Review
Reviewed by John M.
Frame
Professor of
Apologetics and Systematic Theology
Westminster
Theological Seminary in California
This book was written by an
"interdisciplinary team of
scholars"
gathered under the auspices of the Calvin Center for
Christian
Scholarship. Of the five authors, Bouma works in the
field of biology, Diekema in medicine, Langerak in
philosophy,
Rottman in sociology, and Verhey
in religion. In the book,
however, they speak
as "we" throughout, not distinguishing in any
explicit way their
individual contributions or viewpoints. We are
therefore authorized
to hold all members of the group responsible
for the content of
the book. In what follows I shall refer the
book as CFHMP and to
the authors generally as "the authors" or
"the
team."
Thomas L. Jipping
reviewed the book's position on
abortion in the
November 28, 1989 issue Christian Renewal.
I
agree, on the whole,
with Jipping's analysis and strongly
negative evaluation.
In this present article I intend to look at
the book as a whole,
focusing on issues other than abortion.
First, it is important that we
understand the methods and
criteria by which
the team seeks to reach conclusions on ethical
matters. For
Protestant Christians, the most serious issue here
is the team's view
of Scripture. The book's only systematic
reflection on the
nature of Scripture is in a long footnote on p.
19. Here the authors
begin by saying that "Scripture is the Word
of God and the words of men" (emphasis
theirs). They follow
this statement by
misusing an analogy between Scripture and
Christ: "the
human words-- with all their historical
particularity-- may
be neither identified and confused with the
Word of God nor
divided from and contrasted with the divine
Word."
Evidently, however, the team is not much worried here
about people who
"divide" or "contrast" the human words from the
divine. That issue
never gets defined; indeed it never comes up
again. They are,
rather, concerned with some ("fundamentalists?"
"conservatives?")
who in their estimation "identify" or "confuse"
the human words with
the word of God.
Though they cite the Council of Chalcedon as the source
of this parallel,
they have quite misunderstood the relationship.
The Chalcedon Declaration speaks of the two natures of Christ,
the divine and the
human. It says of those natures that they may
not be confused,
changed into one another, divided or separated.
Now if we apply this
language to Scripture, we would have to say
that in the case of
Scripture also, its human character may not
be confused, changed
into, divided or separated from its divine
character. But our
team of authors adds a new element not found
anywhere in the Chalcedon formula. They identify the "human
element" with
"the human words-- with all their historical
particularity."
Had Chalcedon included such a thought about
Christ, it would
have had to say that the human Jesus "with all
his historical
particularity" was so purely human that he could
not be identified or
confused with God. Actually, however,
Chalcedon said nothing like that about Jesus. The
closest
Chalcedon came to speaking about Jesus "with
all his historical
particularity"
was to speak of his "person" prosopon. And
Chalcedon affirms that the person of Jesus was (and is)
both God and man. The implication of this is that while
Jesus' human nature is not to be identified
with God, his
"historical
particularity," his person, may
indeed be
identified both with
God and with man.[1]
And if we make the precisely
parallel point about
Scripture, we must conclude that its words
in their
"historical particularity" are both
divine and
human, not merely
human. They may indeed, then, be "identified
with" the words
of God. The word of God in Scripture is not
something hidden
above, within or below the actual words of the
Bible in their
historical particularity.[2] Rather, those words
are the word
of God. So says
Scripture itself and the confessions (both
ancient and
reformed) of the church.
Since the CFHMP team refuses to
identify the words of the
Bible with the word
of God, they assume they have freedom to
criticize the
content of Scripture (in its historical
particularity, of
course!) If we ask of Scripture certain kinds
of questions about
nature, we can expect only "quaint and curious
replies" (p.
19, n. 5). In the "ancient Mediterranean," we are
told, "the demonological understanding of sickness and psychosis
was widespread"
(p. 18). The context makes clear that the
biblical authors,
even Jesus, shared this misunderstanding of
illness. While the
"demonological" theory does contain the
truth
that the sick do not
have control of themselves (p. 19), in
general it cannot be
accepted today, according to CFHMP. The
Bible, of course, is
not really at fault for promoting this
misunderstanding,
because "the biblical stories are not addressed
to twentieth-century
scientific or clinical questions and may not
be used to prescribe
either the way to understand such suffering
today or the way to
provide therapy" (pp. 18, 19).
