Life is not always Black & White

Over the past week or so a couple of articles have cruised past the ol' browser window having to do with the topic of "Death with Dignity" or "Doctor Assisted Suicide", depending on your extremist position. Much of it has to do with laws that are coming to the fore attempting to regulate if and when it is possible for a patient to choose to die on their own terms, as well as the recent national story of Brittany Maynard, who became the poster child for this issue when she decided to end her life before succumbing to terminal cancer. I wrote about this around the time that she made her choice and while I was admittedly thinking things through and not necessarily taking a definitive stance on the issue, I think that most of what I wrote still stands.

The thing that bugs me about debates like this is that choices in life are rarely black and white. There is rarely an exact right and wrong, specifically in matters that are beyond the scope of what is addressed in Scripture, if by exact we mean universally right and wrong. Choices like this require us to think through not just the choice itself but the implications of attempting to draw any universal conclusions.

The opponent of Death with Dignity (DWD from here on out, which I use not because I'm attempting to take a position, but because I think it's less inflammatory than Doctor Assisted Suicide) will argue that life, by it's very essence, is black and white. With that I agree. You cannot be both dead and alive at the same time; it is, by it's very definition, a black or white issue. But the question is not really as simple as life or death, no matter how much we'd like to be able to simplify it. If that were the case, and we could reduce any difficult decision to life or death, we'd find that most of the time we would be remarkably inconsistent. Reduce war to life or death. Reduce medical intervention to life or death. Reduce criminal punishment to life or death. Reduce birth to life or death. Even if we were to answer consistently on the side of life–not to lean that direction, mind you, but unequivocally, without fail, in a black or white manner to choose life over death–we would inevitably find some examples that do not fit so neatly into our categories. What if childbirth will lead to the death of the mother, for example? What if refusing to go to war means that some other innocents will die at the hand that we could have stopped? What if our aging parent received a fatal diagnosis, and they could either live for two months pain free and then die in their sleep, or extend their life for two years, albeit in substantial discomfort?

I'm not suggesting that there is a right and a wrong answer to any of those questions, but that is precisely the point. What I am suggesting is that if you choose one over the other without at least wrestling with the question, I do not think you are giving the question it's just due. You do not feel the weight of the decision. And if you do wrestle with them, as you should, then you must at least admit that the choice is not purely a "life or death" decision. One answer may not be the correct answer in every single case. It's easy to say that you would never go to war under any circumstances, until your family lives in the country being attacked.

Such is the case with DWD. There are implications to our choices that go beyond whatever our extreme position is. For example, should hospital resources, already in somewhat tight supply, not ever be taken into consideration? What is the difference between "pulling the plug" on a family member who may be breathing on their own, but unable to feed themselves, and giving a bit of medication to speed up the process? Aren't we choosing death in both cases? And of course many difficulties exists on the side of the pro-DWD crowd: at what point does DWD just becomes suicide, as the opponents rightly question? Surely there is a line. Surely there will be people who want to take the pill and end it all as soon as they are given a terminal diagnosis, even if they appear to be in full health. Is that justifiable?

Inasmuch as I think that the question must be wrestled with and the decision given it's just weight, I do think it's possible is that you may come to a conclusion that is always right for you. You may decide that you will never, under any circumstances, have a doctor give you medication that will end your life short of how it may have ended. I think that you can come to that decision personally, without having to say that it's true for every person in every circumstance. In fact, to have wrestled with the decision personally and come to a conclusion is commendable; I'd argue that if you have done that, you would be unlikely to mandate that same conclusion for everyone else.

This is ultimately to say nothing about whether a law that regulates the practice is good or right, nor, perhaps more importantly, what should go into any such law that was passed. What seems reasonable is that if DWD becomes a legal practice, it ought to be regulated, and probably very tightly.

To say at the end of the day, however, that one decision is right over the other in all cases is to assume a level of knowledge that you do not and will not ever have. That doesn't mean that laws shouldn't still be passed or rejected–one way or the other, we are always responsible for our decisions–but it does mean that in considering the law, we ought to avoid platitudes that alienate more than clarify. Maybe let's commend those who are willing to be in the gray area with us; after all, that's where we all live.

Thoughts on Education

As a Christian, I believe the most important thing that I can teach my children is that God loves them, and that as a result of that love shown to them through the atoning death of Jesus Christ, they can love God and others and ultimately experience what life was always intended to be about. I can achieve everything else as a parent, but if I fail to teach them that exceptionally good news, I've won nothing. I can't control the outcome when they leave my house, of course, but I can do everything in my power to teach them that good news so that it has the best chance of "sticking" even without me around.

It's important that Christians put education, generally speaking, in that context. Some time back I read an article or a book (I can't remember where or I would give proper attribution) and the author stated emphatically that there is no "religiously neutral education". I considered the premise and believe that he was right. The truth is that we will either view the world through the lens of God's existence, so that everything contains traces of his goodness and wonder, or we will view it through some other lens; namely, a lens in which he does not exist. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot say that God is powerful and worth knowing, but unnecessary in relation to the rest of our studies, as if God has nothing to say about writing, or arithmetic, or our basic ability to communicate through words and language, let alone whether or not his existence has any bearing on the universe or why things are the way that they are or why we interact the way that we do. If God is unnecessary for the study of any of these things, then as one philosopher suggested, God may as well be dead. We simply don't need him anymore.

