Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
miracles of genetic engineering are trivial in comparison with the
surrounding magnitude of evolutionary and ecological miracles, which
deserve preservation.” To preserve these latter miracles, in the environ-
ment and ourselves, we ought to restrain ourselves, or as Nash puts it,
we “ought not to exercise all the limited powers that we do have.”
47
Much of the theological writing, Catholic and Protestant, that exam-
ines moral issues in genetic engineering adopts the view, as stated force-
fully by geneticist Robert Sinsheimer, that as we become creators of life,
we run the risk of losing reverence for it.
48
That this consequence does
not or need not follow, however, has been the thesis of Cole-Turner of
the Memphis Theological Seminary. He concedes that genetic manipula-
tion may enable us to “alter our own human nature.”
49
That the tech-
nology may carry us too far by no means shows that we should not use
it to improve the conditions of life.
Cole-Turner forcefully argues in theological terms against genetic
exceptionalism. His critique is often scathing: “To think of genetic mate-
rial as the exclusive realm of divine grace and creativity is to reduce God
to the level of restriction enzymes, viruses, and sexual reproduction.
Treating DNA as matter . . . is not in itself sacrilegious.”
50
Cole-Turner
writes in a Protestant tradition that contends that God's redemptive
initiative extends to the natural world—in other words, that humanity
may redeem nature by technology as it redeems itself through faith
and good works. (Interestingly, Al Gore writes knowledgeably about
these issues in the chapter “Environmentalism of the Spirit” in his
Earth
in the Balance
.)
51
Cole-Turner recognizes that the arguments made for
or against the application of genetic engineering to the human genome
may also apply, mutatis mutandis, to other species. He observes that
“genetic engineering is being used to confer resistance to disease on
agricultural plants, and to reduce their fertilizer needs. We may regard
this as redemptive in that it enhances the usefulness of these plants
while diminishing the environmental damage that has been part of their
cultivation.”
52
Jewish theology has, in general, been hospitable to genetic engineer-
ing. While Saint Thomas Aquinas brought the Aristotelian concept of
nature into Christianity, Jewish theology has had no such commit-
ment to the idea of defining form. Perhaps for this reason, Jewish com-
mentators have not stated categorical objections to human genetic