In my view, the volume greatly
overstates its case by
speaking of a "demonological understanding of sickness."
Scripture never
suggests that all sickness, or even
all
psychosis, is the
result of demonic activity. Indeed, most
New Testament
narratives concerning miraculous healing do not
mention demons at
all. And in some passages, such as Matt. 4:24,
a clear distinction
is drawn between diseases and demon
possession. The fact
is that the biblical writers did not hold to
any generalized
"demonological understanding of sickness."
The
difference between
them and modern secularists is that they
believed that some human infirmities were caused or
made
worse by demonic influence.
So stated, I think the biblical view
is not at all
unreasonable; certainly it does not deserve to be
maligned as
"quaint" and "curious."
Even in matters of theology, the
Bible is not wholly
reliable, according
to CFHMP. Some biblical authors, it says,
insisted "that
suffering is always in some sense deserved" (p.
10). The team is
glad, however, that other sources help us to
transcend such a
naive view. At this point they cite, not the
Book of Job, but an
article by D. Smith.
The same is true of ethics.
"Within the realm of moral
inquiry,
furthermore, questions concerning what concrete deed I
should do or leave
undone in a particular context may receive
only a quaint reply
from Scripture" (p. 19, n. 5). No examples
given here. But I
gather the team is opposing at this point a
particular way of
using Scripture found in some Christian ethical
writings (including
my own!). In the more conservative treatments
of medical ethics,
such as those of J. Jefferson Davis, Franklin
E. Payne, the nouthetic counseling
movement of Jay E. Adams and
others, the theonomic movement of R. J. Rushdoony
and others, the
usual approach to
ethical problems is to find in the Bible
explicit or implicit
divine commands which relate to the problems
at issue. The
attempt is then made to apply those
commands
to the issues under
discussion. The process of application, of
course, requires
some extra-biblical knowledge as well, namely
knowledge of the
situation to which the command is to be applied.
In such a way, the
commands of God shed light upon the believer's
path (Psm. 119:105).
Nowhere in CFHMP is there any
suggestion that the
believer is subject
to biblical commands (even the commands of
Jesus), though the
book tries to make much use of Scripture in
other ways. My
suspicion is that those who try to justify
concrete decisions
on the basis of biblical commands would be
among those who in
the eyes of the Calvin team are receiving only
"quaint"
replies from Scripture.
How, then, does CFHMP suggest that
we make our ethical
decisions? Despite
the authors' deficient view of scriptural
authority, Scripture
does play a large role in their ethical
method. Not that
Scripture provides commands to be applied to
life situations; but
it does provide other things. Primarily,
they view Scripture
as "story" or "narrative" (pp. 67, 124ff),
following the
approach of what today is often called "story
theology."
"Story theology" is different things to different
theologians. To
some, it simply means that when we interpret the
Bible we should remember
that the Bible is not a mere list of
doctrinal truths or
moral commands, but that it is in many
respects a
"story." "Stories" may teach doctrinal or historical
truths, they may
also teach moral lessons, but they also
influence our lives
in many other ways: by motivating us, by
providing vivid
illustrations and pictures of the truth, by
giving us insight
into the character of God and of human beings.
Sometimes, stories
affect us in ways which are difficult to put
into words.
To other "story theologians,"
the importance of story
theology is to
undermine the traditional concern with historical,
doctrinal and moral accuracy in Scripture. On such views, it
is not important
whether biblical narratives convey accurate
historical
information. Rather, we accept the "story," historical
or not, as
containing various models for our behavior, suggesting
new situations which
stimulate our thoughts and our ethical
motives, etc.
Biblical narrative, in other words, is treated much
as the church has
customarily treated parable. Similarly, it is
not important
whether the ethical injunctions and doctrinal
teachings of
Scripture are "true" in the sense of "correct."
