Alternatives in Jewish Bioethics

God and Nature: A Summary

God and Nature: A Summary The relationship to God is unquestionably central to the Halakhic normative system. But, as shown by the foregoing discussions, the specific impact of the divine on human affairs is far from unequivocal. The Nahmanidean view emphasizes utter trust and reliance; its ideal is human dependence upon God, whose main influence in the ethical sphere tends, on this view, to be one of restraint. The focal issue of religious ethics becomes, in consequence, the setting of boundaries to human endeavor. Human efforts are to be limited by the Creator's will, and this will is revealed not only in normative discourse, but also in facts of nature. In the Halakhic tradition, however, this credo of religious naturalism is countered by a perception of human intervention as itself divinely mandated. With respect to the practice of medicine in general, the contemporary Halakhic trend is indeed pro-intervention, despite medieval reservations (voiced by several eminent commentators) against fully embracing medicine. Still, in specific medical contexts, the force of religious naturalism continues to be felt. In the discussion of euthanasia, we witnessed the rabbinic condemnation of suicide and the deontological reverence at the death-bed reflected in medieval sources. Rabbi Waldenberg, drawing on these traditions, insists that determining the time for a person's death is in God's exclusive domain. This insistence is shared by quite a few writers in recent years. 1 But in the Halakhically endorsed setting of contemporary interventionist medicine, it hardly seems 86 Alternatives in Jewish Bioethics possible to sincerely and consistently exclude human control at the end of life. Normative judgments about continuation or shortening of suffering are unavoidable and are clearly in keeping with important strands in the tradition. Once the need for normative choice is recognized, it becomes virtually untenable to fall back on natural processes as clear indications of God's will. A much broader scope of religious naturalism can be discerned in judgments which appear, at first glance, to involve no normative aspects but merely facts. Traditional views of parenthood seem to perceive its biological base as self-evident and immutable. Yet the character of parenthood as a social institution, subject to cultural determination , is seen in the traditional rule about interfaith procreation . Rabbinic literature also sometimes expresses recognition of the real parental bonds formed in adoptive relationships. These two departures from the biological conception of parenthood complement each other, together suggesting that the extent of naturalistic determination can be subject to normative appraisal and possible adjustment. Hence, insofar as "natural" parenthood is retained as a gUiding prinCiple in decisions about new reproductive technologies , this should be recognized as itself the product of human resolution. Just as at the end of life, so too at its conception, natural processes can describe divine limits only through human designation. The examples of euthanasia and of parenthood do not, of course, exhaust the practical expressions of religious naturalism. Still they are sufficient to illustrate the effects, in the context of bioethics, of focusing on God as the One who establishes the boundaries of human initiative. They present the continued force of religious naturalism as well as the problems it necessarily faces within a tradition that has, overall, embraced human responsibility. Relating to God as author of limitations is not, however , the only-nor even the most important-religious aspect of Halakhic ethics. At least as important, and, it seems, less prone to inherent contradictions, is the funda- God and Nature 87 mental belief that every human being is created in God's image. This symbolic faith is the kernel of Halakhic religious humanism, which is the theme of Part II. After exploring the Significance of "in God's image" in basic Rabbinic sources, we shall go on to examine three bioethical issues pertaining to Jewish religious humanism. Note 1. I discussed this trend in some detail in Zohar (1993c). ...