Then, regarding the third theme “sense and method of theology” that has been the special object of study in this quinquennial, I am keen to underline its relevance and actuality. In a “planetary society” as that which is being formed today, theologians are asked by the public opinion above all to promote dialogue between religions and cultures, to contribute to the development of an ethic that has as its own base network peace, justice and the defence of the natural environment. And this truly concerns fundamental goods. But a theology limited to these noble objectives would lose not only its own identity, but the very foundation of these goods. The first priority of theology, as already indicated in its name, is to speak of God, to think of God. And theology speaks of God not as a hypothesis of our thought. It speaks of God because God himself speaks with us. The real work of the theologian is to enter into the Word of God, to seek to understand it for what is possible, and to make it understood to our world, and thus to find the responses to our important questions. In this work it also appears that faith is not only not contrary to reason, but it opens the eyes of reason, it expands our horizons and it permits us to find the responses necessary to the challenges of the various times.
Amen….what a wonderful definition of Theology….it really does matter and is important that it is done correctly.
Hear, hear!
This pope impresses me more and more, the more I read of him.
I’m with you, Franz. Benedict XVI is a giant among the Christian leaders of our time.
Crucial to his argument and to ours as well is our attitude toward the past, what it is, what its function is, and where indeed it is to be sought. This issue of the nature of the past is one of the significant dichotomies that separates the conservative from the liberal. L
I highly recommend Benedict XVI’s book, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ The Pope has written an excellent insight into the heart of our faith, Jesus. The book is carefully based on Scripture.
That said, I wish he could hear my plea to take at least a neutral stance toward stem cell research. A good Christian friend of mine, a really faithful worker in the vinyard, was just cured of leukemia using stem cells, and I believe the Lord approved. For every child, and praise God for every one of them, there are many extra eggs that God may be providing to help people like my friend.
CanaAnglican – you may not know what exactly the Church’s position is on stem cell research. The Church supports research and treatments based on ADULT stem cell research. Research is done (and supported by) Catholic universities and hospitals with adult stem cells. The Catholic Church opposes embryonic stem cell research.
As far as I know the only successful treatments to date are from those adult stem cells.
#6, If I understand the science correctly, stem cells are not taken from eggs, but from embryos. Since life begins at conception, those embryos are people, children of God, made in the image of God, alive and with an eternal soul. To deliberately kill them and harvest their remains in order to heal our own sufferings is not an option for Christians.
#8, The eggs can be fertilized ‘in vitro’. Does this make them people? Do they have the breath of life? Why did God give us all the extra eggs? Did he intend them to be a wasted resource, or did he intend each woman to live a thousand years and have a thousand children? I have not been able to find scriptural texts about this. Just my guess, but I think he gave us a brain to research how we can help the sick.
#8, a fertilized egg is an embryo, and yes, that makes it a human person with all the rights and dignities thereof. Once an egg is fertilized and is an embryo it becomes a he or a she and has her own DNA. Why did God give women the extra eggs? Who knows? Why do men have so many sperm? Why ten fingers instead of twelve? Why two eyes and not ten? I’m not sure what egg production has to do with anything.
#9, your question, “Does this make them people?” evidences some confusion about biology. At the moment of conception(the union of sperm and egg) the sperm and the egg cease to exist and a human being now exists. Whether conception takes place as a result of sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization the result is the same- a human being. The issue is not about a surplus of eggs, but about destroying human beings in the embryonic stage of their lives in order to benefit third persons.
#11, Phil, your first observation is spot on. I am probably confused about biology. I am a physicist and that informs my thinking and clouds my judgement with regard to all things biological. Please realize though that I have approached the topic, over many years, with some prayer and some due diligence to the Scripture.
We are unlikely to either agree or coax the other to change their fundamental understanding of what constitutes human life. It may in fact be an unfathomable mystery.
I have read in the scripture about the breath of life and know that the Jews held for a long time that life begins with the first breath. I think they now holds that it begins earlier. I have read Jeremiah and know that God knew him before he was in his mother’s womb. I even see that this could extend to other people born from their mother’s womb after Jeremiah.
These things still do not settle for the physicist in me when a person becomes a person and if that can be done with no womb involved. The best I can tell there must be some sembelence of an active brain-nervous system in place to have a ‘live’ ‘person’. This is why death of a person is based on cessation of brain function. You still have a ‘person’ but they are no longer ‘live’, (Of course, if they are born again, they are still alive in Christ.)
Following conception we may have something that is ‘live’ but not a ‘person’. The embryonic stem cells are undifferentiated so there is no brain-nervous system. I feel strongly that, in the womb, these embryos must be given protection as people-to-be At about the third month after conception there is enough differentiation to say we have a fetus, not an embryo. Here I can see we have a ‘live’ ‘person’.
Back to the undifferentiated embryonic cells ‘in vitro’, in a freezer in a fertility lab. These certainly have no brain-nervous system, and may never be in a womb. I cannot call them live people. Others argue they have the potential to be implanted in a womb and become live people. That is true. But it is also true that every egg and sperm combination has that same potential, but we do not call them people. All best Advent wishes, — Stan
I would say that a fertilized egg has a soul. That notion lies outside conventional physics, but then can physics explain why baking bread smells so good, why pain is so real or why music is a powerful transcendant language? We possess something spiritual inside us that is manifestly more than atoms and molecules. I would say that it is the Imago Dei each of us bears as children of God.
I have never seen any evidence that a fertilized egg at the stage of stem cells, that is prior to differentiation, can possibly have a sense of smell, pain, taste, sight, or hearing. So you exactly make the point of #12. It is not a person — there is no soul to experience any of these things.
The unfertilized egg is filled with all the DNA and RNA components of life found in a dozen stem cells; is it also a person? What about the DNA before it goes into the egg cell; is that also a person? How about the spiritual perspective — do the thoughts of a couple thinking about having a baby constitute a person?
I have relatives and friends with Parkinson’s. My hope is that stem cell research will one day help them, and even more importantly their offspring who are now young but at future risk. I know there are tens of thousands of stem cells frozen in fertility labs that will never find wombs. The resource should not be wasted.
#14 I think the core of the problem is that I don’t think one has to have a sense of smell, pain, taste sight and hearing in order to be a human being. What of my friend who has MS and has lost all sense of feeling and her vision – is she no longer human and we can now perform experiments on her? Of course not.
I fear for a world in which we say that the smallest and weakest amoung us are there to be experimented on and used as a resource for experimentation. For now it is ‘just’ embryos but that opens a door to experiment on the elderly, sick, newborns…
From a scientific standpoint unfertilized eggs do NOT have all the DNA components of life found in stem cells. It in only upon fertilization that a totally new human beings DNA is created – unique to that individual human… just as your DNA is unique to you.
The argument that there are tens of thousands of ‘stem cells’ (you won’t even recognize them as human embryos?) in fertility labs does not convince one who believes that they are unique human beings that they should be experimented on. I know I am treading close to Godwin’s law here but that sounds too much like the justification of Mengele. If you place yourself as judge of what people are ‘human enough’ to be granted protections then don’t be shocked if some day you find yourself on the wrong side of that line.
I too have friends and relatives with serious illnesses and I pray that scientists find cures and treatments for them. There have been real advances and productive treatments resulting from adult stem cell research (which the Catholic Church supports and funds). No treatments have resulted from the unfulfilled promises based on hazy promises of ‘potential’ from embryonic stem cell research.
I would prefer that science advance without resorting to killing the least amoung us. As the Christ said “I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.” (Matthew 25:45).