On Embodied Souls: Implications for Medicine and Bioethics
Ryan Nash, MD, MA, The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Much of the discussion, even in Christian contexts, on medicine, health, and bioethics is dominated by considerations of the immanent. This is often cast in the prevailing secular moral philosophies that have dominated the past 200 years, whether a Cartesian anthropology, Kantian dignity, or Rawlsian social justice. In part, this is due to a reluctance of an increasingly laicist society to hear explicitly religious considerations of the good. But far more dangerous, Christians have too often been concerned with and informed by the zeitgeist and not the acquisition of the Spirit. This presentation will focus on a collection of common medical and bioethical concerns, explicitly end-of-life care, transplantation, and reproductive technologies, and show how considerations of Christian anthropology, the embodied soul, eschatological consequences, and the transcendent radically shift the way in which we engage medicine and bioethics. Writings of the Church Fathers will be considered, especially St. Basil the Great, St. John of Damascus, and St. Maximus the Confessor, as well as more contemporary scholars of traditional Christianity. With these considerations we may come to confess that true embodiment is only found in being in the body of Christ, in union with Him and following Him in faith, under the healing ministry of the Church. However, this is not a new Gnostic or a neo-Platonic dualism. The physical body will be placed in this embodiment as well.
Much of the discussion, even in Christian contexts, on medicine, health, and bioethics is dominated by considerations of the immanent. This is often cast in the prevailing secular moral philosophies that have dominated the past 200 years, whether a Cartesian anthropology, Kantian dignity, or Rawlsian social justice. In part, this is due to a reluctance of an increasingly laicist society to hear explicitly religious considerations of the good. But far more dangerous, Christians have too often been concerned with and informed by the zeitgeist and not the acquisition of the Spirit. This presentation will focus on a collection of common medical and bioethical concerns, explicitly end-of-life care, transplantation, and reproductive technologies, and show how considerations of Christian anthropology, the embodied soul, eschatological consequences, and the transcendent radically shift the way in which we engage medicine and bioethics. Writings of the Church Fathers will be considered, especially St. Basil the Great, St. John of Damascus, and St. Maximus the Confessor, as well as more contemporary scholars of traditional Christianity. With these considerations we may come to confess that true embodiment is only found in being in the body of Christ, in union with Him and following Him in faith, under the healing ministry of the Church. However, this is not a new Gnostic or a neo-Platonic dualism. The physical body will be placed in this embodiment as well.