Moral Content, Tradition, and Grace: Rethinking the Possibility of a Christian Bioethics
https://doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2020-38-4-44-66
EDN: VHFPKO
Abstract
Birth, suffering, disability, disease and death were by medicine’s successes placed within a context of seemingly novel challenges that cried out for new responses. Secular bioethics rose in response to the demands of these new biomedical technologies in the context of a culture fragmented in moral pluralism. While secular bioethics promised to unite persons separated by diverse religious and moral assumption, this is a promise that could not be fulfilled. Reason alone cannot provide canonical, content-full moral guidance or justify a moral community capable of binding all persons. Christian bioethics, as part of a way of life embedded in authentic worship, offers content, meaning and understanding where secular bioethics has failed. For Christians, resolution of bioethical controversies will not be found through appeals to foundational rational arguments or isolated scriptural quotations, but only in a Christian community united in authentic faith.
About the Author
Hugo Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.
Center for Ethics, Medicine, and Public Issues, Baylor College of Medicine
United States
United States
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Review
For citations:
Engelhardt, Jr. H. Moral Content, Tradition, and Grace: Rethinking the Possibility of a Christian Bioethics. State, Religion and Church in Russia and Worldwide. 2020;38(4):44-66. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2020-38-4-44-66. EDN: VHFPKO
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