With this week's anniversary of the controversial Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973, there is a lot of debate and discussion about the "sanctity of human life."
Genesis 2:7 explains that God “formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” As a result, Man became a “living soul.” The Judeo-Christian tradition of Creation thus affords mankind a special place in the creation. We as human beings are not accidents of nature or arbitrary milestones in some evolutionary chain. Rather, we are the deliberate creation of God.
While the physicality of human life originated in Genesis, the Apostle Paul makes clear in his letter to the church at Ephesus that our soul was ordained before the “foundations of the world.” In other words, we were conceived in the mind of God before the universe took shape. The Bible teaches that each and every human being is unique and highly esteemed in the eyes of God and that we are, as the psalmist declares, “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Life is therefore precious because it is a creation of God – indeed a gift from God to us. The founders of the United States of America affirmed this critical truth in the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. That document lays out as a “self-evident truth” that our “Creator” (referred to also in the Declaration as “Nature’s God” and the “Supreme Judge”) bestows upon each of us “certain unalienable rights,” including the right to “life.”
The naturalistic-atheistic worldview denies God’s part in the creation. Indeed, it denies the reality of God period. Human beings are byproducts of natural evolutionary processes and that any sense of “right” reflects the evolved state of human consciousness and any system of human government devised at a given point in time. Accordingly, some people have sought to tinker with this evolutionary process to produce higher forms of human life. This was the promise of the eugenics movement backed by Darwinists as well as certain social activists (like Planned Parenthood co-founder Margaret Sanger) of the early 20th century.
While we should welcome advances in medical technology which may prevent disease and prevent disability, life is not a product of evolution than can be steered a certain way. Human life is made possible by the soul, which is the handiwork of God. As Genesis declares, mankind is “a living soul.” Each individual human being is therefore highly valued and esteemed by God.
Some of the most controversial and divisive issues today (abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment) pertain to the issue of human life. Is it ethically appropriate and should it be lawful for one person (or group of people) to choose whether or not another person lives or dies? Moreover, how do we understand or define “life”? What does it mean to be alive?
Many decry evangelical Christians for involving themselves in the political process when it comes to issues such as these. These critics argue that such questions are personal and religious and that good people can and do disagree. Therefore, religion should be left out of the political process and evangelical Christians should leave their religious scruples at the door when entering the voting booth.
This is neither logical nor American. In his Farewell Address, George Washington wrote (the speech was printed – not delivered):
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports….And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
In other words, morality is necessary to government, and you can’t have morality without religion. Let us then dispense with the nonsense that voters shouldn’t bring religious and moral thought to their civic activism. And let us therefore embrace the fact that questions pertaining to the value and nature of life will, in fact, be religious in nature. This is inevitable and appropriate.
For this author, questions pertaining to the value of one's life should be settled in favor of the one whose life is at stake. In other words, society should err on the side of valuing life. The life of a disabled person, an elderly person, a poor person, or an unborn person is of equal value and worth to that of a healthy, prosperous person able to make tangible contributions to society. This should be the operative principle of our government as it reflects the noblest traditions of biblical practice and human civilization.
Let us take time today to reflect on the sacred worth of human life.
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