When I started out on this Faith and Technology series, I knew that there was a lot of ground to cover. What I didn't foresee was that there are so many fairly technical points, which, if I were to take time to spend on each one, would lead to an endless series. So for the sake of keeping things brief and moving forward, I'm trying to summarize some of these as well as I can.
In previous posts, I have dealt with some issues concerning the beginning of life. Now, let's move into some of the ways that our faith and technology impact our lives from the time we are born through the time that we age. Again, I'm not putting these thoughts out here as "this is the right or wrong way", but rather, to cause us to think about how our faith impacts our use of technology.
One thought that I have already raised deals with the proper balance between God's gift of creativeness and taking that creativeness too far. To start off, I'll simply put before you a couple of circumstances to think about.
A person is born with poor eyesight. Is it God's design that this person cannot see well, and so is introducing glasses or contacts to this person making use of God's creativeness, or stepping over the boundaries? To take it to the next step, what about laser surgery to correct their vision? If someone in the future invented a bionic eye, has that gone too far?
Here's a second type of scenario to think about. A person has a heart attack. Has God given us the creativeness and technology to map out the surgical process to restore that person's heart, or even to replace it, or have we stepped beyond God's plan and design for life by artificially adding to that person's life?
One last one for today: A family declares that they firmly believe that God alone should decide if their child should be healed of a treatable disease. So they refuse medication for the child under the belief that, if God wants the child to be healed, He will heal the child. Are they correct or wrong to have such a belief? Why do you answer that question the way you do?
As you think about these scenarios, I hope it brings a little more clarity to the way you approach the balance of God's creativeness and when we cross over to "playing God" with our technology.
In previous posts, I have dealt with some issues concerning the beginning of life. Now, let's move into some of the ways that our faith and technology impact our lives from the time we are born through the time that we age. Again, I'm not putting these thoughts out here as "this is the right or wrong way", but rather, to cause us to think about how our faith impacts our use of technology.
One thought that I have already raised deals with the proper balance between God's gift of creativeness and taking that creativeness too far. To start off, I'll simply put before you a couple of circumstances to think about.
A person is born with poor eyesight. Is it God's design that this person cannot see well, and so is introducing glasses or contacts to this person making use of God's creativeness, or stepping over the boundaries? To take it to the next step, what about laser surgery to correct their vision? If someone in the future invented a bionic eye, has that gone too far?
Here's a second type of scenario to think about. A person has a heart attack. Has God given us the creativeness and technology to map out the surgical process to restore that person's heart, or even to replace it, or have we stepped beyond God's plan and design for life by artificially adding to that person's life?
One last one for today: A family declares that they firmly believe that God alone should decide if their child should be healed of a treatable disease. So they refuse medication for the child under the belief that, if God wants the child to be healed, He will heal the child. Are they correct or wrong to have such a belief? Why do you answer that question the way you do?
As you think about these scenarios, I hope it brings a little more clarity to the way you approach the balance of God's creativeness and when we cross over to "playing God" with our technology.
I'm not sure how to answer you question on the scenerio's above. All I can say is in 2001 Jerry went to the doctor for a check-up, 3 weeks later and several tests, he's in having emergency quadruple by-pass surgery which saved his life, although he didn't have any symptoms of heart disease until he was tested. It's been 11 years ago and he's still with me. Should I have let it go and let him wait for a heart attack? I can't believe that God would have given people the knowledge and technology to preform life-saving operations if he didn't want man to make use of these. Same with me. I've dealt with severe back pain for the last 8 years. I finally found a doctor who knew what the problem was and, correctly, operated and fixed it last week. I am, finally, pain free. I thank God every day for the doctor's who preformed these, what would have been seen as miracle operations 40 years ago, operations on my husband and myself. Thank you, Jesus, for the gifts you have given these people.
ReplyDeleteThey aren't really questions, but more things that we should probably think about as we think about medical technology. On my own part, I tend to think that God gives us these things as gifts, but as with any gift, we can cross the line. I'm just not exactly sure where that line is. The way I've always heard it put is that we strive for life, but we don't "put off" death (in other words, something like keeping a body alive when brain function has stopped). The one thing that I'm sure of is that the problems come about because of the presence of sin in the world, and that God will bring us into a life that has none of these problems because no sin will exist there!
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