Rather, they too are
simply part of the story, to be evaluated
according to broader
criteria. It seems to me that the "story
theology" of
CFHMP is of the second variety rather than the
first. As we have
seen, the book denies the inerrancy of biblical
doctrine and the
significance of biblical ethical injunctions.
They therefore see
"story," not as a supplement
to other
functions of
Scripture, but as a substitute for
them.
But how do you get ethics out of the
Bible if Scripture
gives only
"quaint" answers to ethical questions, if scriptural
assumptions about
disease are incorrect, and if scriptural
authority has
exclusive reference to a "story" which may be true
only as parables are
true?
CFHMP does also appeal to certain
broad, general
teachings of Scripture, especially creation out of nothing
(pp. 3ff), the
reality of evil (pp. 7ff), providence (p. 8f),
suffering (p. 9f),
God's faithfulness and care (pp.11f), human
faithfulness and
freedom (pp. 13ff), faith in God (pp. 16f),
watchfulness and
healing (pp. 17ff), our obligation to the poor
(pp. 21ff), the
"already" vs. the "not yet," (pp. 23ff),
"imaging"
God (pp. 27ff).[3]
Their most central biblical concept is "covenant" (esp.
pp. 67ff). They urge
as an alternative to secular
"deontological" and "teleological" ethics a
"covenantal" ethic.
The "covenantal" ethic affirms human rights (like the
deontologist) and considers consequences (like the teleologist),
but it sees our
primary relationships to one another more in
terms of love and
family responsibility than of autonomous
individuals
considering "rights" and "consequences."
We might say, therefore, that the
method of CFHMP is
"narrative"
or "story" theology plus appeal to some very general
scriptural concepts. Sometimes, as with the concept
of
"covenant,"
their accounts of these concepts are illuminating;
but often their
formulations are questionable at least. Take
"human
freedom" for example. To their credit, the CFHMP team
maintains an
essentially Augustinian (as opposed to Pelagian or
Arminian) understanding of human freedom, thus
resisting some bad
tendencies within
current theology. Human freedom presupposes an
established self,
which chooses consistently and predictably by
virtue of its own
character. Hence divine providence is no threat
to human freedom
(pp. 12ff). But then the authors try to turn the
fact of freedom into
a norm, so as to imply that we should never
give medical
treatment without a person's "informed consent" (p.
14).[4] Now I agree that Scripture
requires informed consent, but my argument
is very different.
It is that God has not given authority to
medical people
analogous to the authority he gives to parents or
civil government.
Scripture contains no divine warrant allowing
physicians to force
care upon a person. That fact, however, is
not based on the
patient's metaphysical freedom. On the contrary,
there are other
human authorities (such as civil government and
parental authorities
mentioned about) who do have the
right
in some situations
to make decisions for a person against that
person's will. The
biblical point is not (as CFHMP suggests) that
a person's will may
never be overruled, but rather that God has
not authorized the
medical community to overrule it. CFHMP's
methods, however,
would never have led them to the proper
argument. To find
that argument we need to have, not a vague
focus on
"story" and broad "biblical concepts," but a detailed
analysis of biblical
precepts to see what God has or has
not
required. CFHMP's team could not engage in such analysis, because
they believe that
biblical moral precepts give us only
"quaint"
answers to ethical problems.
One mistake leads to another. Their
argument against
cloning, for
example, is that it "establishes an identity for the
child that is not
freely owned by the child and that does not
invite anyone to
nurture and engage the child's capacities for
agency" (p.
184). How many of us have identities that are "freely
owned" by
ourselves? I, for one, had no role in choosing my
genetic makeup. Yet
I certainly do not consider that an
imposition on my
freedom. If my genetic make up and environmental
training push me in
a certain career direction and rule out
others, even that,
certainly, cannot be meaningfully said to
violate my freedom.
And is it really true that no one will ever
nurture the
capacities for free choice in a cloned child? CFHMP
assumes that if a
child is cloned from a great pianist, society
will give him no
choice but himself to become a pianist (pp.
