Sermon Archive
Naked Apes or Fallen Angels?
Sermon preached by Kenneth Boyd at Matins on 29 April 2007
1 Kings 17:17-24 ; Luke 7:11-23
Are human beings naked apes or fallen angels? This old debate has been given a new twist by scientific progress in medicine. For much of human history, medicine had only a very limited ability to prevent, cure or alleviate disease, sickness and suffering. But in recent centuries it has become much more effective, particularly as a result of developments in anaesthesia, pain relief and the scientific understanding of diseases. And today a dramatic new prospect of medical progress is coming into view in what is being called 'regenerative medicine'. The hope is that new scientific techniques will eventually make it possible to re-grow or repair diseased or damaged parts of the body, and to cure many conditions which currently are untreatable, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. This tremendously hopeful prospect has emerged through research on animal and human stem cells, which will play a crucial role if the hopes for regenerative medicine are fulfilled.
But there is a moral problem about this research. In order to conduct it, the stem cells have to be taken from embryos grown in laboratories, thereby destroying the embryos; and while this is not very controversial when animal embryos are involved, strong objections have been raised to the use and destruction of human embryos, especially by people who believe that this undermines human dignity. In some countries indeed, all embryo research is prohibited, but in Britain, since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act was passed by Parliament in 1990, it has been permitted under strict conditions, most importantly that it is a criminal offence to allow embryos grown in the laboratory for research purposes to develop beyond 14 days. Many people, particularly Catholics, are still unhappy about this, but the compromise reached by Parliament in 1990 has not been overturned.
Quite recently moreover there has been a further development. The 1990 Act specifically prohibited the mixing of human and animal sperm and eggs in research. But in order to move forward in their research on stem cells, scientists now see a need to create embryos in the laboratory using animal eggs into which human genetic material is inserted. One reason for this is that insufficient human eggs are available from women able and willing to donate them. These ‘hybrid’ embryos which the scientists now wish to create, were not a possibility when the 1990 Act was passed, and whether they are what that Act intended to prohibit, is controversial. There are strong views on both sides, both among scientists who want this research to go ahead, and among their opponents who believe that it should be prohibited. So last week, the regulatory body responsible for deciding whether or not to allow this, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, opened a consultation on the subject, essentially to ask us, as members of the public, what we think.
Now our reaction to all this, perhaps, is that it’s very difficult to know what we think! If we could be as confident in the prospects of ‘regenerative medicine’ as some scientists seem to be, it might be easier. But the promised benefits of scientific experiments are never certain – otherwise they would not be experiments - and often they are fewer and more ambiguous than promised – think of what was once promised for nuclear power for example. Or again it might be easier if we could be as confident about the moral status of human embryos as are those strongly opposed to research on them. But is an embryo created for research in the laboratory – a small number of human cells which will die after 14 days – a human soul? Even the Roman Catholic Church says that this is a philosophical rather than a religious question. Its argument against research on human embryos is, rather, ‘better safe than sorry’: if it’s possible that an embryo is a human soul, then one should err on the side of regarding it as one. But a ‘better safe than sorry’ argument works the other way too. Compassion for human suffering, after all, is basic to Christian faith; and if even some of the promised benefits of regenerative medicine for future generations are possible, then is it not safer and more compassionate to allow research on human embryos?
But then again, do these possible benefits really excuse the insult to human dignity given by mixing human and animal genetic material in embryo research? If human beings in fact are just naked apes, most of whose genetic material already is the same as that of other apes, perhaps there is no insult. But isn’t it also basic to Christian faith that human beings are different from other animals, ‘a little lower than the angels’? Doesn’t what the scientists propose, blur this crucial distinction and thereby demean human dignity? Such arguments clearly carry much weight for many people. But over against them, it also needs to be remembered that according to the biblical view, human beings have dignity, not because of their genetic makeup, of which the Bible knows nothing, but because of their spiritual status – what we are in the eyes of God, who cares for us and has given us responsibility to care for one another and for all other creatures in the world God has created.
Now here, I think, it might be tempting to refer to our scripture readings today, in each of which the evidence of healing, through Elijah in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New, is taken as proof of their speaking with divine authority. Might not that message be extended to apply to the question of embryo research? Couldn’t we argue for embryo research on the grounds that it is intended to lead to healing, and thus must be what God intends? That is very tempting, but it is also very far from a conclusive argument. The question really is not so easy. And here, I think, we come to the crux of the matter for Christian faith.
God, scripture and tradition teach us, has given us responsibility to care for one another and for all other creatures. But scripture and tradition do not teach us what answers to give to particular moral questions of the kind I have been discussing, which only now are arising for the first time. We have to think for ourselves about them, to inform ourselves about them, to wrestle with them in our own minds and in open discussion with others, and to come to our own judgement about them, in the knowledge that our judgement is fallible and that we may well be wrong. But then – might not precisely that have been part of God’s purpose in taking the risk of creating us and giving us such responsibility - that precisely by such inner wrestling and open discussion, by such ‘agonising’, we might come to learn for ourselves more of the deep meaning of God’s ‘exceeding broad commandment’ to love God and one another, and perhaps even something of what the risk of creating us, and giving us responsibility, costs to God?
Now our responsibility, of course, is much wider, and normally much more personal, than in relation to these large questions for science and society; and in answering them – as in deciding what way to vote this week – each of us plays only a very small part. More crucial, most of the time, is our responsibility in relating to the other people we meet every day. But there too, all too often, we will not know how to act for the best, yet nevertheless will have to risk a word, or silence, a suggestion, or a question, again in the knowledge that our judgement is fallible and that we may well be wrong and eventually have to admit that we were wrong. And to admit that we are wrong, for most of us, is difficult. We are often blind to our own prejudices and defensive when they are called in question. And it is then – under the conditions of uncertainty we call everyday life, and in order to be honest with ourselves, and to go on living and acting responsibly, that we most need our faith in God, who knows the darkest recesses of our hearts, but is infinitely forgiving and unconditionally loving, and longs for us to fulfil what Aquinas called our ‘natural urge towards complete goodness’.
It has never been easy to know how to live responsibly. In the early Middle Ages, the Christian poet and philosopher Boethius wrote of an ‘endless war twixt truth and truth’ and said that ‘whoso seeks the truth/ Shall find in no wise peace of heart’. But turning to God, Boethius also uttered this prayer, which sums up what I have been trying to say far better than I can, and with which I end.
O Father, give the spirit power to climb
To the fountain of all light, and be purified.
Break through the mists of earth, the weight of the clod,
Shine forth in splendour, Thou that art calm weather,
And quiet resting place for faithful souls.
To see Thee is the end and the beginning,
Thou carriest us, and Thou dost go before,
Thou art the journey, and the journey’s end.
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