princeton!) has argued that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood and, therefore, "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person." Singer is not the only one. A few Australian ethicists have argued for "after-birth abortions" on the basis of functionalism and newborns lacking personhood. This, of course, is the logical extension of pre-birth abortions because there is no moral or personal distinction between the unborn child and the newly-born child. Moving down the birth canal does not change the personhood of the baby. (Of course, this logical extension should lead our culture to realize killing the unborn is wrong, but we are a culture "in love with death.") According to functionalism, babies still lack the criteria necessary for personhood. They are, at best, "potential persons." If you make a distinction between "person" and "human" and then set up a (arbitrary) set of criteria to qualify as a person, then you end up with Gosnell, Singer, and others like them. And, do not make the mistake of thinking these ideas are simply in the "high academic" circles. Planned Parenthood has argued that the fate a baby born in a botched abortion (i.e. breathing, crying, and fighting for life just like the ones Gosnell murdered) should be determined by the mother and physician. "Personhood" is a linguistic sleight-of-hand used to exclude some humans from the protected class, and it does not stop with infants. When a list of criteria has to be met and that criteria is determined by society, then anyone is in danger (especially the inconvenient, like the mentally handicap and degenerating elderly). This move has been done in the past and has been used to defend genocide, slavery, sex-trafficking, and all other sorts of human atrocities. The Nazis had a word for it: Untermensch, "sub-human." And, it leads cultures into downward spirals, like Plantinga describes above, which eventually end with a people who are "in love with death." Only a philosophical and presuppositional commitment to the inherent rights of a human because they are made in the image of God will place us in a context where abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are unacceptable. Oh sure, we could make abortion illegal, but no progress will be made in relieving the demand for abortions until culture starts seeing humans as made in the image of God and inherently deserving of "unalienable rights" which have been "endowed by their Creator."
Now, about now you might be thinking, "What exactly does it mean for a human to be 'made in the image of God?'" That is a good question and it is one that I will address next week, for this post is already too long.