184f). But that is
simplistic. For one thing, we may well doubt
whether anyone can
become a pianist (or anything else) unless at
some point he
affirms that vocation freely from within. If
society wants the
child in question to become a great pianist, it
must
nurture his/her capacity for choice, even at the risk
that the child will
respond by choosing some other vocation. For
another thing, the
motive of cloning a child from the cells of a
great pianist might
not be specifically to create another great
pianist; the motive
might rather be to create a person who,
regardless of his
vocation, exhibits the creativity and
discipline of his
clone-predecessor.
CFHMP tries, in other words, to make
the concept of
"freedom"
carry much too much moral weight. In doing so, they
miss out on some of
the complications of the issues they deal
with. (I do feel
that one of the strengths of CFHMP is
that
on the whole they
are very much aware of complication, of nuance.
But their method, at
times, restricts the scope of their moral
vision.) Were they
able theologically to make more use of
Scripture's
"quaint" answers to specific problems, they might
have observed that
God in Scripture does not consider human
freedom in every
case inviolable (consider the "rod" in
Proverbs), and they
might have seen too that there are principles
in Scripture
relevant to cloning other than "freedom."
The story-concept approach of CFHMP
reminds me of the
theological
situation back in the 1940s and '50s. Then the
liberal and neo-orthodox theologians were insisting obsessively
that God never
reveals himself by giving us "information." If,
then, Scripture
contains no information about God, how can a
theology be based on
Scripture? The liberal theologians answered
with a kind of
narrative theology known as "Heilsgeschichte"
or
"acts of God
theology," plus an intensive investigation into
broad, general
biblical "concepts." God does not give us
theological
information directly, they thought, but we can
develop theologies
based on the narratives (regardless of their
historical value)
and on broad scriptural concepts.
It was James Barr,
himself very much a liberal, who
called an end to it
all. He pointed out, in his Semantics of
Biblical Language [5],
that communication by language is
primarily by sentences (or longer
units) rather than
individual words. Therefore, he argued, if we
are unable to trust
the sentences of Scripture (i.e., the
"information"),
we should not claim to derive our theologies from
scriptural words ("concepts"). Words mean
nothing except in
the context of
sentences, and concepts have meaning only in the
context of
information. Further, he pointed out, from a
theological point of
view, "revelation" in the Bible does include
revelation of
information; to exclude information from revelation
may meet the desires
of modern thinkers, but it cannot be
justified on the
basis of Scripture itself.
Similar principles apply to CFHMP's "story-concept"
approach. In
attempting to escape the "quaintness" of
Scripture's
actual moral teachings and ethical injunctions, CFHMP
seeks
to develop a
Christian ethic out of biblical "stories" and broad
"concepts."
But the concepts and stories have ethical meaning
only as aspects of
biblical moral teaching. The bare
fact
that man is free
has, in itself, no moral implications. It gains
moral implications
when we see that in Scripture not only is man
free, but also that
God requires us to nurture and
respect
that freedom in
certain ways. But then to find the moral
implications of
human freedom, we must go to the biblical moral
injunctions. CFHMP cannot do this, I gather, because they
suppose that these
injunctions are merely "quaint." But without
the injunctions, the
"stories" and the "concepts" yield no moral
conclusions.
This is why the arguments of CFHMP
are often weak even
when they are
presented in defense of sound conclusions.
Examples: (1) Over
and over, CFHMP invokes the concept of
"watchfulness"
to enforce a particular conclusion (pp. 17ff,
passim):
"A watchful medicine will" do this or that. I am
not clear as to what
they mean by "watchful;" in most contexts it
seems to mean
something like "reasonable" or "thoughtful." I
confess, however,
that I am rarely persuaded by this sort of
argument. Often they
seem to be telling me that if I am
thoughtful, I will
do this or that, without leading me through
the relevant
"thoughtful" reasoning process.
(2) While they have a rather
"middle of the road" view of
abortion[6], and though they do
not exclude the
killing of embryos in the course of in vitro
fertilization,
nevertheless they absolutely exclude "the use of
embryos procreated
in vitro for experimental purposes" (p. 204).