On the other hand, if God does have something to say about all of these subjects, as the Christian believes that He does, then we must approach the education of our children with that conviction. Writing is no longer simply about "grammar", but it is about the wonder that we can even communicate at all, or that we can pass things on to other generations, or that thoughts can become sentences which can become complex arguments or narrative that can be written down and passed on and can create a sense of enjoyment in a person we have never even met. Math is no longer about the memorization of equations or facts but is instead about the way that God has ordered the world so that there are "laws" and "patterns" that always hold true, in every circumstance. Biology is no longer simply about why things are the way that they are, but is instead about what these things tell us about God and his design and plan and wisdom in creating things the way that he did. Studying the cosmos reminds us that things may not always be the way that they seem; that perhaps God used methods and timeframes that we cannot even possibly wrap our minds around in his sovereign control over the entirety of all that is.

I might argue that if we lose the wonder of who God is in the education of our children then it is nearly as serious a flaw as if we forget to teach our kids to love Jesus. That is not to suggest that they are on the same level. Failure to teach about Jesus has eternal implications; failure to view education through the lens of God's sovereignty may just incur temporary boredom. But it is a tragic boredom! It is a similar type of boredom that leads our culture to endure education for the sake of a future promise or paycheck. The type of boredom that makes us stick it out, even though it stinks. To learn math because we have to. To ask the teacher, "when am I ever going to use this?", only to have her give you some canned response about the importance of grammatical construction of a sentence when you are an adult when the teacher knows full well that the answer is, "you probably won't have to use it, except to pass the test."

The Christian can answer the question differently! It's not about whether you "use it". More importantly, what do we discover about God through it? That is the important piece!  

This is why education matters for our children. More important than whether or not they memorize facts is whether or not they understand God's purpose in creating those facts to begin with, and then, when we understand them, how we can use them to make a difference in the world.

Ignore People who Pit the Bible Against Science

I didn’t watch the so-called Creation vs. Science debate that apparently happened last night. I was having a bad day and didn’t want it to get any worse. Also, it’s a foolish debate and I find it unhelpful. Anyone who pits the Bible against Science should be ignored. Here are four reasons, in no specific order.

First, because God gave us rational minds. Christians, more than anyone else, should be willing and able to debate in the realm of the intellect. We recognize the dignity of humanity, the autonomy of an individual, and their consequent ability to think for themselves and rationalize the world around them. Humanities chief work is to have dominion over the earth. That not only means subduing it, but it also meant understanding it in it’s detail (it also means caring for it, but that’s another post). As we create new methods of observation, we are able to understand more clearly the intricacy and grandeur of the universe. That’s a good thing. You can think about it like this: the Christian believes not just that God created the world, but that he also created in us the mechanisms by which we observe and understand the world. The pursuit of “Science” was God’s idea and we should use our minds accordingly.

Second, because Science tells us something about God. Francis Bacon, considered by many to be the father of modern science, said that God created two books: the book of nature and the book of Scripture. We could learn more about God by studying both books. Functionally, then, both the pursuit of Science and the content of science are fundamentally Christian ideals. You should apply the same rigor in studying and observing the world around you as you should in your study of the Bible if you want to learn more about God, who He is, and what He is like.

Third, because the Bible (and creation account) isn’t meant to be a scientific text. In Genesis 1, God created light on the first day and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. Scientifically, that doesn’t work. It’s a good thing that Genesis 1 isn’t about science. It’s about God. Specifically, a God who creates the world and then gives dominion to various beings within the environment he created them for. (Side note: God creates the environment called the world and then places man in that environment. Man screwed that up. God’s in the process of creating a new world for man, beginning with the renewal of man himself in the person of Jesus Christ. That’s really good news.)

Fourth, real faith doesn’t mean believing blindly, it means believing that God isn’t going to contradict himself. If God is powerful enough to create an entire universe out of nothing, it’s also entirely possible that he did it in whatever way he wanted. He could have done it in seven days. He also could have done it over millions of years. The one thing we can be confident in is that if God really did create the world, then nothing we ever observe in science will contradict that. Instead, it will help us understand more fully the power of God and His great care for His creation.

Here’s the thing: not every conclusion reached by the scientist is going to be correct. There is a lot of room for continued learning and expanded knowledge. That goes for the Christian Scientist and the Secular Scientist alike. We need to be less dogmatic about the how and more dogmatic about the who. That’s the point of the creation account.

If we’re going to talk about how the world was created, and whether or not it was God who was responsible for it, let’s use scientific categories, instead of pitting two things against one another that were never meant to be opposites. It cheapens God (who is smarter and bigger than you), You (who was created to be thinking and observing and rational) and the world (which God intended for us to explore.)

Science helps us to understand God and how he created the world. There are many competing views on the subject. Let's just make sure that the one we settle on is supported by what we know of the world around us, and not because we failed to read God's second book.