Another Perspective on Lowry’s Christian Ethic for Technology

Keith Lowry posted another excellent and thought provoking piece – this one on Forbidden Knowledge: Toward a Christian Ethic for Technology. I’m writing to share a somewhat different view both on the Biblical text and perhaps the Christian ethics of alleviating suffering with technology.

When Genesis and The Fall are read in full context, we recognize the promise made to Adam and Eve by Satan for their act of disobedience isn’t you will acquire the knowledge of good and evil. It is “you will be as gods.” And what is the dominant feature of “gods?” Gods have the power to define for themselves what is good and evil, right and wrong. And, boy! If that doesn’t describe our atheistic, post-modern tyranny of moral relativism, I don’t know what does. Chalk up a big win for the devil.

Secularists tend to complain about the Genesis story because what’s so bad about knowledge? Let alone knowledge of good and evil? Why would God deny us those things? Does He want to keep us in the dark?

I think this misses the point. It’s not knowledge per se that God tried to protect us from in the Garden. It’s grasping at His power of creation. His “Beingness.” The West is overrun with lesser “I am’s.” “I am gay and in love so society must redefine marriage for me.” “I am black in America and am therefore owed reparations.” “I am transsexual and should compete as a biological man in women’s sports.” “I am Barack Obama and you should worship my wisdom and overall awesomeness.” Ahem.

This is where Keith and I align in our thinking. Modern westerners, in particular, are self-obsessed. And it’s destroying individuals and our society. Satan is having a par-tay!

Satan’s second most effective false promise after the power to self-create and define good and evil by our own lights is the promise to alleviate suffering if only we’ll give up our souls to him. This is where medical technology, in particular, provides the most temptation.

Our two daughters are each statistically one in ten thousand. They both have serious, but different medical conditions, neither of which were inherited. What the professionals call “spontaneous mutations.” This has brought much suffering to my family over the last ten years, and it has shaped us and the people around us in ways we could not have anticipated.

Our youngest (known as Little Miss Anthrope on Ricochet) was born with neurofibromatosis type 1, better known as the Elephant Man disease. It causes benign tumors to grow on nerve cells anywhere in the body. LMA doesn’ have the deformities you’ve probably seen on other NF patients, but she did develop a low grade glioma (LGG) on her brain stem, which was partially surgically resected with complications in early December of 2013. Multiple brain surgeries were performed totaling nearly 20 hours over four days. The trauma and inflammation to the tissues made her susceptible to a bacterial meningitis infection, which she contracted at Christmas (we had to leave the Christmas Vigil Mass early because of her headache) and we spent New Years 2014 back in Children’s Hospital to be released a few days into the new year with a picc line surgically implanted and LMA receiving strong IV antibiotic infusions nervously administered by her mother for an additional two weeks.

To say this was traumatic is somewhat of an understatement. Until then, we had lived a pretty normal middle class American life, although we had suspicions about LMA’s condition. There were signs, and although her pediatrician discouraged me from online research, I was aware that puberty was when to expect tumor growth, if ever, due to the increase in growth hormone, which turned out to be predictive in her case. Until the crisis ensued I had the privilege of staying home and caring for my family, getting the kids involved in and exposed to all manner of activities to develop that curiosity about the world Dalrymple notes is lacking in so many. Mr. C is a born engineer and was enjoying making valuable contributions in his specialized career. Our kids are intellectually gifted and well behaved – mostly. We were blessed, but living under the illusion of self-sufficiency.

During this time, CRISPR technology became a topic in the news, with some future promise of selectively editing human DNA. I’m sure I’m not the only parent of a child with serious genetic anomalies to be tempted to trust in such technology to save my child from suffering. And yet. . .

Catholics believe in God’s sovereign will – those things He causes to happen – and His permissive will – those things He allows. I believe God permitted my children to be born with genetic abnormalities for a reason. While I trust that God is a Good Father willing only the good for His children, I have come to accept that He allows suffering to bring about some ultimate good which we may not discern at the time or even ever in this lifetime. I have also come to recognize my utter dependence on God for every breath I take – for the entirety of our lives.

Had we not suffered, I believe we would not be becoming who He made us to be. We would not have experienced Christ’s love instantiated in my three sisters who came from out of state and stayed for weeks caring for us in the midst of our trauma – and one sister who stayed for months of LMA’s recovery from surgery and meningitis. We would likely not have developed the compassion we have for each other and for others who suffer similarly. LMA and I would not have had the experience of the love within the Body of Christ at the invitation of Our Lady of Lourdes via the Order of Malta to join in the pilgrimage to Lourdes. We would not have given others the opportunity to care for Christ in the sick. LMA’s years of physical therapy with limited success must surely have been a lesson in humility for her attentive therapists. The effects have not been limited to us, but have rippled through to family, friends, and caregivers.

As a lukewarm cradle Catholic teenager I somewhat mindlessly chose the Blessed Mother as my Confirmation saint (or did she choose me?). Little did I know that she and I would share the experience of witnessing one’s beloved child on the cross. But, I now have a profound appreciation for what it means to have one’s “heart pierced” and to watch one’s child take up her cross – as well as taking up my own and following. . . by the grace of God. I have personally attested that I would not be upright and moving forward except by God’s grace and His loving care shown to us by the grace given to others as well.

One of my favorite stories of Pope Saint John Paul II is once when he was greeting young priests in a reception line and one of them had his leg in a cast and asked the Pope to pray for him. Supposedly, JPII thunked him with the heel of his hand on the forehead and said, “Don’t waste your suffering.” Just so.

Where does that leave us with developing a Christian ethic for the use of technology? I think the greatest obstacle is that we don’t live in a Christian society anymore. Secular humanism is de rigueur and is peculiarly anti-human, although it does lend itself to a lot of self-obsessed, self-created, small-g gods. We’re so atomized and morally sick, we can’t even come to a widespread agreement on what good and evil are. We’ve rejected the Yardstick by which to measure, and replaced Him with “my truth” and “your truth.”

I suppose a Christian ethic, if it were possible to develop in these conditions, would prioritize God’s will, while recognizing that suffering is a part of living and can be sanctifying for those who take up their crosses and follow Christ, and for those who serve “the least of these.” But, discernment is difficult, and we have to grapple with the reality that only God can bring good out of all things, while doing our best to serve others in need. . . to alleviate other’s suffering without losing our souls. We are called to attend to the blind and the deaf, the lame and the leper, while acknowledging that blindness and deafness, disability and disease may very well be serving God’s purposes in our lives.

Do we rejoice in our sufferings for the sake of others, in union with Christ, for the glory of God? Let us pray.