The reason, "it
is wrong to begin human life with the intention
of discarding it
once we have used it." But elsewhere they are
unwilling to say
that the embryo is human life. So the
basis
of this dogmatic
exclusion is obscure.
(3) They also absolutely exclude
"commercial contracts
for surrogacy," though against surrogacy
itself they only raise
"caution"
(p. 204). The argument against the contracts (p. 203)
is not that surrogacy involves parenting without commitment to
raise the child; it
is rather that commercial contracts for
surrogacy will drive a greater wedge between the
rich and the
poor. Concern for
the poor is a major theme in CFHMP, as well it
should be (cf. pp.
156-170. But CFHMP does not ever present a
careful biblical
analysis of what the relations of rich and poor
should be. Rather,
they operate on rather vague intuitions of a
generally
egalitarian (though not specifically Marxist) sort,
various sorts of
prejudices against the commercialization of
medicine. It is that
vague intuition that seems to underlie their
aversion to surrogacy contracts, but it does not, certainly, make
their case very
plausible.
(4) Following on the last point:
Much is said in the
book about the
"rights" of the poor to various sorts of things
and the
"requirements of justice" (pp. 82, 162ff). Even a
woman's
"right" to abortion is defended on the ground that women
should not be asked
to make "unequal" sacrifices, pp. 214-216.
This talk about
rights and equality is mostly unargued; the team
evidently thinks
that their readers will find it obvious. I do
not, though I
certainly do believe that we should help the poor
to receive health
care. The biblical basis for helping the poor
is not abstract
rhetoric about rights or equality, but the
demands of Christian
love and the biblical injunctions
commanding us to care for the poor. But perhaps that point
is too
"quaint" for CFHMP.
(5) They use "slippery
slope" arguments at a number of
points: these are
arguments to the effect that society should
forbid A because it
could lead to B. So, "benevolent killing of
those who are dying
can too easily justify the benevolent killing
of other mortals,
even those who are not yet dying" (p. 299). But
they are unwilling
absolutely to prohibit abortion even though
the slippery slope
argument from abortion to euthanasia is more
plausible than the
slopes that they themselves invoke.
(6) Their view of
"tragedy" is unbiblical in my view. I
grant that we often
have to choose between incompatible goods or
between
"evils:" sometimes any decision will bring harm to
someone. Such
"tragedies" occur in decisions about the allocation
of medical care.
This does not mean, however, that in such
situations it is
impossible for us to do our duty, impossible to
do what is right
before God. Although at times we must choose
between evils, we
are never in such a position that we must
choose between two
wrongs. This, at any rate, is Scripture's
teaching. If by
living in a fallen world, human beings are forced
by circumstances to
make sinful choices, then Jesus must also
have been a sinner.
But Scripture proclaims his sinlessness, and
it promises us also
that "God will make a way of escape" from
temptation (I Cor.
10:13). But CFHMP ignores this quaint reply to
their dilemma and
waxes eloquent about the "gathering of evils"
and the
"colliding of goods" (pp. 132ff). By this they do not
mean simply that we
must sometimes choose between evils; it means
that in some
situations we cannot do our duty before God (p.
196).
(7) The last chapter of the book
(308ff) is a discussion
of AIDS, but it
carries out its analysis with no reference to the
moral right or wrong
of homosexuality! A footnote explains that
this chapter was
written after the team had ceased to meet
together, therefore
they could not be expected to deal with this
issue, though they
were able to discuss AIDS purely as a disease.
I confess
bafflement. If anything, the reverse ought to be true.
What Scripture says
about homosexuality is plain as a pikestaff,
as Cornelius Van Til used to say. It
is the complicated nature of
the disease itself
which should have required further meetings
and team
interaction. The chapter isn't entirely bad,
certainly. It does
make the point several times that sexual
faithfulness in
monogamous relationships will prevent one from
the sexual
transmission of AIDS (pp. 308, 322), and that
certainly needs to
be said. But in dealing with the homosexual
factor, the chapter
generally emphasizes the evils of
what has been called
(though not in CFHMP) "homophobia" rather
than the evils of
homosexuality itself. (How did they decide, I
wonder, without
further team meetings, that homophobia
was
bad?) They are
opposed to any kind of quarantine, any movement to
"control"
people with AIDS, any "arbitrary diminishing of their
freedom," any
refusal to treat, any "shunning" or "stigma". In
general I agree with
these positions;[7]
but I think it must also be
said, e.g., that
people who knowingly infect others with the
disease should be
punished severely and isolated from the public.
