Responsibility for Life: Bioethics in Theological Perspective

Abstract

The present endeavor to give some account of certain issues and dilemmas of bioethics in theological perspective finds this perspective given in Christian faith, thought, and experience. In this context, the perspective is a single vision which illuminates and informs four inter-related claims. The claims are: (1) that providence, eschatology, and destiny are singularly significant perspectives upon bioethics; (2) that when these perspectives are brought to bear upon critical issues and dilemmas of bioethics, the central ethical foci are freedom, responsibility, and justice; (3) that when these ethical foci are understood and practiced in the context of providence, eschatology, and destiny, they are the criteria for taking responsibility for life; (4) and that when bioethical research, discovery, and practice are pursued with careful attention to the context and criteria thus identified, certain particularly awesome and disquieting ethical perplexities surrounding bioethical endeavor — e.g., the questions of limits, alternatives, possibilities, and uncertainties — receive a liberating light upon the responsible direction to take.