# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2007_S387
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 387

looks for relational/historical indicators of moral/spiritual signifi-
cance. Persons who favor one or the other approach tend to doubt
that the competing approach can provide the insights we need, but
the two approaches typically interact with each other, so the ques-
tion seems to be which approach is primary.

We have undertaken this brief review of scientific/philosophic
arguments so that in part three we can organize our response to the
many different lines of reasoning. For similar reasons we must also
review competing biblically informed theological arguments.

Biblically Informed Theological Perspectives

When the question concerning the moral status of pre-implan-
tation human life is addressed from a biblically informed theologi-
cal perspective, the opposing sides again divide over
* how to approach questions about the moral/spiritual significance
of pre-implantation human life, and

* what conclusions are rightly to be drawn from whatever approach
is considered appropriate.

These approaches divide roughly into

* approaches that look for specific biblical texts that indicate the
moral/ spiritual significance of pre-implantation human life,

* approaches that look for some biblically informed inherent indi-
cator of moral/spiritual significance, and

* approaches that look for some biblically informed relational
historical indicator of moral/spiritual significance.

This report acknowledges that use of specific biblical passages
should conform to principles of exegesis and hermeneutics that are
accepted in the LCMS. We postpone discussion of specific passages
to part three in which the constructive argumentation is presented.
In part three we will also discuss principles derived from Scripture
that are relevant to questions about the beginnings of human life.

Inherent Indicator Approaches

Approaches that look for some biblically informed inherent in-
dicator of moral/spiritual significance often make reference to bib-
lical “image of God” language. It is well to note with respect to the
ELCA papers that “the Christian tradition has offered several ex-
planations as to what exactly constitutes the imago dei. There is not
a clear tradition as to whether or when it applies to pre-birth human
beings.”*? Approaches that discuss the “image of God” tend to be
similar to scientific/philosophical arguments that look for inherent
indicators of moral/spiritual status. (Some exegetes suggest, how-
ever, that “image of God” language may actually point more toward
a relational/historical approach.)

Some, taking the biblically informed “inherent indicator” ap-
proach, maintain that full moral/spiritual status is shown by the very
words “human life.” Human parents, made in God’s image, can only
produce human offspring, made in God’s image.

Others contend that the moral/spiritual status of pre-implanta-
tion human life is mysteriously ambiguous. They hold that any eth-
ical argument based on assumptions regarding the image of God in
the embryo will be contested and uncertain.

Still others hold that pre-implantation human life has a different
status from life planted in the womb and born into the world. In the
ELCA papers Cynthia Cohen briefly surveys possible uses of “im-
age of God” language and tends toward the conclusion that “those
who bear the ‘image of God’ have certain characteristics that em-
bryos do not and the concept of imago dei would not provide
grounds for claiming that they are owed protection from destruc-
tion during research.”*?

Relational/Historical Approaches

A significant line of theological argumentation claims that the
rejational/historical approach is best suited to arguments informed
by Scripture. (If we follow those exegetes who claim that biblical
“image of God” language should be interpreted relationally rather

than in terms of inherent characteristics, then “image of God” would
point to this approach.)

Above, in our survey of scientific and philosophical approaches,
we briefly mentioned Oliver O’ Donovan’s essay “And Who is a Per-
son?” (chapter four of Begotten or Made ?). In this essay O’ Donovan
offers a careful discussion of the development of “person” language
in connection with the early church’s discussions of the Trinity and
of the person of Christ. He claims that Christian thinkers were drawn
by God’s Word away from ancient classical philosophy that uses
purely qualitative categories to analyze humanity, categories such as
“intellect” and “soul.” They preferred analyses that focus on persons
as subjects with histories and names.™ As a result of wrestling with
Christ’s unique “hypostatic (personal) union of divine and human
natures” the church fathers came to understand that

A person is a substance [Aypostasis, “subject”; different from ousia, “be-

ing’’], and a nature is the ‘specific property’ of a substance; it is not the

case (as supposed by heretics on all sides) that to every nature there cor-
responds a person. In other words, the distinctive qualities of humanity

are attributable to persons, not persons to the qualities of humanity. (54)
This biblically-based approach inevitably leads to questions—in
ways that philosophical qualitative approaches do not—concerning
when personal identity begins and ends.

O’Donovan goes on to argue for the full moral/spiritual status
of pre-implantation human life on the basis of this relational/his-
torical approach. He notes that the “theological observations do not
of themselves yield any very precise view of the beginnings of in-
dividual identity. ...we must learn from what scientists can tell us
about where the story of each individual begins” (56).

He tentatively claims in the light of genetic science in the early
1980s that science indicates (but does not demonstrate) “the begin-
ning of a new personal history at conception” (56). Still, he cautions
that “we cannot overlook the possibility either that geneticists may
change their minds about how to interpret what they have seen, or
that other investigators may yet describe discontinuities between
conceptus and child which may, in the event, appear more funda-
mental” (57). He does not think that statistics concerning the loss
of a majority of pre-implantation human lives will, as a mere sta-
tistical argument, provide a clear indication to counter the pre-
sumption that the new personal history begins at conception (57).

O’Donovan also seems to want to argue that the ultimate deci-
sion must be made on grounds other than science. “It remains for
another mode of knowledge to discern the hypostasis [personal sub-
ject] behind the appearances” (57). Toward the end of his essay he
offers a method of discernment: “We discern persons only by love,
by discovering through interaction and commitment that this hu-
man being is irreplaceable” (59). “To discern my neighbour I have
first to ‘prove’ neighbour to him...To perceive a brother or a sister,
I have first to accept him as such in personal interaction” (60).

This mode of discernment leads him to argue that the “crime”
of research on and destruction of pre-implantation human life
“should not be the old-fashioned crime of killing babies, but the new
and subtle crime of making babies to be ambiguously human, of
presenting to us members of our own species who are doubtfully
proper objects of compassion and love” (65). “[W]hen we start mak-
ing human beings [in IVF],” suggests O’ Donovan, “we necessarily
stop loving them; that which is made rather than begotten becomes
something that we have at our disposal, not someone with whom
we can engage in brotherly fellowship” (65). He concludes that

...there is no road which leads us from observation first to fellowship -

second, only a road which leads us from fellowship first to discernment

second. ...Unless we approach new human beings, including those
whose humanity is ambiguous and uncertain to us, with the expectancy
and hope that we shall discern how God has called them out of nothing
into personal being, then I do not see how we shall ever learn to love an-
other human being at all. (66)

2007 Convention Workbook