The book advocates
that gay lovers of AIDS patients be used as
proxies to give
informed consent to treatment when the patient is
unable to do it
himself (p. 339), and it suggests that genuine
faithfulness can be
present in homosexual relationships (p. 333).
All of this, without
any balancing critique, presents
homosexuality in a
very flattering light. In my view, this is
unworthy of a
Christian publication.
Therefore, the method of the book,
in my opinion, often
leads to confusion
and unpersuasive arguments. I would not say
that on this account
the book is valueless. On the contrary, it
contains a great
deal of interesting information and ethical
wisdom. It is well
informed. But it clearly is not adequate as a
Reformed ethic, for
it is not adequately biblical. The CFHMP team
surely cannot say
with the Belgic Confession that "we believe
without a doubt all things
contained in (the Scriptures)..."
And because the book does not
forthrightly embrace the
Christian church's
authoritative standard, its ethical work is
disappointing. Apart
from the specific criticisms already noted,
I am disappointed in
that this book almost never reaches
distinctively Christian conclusions. In view of what
Scripture says about
the antithesis between the wisdom of God and
the wisdom of the
world, we would certainly expect that a book of
Christian ethics
would differ sharply, in both its method and its
conclusions, from
secular ethical thinking. But since CFHMP
compromises on the
presuppositions of Christian ethics, its
conclusions also
most often find agreement with the secular
traditions. The sad
thing is that it is difficult (if it is even
possible) to find
even one topic on which CFHMP recommends a
different conclusion
from the consensus of secular ethicists. It
differs from them
only in its reasoning, which is, as I have
indicated, its least
valuable feature.
There are basically two kinds of
ethics books which claim
to be Christian. One
kind, such as those of Franklin E. Payne,
and others, which I
mentioned earlier[8]
seeks to apply the
commands of
Scripture to ethical problems, assuming that
Scripture is nothing
less than God's word to us. The other kind
is what I sometimes
call (with an intentional tone of slight
deprecation)
"love and justice books." These books derive certain
values from the Bible, such as love and
justice; but they do
not accept the whole
Bible as God's word and thus they feel free
to accommodate its
ethical teachings to current fashion.
CFHMP is most clearly a "love
and justice" book, although
to be sure it makes
use of more biblical "concepts" than merely
those of love and
justice. The team in effect disparages the
conclusions of the
first group of authors as "quaint." Indeed,
CFHMP's very elaborate bibliography (pp. 376-400:
24 pages!)
contains no
references at all to ethical works of the first type
I have mentioned,
except for Clifford Bajema's Abortion and
the Meaning of Personhood.[9] (Evidently they
felt a need to refer
to at least one strongly pro-life author.)
The first group of authors, which
one might call the
"biblical
ethics" group, does read the love and justice books.
But as with CFHMP,
the love and justice people almost never read
the works of the
biblical ethicists. The problem, then, is not
just that the CFHMP
authors are on the wrong track; rather, they
are not even
teachable. They are not even listening to those who
argue another view.
Ironically (and this has often been true in
other contexts) here
it is the "liberals" who are illiberal,
closed minded, while
the "conservatives" are the ones seeking to
learn what they can
from those in other camps.
Any member of the Christian Reformed
Church must ask
seriously why such a
book would be produced under the auspices of
the Calvin Center--
a book that decisively rejects, even
ridicules, in
effect, the Church's creedal position on Scripture,
and which is not
even in dialogue with those whose thinking is
self-consciously
biblical and Reformed. Discipline, according to
Calvin, is a mark of
the true church. A church that cannot
enforce its own doctrinal standards is surely in deep trouble._