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Dominion, Providence, and Art: The Integral Role of Aesthetics in the Next Phase of Christian Bioethics

July 14, 2007
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For more than a generation, the field of bioethics has dealt with issues of giving and taking human life, defining the nature of the physician-patient relationship, and establishing normative protocols for clinical ethics. Increasingly, though, these issues are being supplanted with questions surrounding the extent to which human creativity may reshape life. Should we design animals to have human organs, and vice versa? Is it permissible to fashion our bodies or the bodies of our children through biomedicine to suit our aesthetic tastes? Does the Bible give humans permission to reengineer the creation as we see fit? These questions stretch classical bioethics to the breaking point; we need new wineskins to grapple with these ethical challenges. This paper will argue that developing aesthetic thought is a necessary step in forming an ethics of biotechnology and human creativity. Furthermore, the arts offer an invaluable forum for theological and socio-cultural reflection for the next generation of Christian bioethics, as well as a fertile avenue for communicating biblical conceptions of human dignity and creativity with those outside of the field.

Keywords:
bioethics, aesthetics