PE011
Westminster Theological Journal XXXVI:3 (Spring 1973), Covenant Media
Foundation, 800/553-3938
Review: “New Theology
No. 10 (M. E. Marty and D. G. Peerman, eds.)”
By Greg L. Bahnsen
Rounding
out a decade of sifting, selecting, and selling the theological novelties of
the 60’s and early 70’s, editors Marty and Peerman have now marketed New Theology No. 10. As one might expect when today’s celebrated
theologians generally trail a few
years behind secular studies (instead of heading
up the reform of man’s heart, behavior, and society by Christ’s gospel), the
newest episode of the New Theology
series takes up the recent questions about biological life that have absorbed
our culture (e.g., evolution,
ecology, euthanasia, ethics of reproduction).
They discuss the ethical and theological issues raised by recent
developments in the life sciences – “biotheology,” as they put it (p. vii).
No doubt it
would be both appropriate and desirable for theologians with biblical
presuppositions to speak from that position on bio-related issues (origins,
ethics, eschatology); however, it is lamentable that biotheology appears as a
rootless theological fad. The writers
for this anthology on bios take their
direction, not from Christ and His authoritative word, but from Tillich,
Teilhard, and contemporary process theologians (all of whom are alluded to with
liberality). The effect of their
denials of fiat creation, literal incarnation and resurrection, bodily
parousia, and scriptural infallibility is that biology has made a transmutation
of traditional theology: since human nature can be altered in the laboratory
(p. xiv), the concept of God the creator has been altered so that we may speak
of man the “co-creator” (p. xviii).
Such ideas will evidence a pronounced bearing on ethics and
eschatology. The following summary of the
authors’ views follows my own topical rearrangement.
I.
Creation, R. T.
Osborn teaches that creation “is a statement about God ‘verified’ in man. It is not in competition with scientific
cosmology” (p. 4). As a symbolic model
(p. 50 it has the following “epistemological relevance”: “Nature is not the conveyer of God to man,”
but “the relationships between God and man is . . . the model for understanding
that which exists between man and the world” (p. 9). That relationship is one of freedom, and thus science should
thrive on “creative, imaginative reasoning” rather than formal method (pp. 9,
15). Thus religion is now a patron of science, since they both aim
at humanization: redemption “renews man in his humanity” and witnesses “the
deification of man,” while the goal of science “is the humanization of nature”
with man as “co-creator with God” (pp. 12, 10). Therefore, the doctrine of creation “is not descriptive but
prescriptive” (p. 12): “the world is humanized when it meets man in the unity
of freedom” (p. 11) – a statement more poetic than informative.
Wolfhart Pannenberg proposes that a comparison between
Tillich’s notion of spiritual presence and Teilhard’s idea of radical energy
will give us the self-transcendence of all organic life (its self-creative and
self-integrative activities as they anticipate the final goal of the
evolutionary process) as the basis for redefining spiritual reality (pp.
33-34). Even overlooking the manifold
ambiguities of his discussion, Pannenberg’s attempt to harmonize the ideas of
nature and spirit should be seen as actually collapsing the two. Further, his explanation of the divine
Spirit as a field of energy effective in the evolutionary process, a power
which raises an organism beyond its limitations, must be judged gratuitous – a
last ditch effort to salvage some transcendence for the Spirit in the face of a
pervasively immanental motif. He
certainly does not retain the spirit’s personality and creative sovereignty.
II.
Scientific
Engineering. R. A. McCormick’s
analysis of the moral literature on genetic medicine is undoubtedly the best
article in the anthology. While being
informative, lucid, and insightful (the critique of Fletcher is telling), its
chief value is as a contemporary illustration of the unresolvable dilemma of
all autonomous ethical reasoning: the dispute between teleological and
deontolical methodologies. Paul
Ramsey’s two-part article opposes genetic experimentation on the grounds of
medical ethics and society’s future; however, since his theological position
affords him no real ethical authority, his discussion will be significant only
to those previously convinced on other grounds.
