18 February 2010
Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come” (Psalm 71:17-18
In the book Medical Ethics cardiologist Dr. Jay Hollman writes, “Currently there are two predominating world views in the Western World. ‘The secular world view refers to the view that leaves human beings as the final judge of all things and Biblical revelation as largely irrelevant. A serious Biblical view of ethics regards the Bible as a revelation from God and an important component of every ethical decision.” As a cardiologist Dr. Hollman constantly faces the issue of “How far should we go in sustaining life?” If life is sacred, then our goal should be to preserve it, but if life is not sacred, then why should individuals who are genetically deformed, those born with brain injuries and who can never live outside an institution, receive care and support?
Frankly, that’s what Adolph Hitler had in mind. He sought to terminate the lives of those who were less than normal, thus producing the master race. But Hitler was not alone in moving in that direction. In the United States by the year 1930, twenty-four states had laws requiring the sterilization of “feeble minded” individuals. Yes, those laws have been repealed, but the issue confronts us. When should life be sustained? And how far should we go in keeping individuals alive?
David, some 3000 years ago, contended that life was not a matter of random chance or happenstance. He was convinced that even before someone was born, God had a plan for his life that included his birth, the duration of his life, and even his death. These thoughts were embodied in Psalm 139, which is well worth your time to study. In verse 13 he wrote, “your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Paul, living a thousand years later, agreed. He wrote the Philippians and said that he wanted to “lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus laid hold” of him (See Philippians 3:12, NKJV).
Luke, the physician who wrote more of the New Testament than even Paul, also agreed. He spoke of David, saying, “For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep” (Acts 13:36).
OK, here’s the question. Does God’s purpose end for you when you have to retire, or when your health begins to decline, or when the cartilage in your knees wears out, or your heart gets tired and weary? If life is not sacred, then euthanasia becomes a plausible, if not acceptable, solution to the problem of sustaining the elderly. This, of course, would make a hero out of the suicide doctor, Jack Kevorkian, and a fool out of every doctor and every nurse who sweats bullets saving and sustaining the lives of our elderly.
Science today has enabled us to sustain the lives of people almost indefinitely, and my plea is not to sustain the suffering of people who have heard God’s call to come home and they can’t because we have them on a ventilator, or a lung machine that keeps them alive—at least, clinically. There is a time to be born and a time to die, says the book of Ecclesiastes, and wise is the family who lets go when God calls.
That’s not the issue. Then what is? Today, we are facing a secularization which denies that you were made in the image of God, that sees life as void of spiritual ramifications and denies that there is moral accountability to God or anyone else, and when that happens the whole structure of society breaks down. We are seeing that collapse right now all around us, and a moral laryngitis seems to stifle the courage of those who are afraid to say, “Enough is enough!” and to stand where the courageous have stood for centuries.
Resource reading: Psalm 71