Thursday, April 07, 2005

An Argument for Life

First, let me apologize to Brant for any inference that he represents the opposite of my views. My discussion of the Schaivo issue has been broad, both on blogs, in comments, and in personal conversations. But online, Brant is the only one I've referenced. My characterization of certain views should not be directly linked to Brant's views. Brant has been very willing to allow me to engage the conversation.

Second, it is a tremendous reminder of how difficult it is to communicate in writing and a reminder that I am an amateur and apologize as well for statements that are not well thought through and are offensive in ways that I hadn't imagined.

Now for an argument for life.

As I've studied Abraham lately (the patriarch of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity found in the middle chapters of the book of Genesis), I discovered that the Gospel is in many ways the very offer of life and that faith is the willingness to release control over our situations. As applied to Schaivo, it may very well be a question of trusting God with the life that He has given. It is the ultimate release of control. The fear of having that much loss of control may be at the very heart (or nearly so) of the nature of sin.

The engaging question: Does life come anywhere but from God? Even with loss of control, should we leave the issue of life in God's hands?

The question would have to be engaged at a personal level where we can mostly agree and that probed at the extreme.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your graciousness and understanding. You are very much an encourager, and this is because of stuff like this -- you keep your ego in check. I want to be like that.

There certainly are difficult gray areas in life and death issues. Technology presents more and more of them; our ability to dramatically prolong life is relatively new.

The Schiavo case does, I think, give us a cultural touchstone for discussing where we truly are with regard to the very basis of human rights. Academics who spurn God use "elegant contrivances" to define why autonomous person A "should" live, while disabled person B "should" die.

Should Christians of understanding, like Robert George at Princeton, call those contrivances for what they are? He holds a very prestigious chair, the Robert McCormick for Jurisprudence (formerly Woodrow Wilson's) is enormously credentialed, respected and influential because of his erudition, and also dares to use the word "evil".

Like C.S. Lewis did. That Hideous Strength is becoming more prescient by the day.

George is called uncivil for things like acknowledging evil. I'm glad his clear thinking cuts through. Salt is a preservative.