Western Europe is still run by Barbarians

Sometimes I think the term "Western Civilization" is an oxymoron. Perhaps you have recently heard as I have that the Netherlands has been practicing outright infanticide on sick babies. They are pushing to have this practice completely sanctioned in that country. Of course this rightly infuriates those who are committed to a culture of life and the sanctity of all life. But so often the discussion is turned to the subject of the value of human life. In other words, does human life have worth? Those who oppose the aforementioned practice and others such as abortion, believe that the more progressive death-mongers (pardon the not-so-irenic term) do not value human life.

Perhaps this isn't the best way to frame the argument.

If we are generous in speculating about the motives of the "other side (which I am usually not)," it must be said that they value human life, too. After all, the argument they present is precisely that human life loses its value after a certain point of insufferable pain, lack of brain activity, or other criteria often included in the overall designation "quality of life." While I certainly have disagreements with this way of reasoning and don't believe that the value of life should be judged on a scale, I have to admit that in their own warped and falacious way the "other side" values life as well. The question isn't whether life is valued or not.

I believe, like so many other issues we face today, that what we're disagreeing about is authority. Christians have long wrestled with the tension between the fact that we are created as free agents, able to choose and make decisions, and the fact that we are creatures under the Lordship of our Creator, whose sovereignty and authority trumps our own in the case of a conflict.

The progressives seem to operate under that assumption that human freedom is unbridled for the most part and that if we can do it, we should do it. Of course, they have their boundries as well, but these boundries are fluid and are usually governed by utilitarian and consequentialist principles rather than concrete, absolute authority.

In issues of life and death, the question we should be asking is this: "Is it right for one human to determine whether or not another human should live or die." Are we overstepping our freedom and encroaching upon divine sovereignty when we take life and death into our own hands, particularly in medical cases where suffering, deformity, or severe retardation is involved? I for one think we are. God is the giver and sustainer of life and He is also the judge of when that life should end. Humans are gloriously created in God's image as free beings but our freedom does not extend to the giving and taking of life as we please. Even if we can come up with the most humane and pragmatic reasons of why a life should be ended, it simply isn't ours to judge. It's like disagreeing with the war in Iraq. We may disagree and have great reasons why we shouldn't be there but the fact of the matter is that it's not our decision. Even more true this is when it comes to issues of life.

Those of us who are pro-life should be so not simply because we believe that human life has value. We should be so because we believe that our freedom as human beings does not extend to the domain of deciding on who should live and die. It's a matter of authority much more than of value.

Of course this point of view raises all kinds of other questions like the ethics of combat and capital punishment, but, as the title of this blog relates, these are the musings of a young priest, one who has many more question than answers. I'm interested to hear some viewpoints on this topic.

Pax,

RED+