The other
contributors favor scientific intervention and engineering of the life
processes. V. R. Potter says that man’s
inevitable perfection and survival cannot be simply assumed, and thus, while
preserving some diversity of life-styles, we must reject cultural laissez-faire
and permit the nurturing intervention into nature by groups who will foster the
world’s survival. W. Vrasdonk goes
further, declaring that man’s sin lies in “fearful refusal to assume
responsibility for the future” (p. 127); by contrast, the evolutionary
perspective of Teilhard “enables man to create his own future,” to “collaborate
in the creation of something higher” (pp. 122, 129). Man should be “lord over his existence” and take therefore an
active role in eugenics, refraining only when led to do so by “something very
deep in him” (p. 129). J. M. R. Delgado
handles even that, favoring the “manipulation of the physiological mechanisms
of mental and behavioral activities” (p. 171) and says we should not fear it:
after all, while the scientist can control what
emotions you shall have, he cannot dictate the details of their behavioral expression, which are conditioned
rather by culture (p. 177)! Delgado
holds that “the search for absolute values is a fantasy” (p. 182) and that “we
should propose mental planning . . . for directing the evolution of future man”
(p. 193) – a “central theme for international cooperation” (p. 185). In these attitudes we become acutely aware
that man’s power over nature can be readily perverted into the power of some
men over others without the restraints of God’s words; the vicegerent arrogates to himself divine
prerogatives.
III.
Eschatology. In addition to scientific engineering, the
anthology offers two other vehicles for bringing in “the kingdom.” In a bizarre article based on Teilhard’s
view of the universalization of love, Sister M. R. Penrose explains “that
virginity is not just a sign of the Parousia, but is an integral and vital
element in that movement which wil bring it into reality” (p. 148). A virginal life, lived authentically, is
“realized eschatology” (p. 152) as well as the way to discover your own uniquenes:
“We cannot be fully personalized without being totalized” (p. 145) – an
utterance we should politely assume to be intended as noncognitive. In a quite different vein Daphne Nash rails
against the traditional nuclear family as an oppressive, myth-mongering,
reactionary social force that perpetuates a repressive capitalist economy and
political system (pp. 155, 157, 158).
Being the immediate site of women’s oppression and chief support of
capitalism, “in the process of the struggle for the final liberation (or the
kingdom), the nuclear family must go” (p. 160) and all political action should
systematically make it “impossible for the capitalist system to function any
longer” (p. 162). Contrary to both
Penrose and Nash, God’s word presents the child-bearing, nuclear family as an
agency for godliness and promoting God’s kingdom in the world. The family is central to both the creation
covenant (“be fruitful and multiply . . .”) and the redemptive covenant (hence
the covenant sign is administered to children) as God’s people subdue and
disciple the world. Scripture certainly
does not disdain the child-bearing family (e.g.,
Eph. 5:22-6:4; Matt. 19:14-15) or private property (cf. Ex. 20:15).
IV.
Death. Under this category should be included R. C.
Wahlbert’s essay on abortion. This sole
article on the topic takes as its starting point “the existential, experimental
reality of carrying a fetus” (p. 130) and concludes that, since the fetus is a
subhuman parasite that victimizes a woman against her will (pp. 134-135, 138)
and since the fetus is “one Flesh” with her own body (pp. 134, 136), the woman
herself must be free to decide for abortion.
D. Maguire argues that, because death is a process difficult to define
(not a moment), “in certain cases, direct positive intervention to bring on
death may be morally permissible” (p. 195): e.g.,
medical euthanasia (pp. 1910193) and personal suicide (pp. 195-197). The anthology (appropriately) closes with a
dialectical meditation upon death as the key to authentic existence (p. 202) by
J. M. Sullivan. He says “life is an
absolute. But in that great mystery of
Christianity the journey to Life is routed through the heart of humanity and an
acceptance of certain death” (p. 210) – and to be sure his article, just as
this vague statement, makes it a mystery!
The
anthology as a whole is an uneven collection: uneven in viewpoints represented
(nothing evangelical), in topics selected (does a Marxist critique of the
family count as a biotic issue?), in
choice of spokesmen (from prominent Pannenberg to Sister Penrose), in
distribution of space (a full half of the book deals only with eugenic themes),
and in the attitudes set forth within each category (e.g., no critique of evolution, abortion, euthanasia,
brain-manipulation).
We conclude
by noting the editors’ commentary on the current state of theology. Over the past ten years they detect two main
theologies: secular and transcendent (pp. x, 212); in the future they
anticipate increased emphasis upon religious experience (p. 212). They
admit systematic theology is in an unhealthy state: “practitioners seem often
to be casting about aimlessly . . . there seems to be a sterility to so much of
their specialized work . . . there was a sense of exhaustion: everything has been
tried” (pp. xi, 212). It is ironic
that, in light of this admission, Marty and Peerman go on to declare: “There
are evangelical theologians of note, but who in the culture needs to cope with
their thought?” (p. xii). Such a
comment certainly explains the dire state of the “new theologies” – if not also
reflecting upon the ineffectiveness of evangelicals in presenting the challenge
of Christ’s word.