Stem Cells, Replacement Parts and the Future

(NOTE: I originally started this in May, but never finished it. If it seems a little disjointed and rambling, it is because I just wanted to finish it. I left the original starting date, but I posted this on November 16, 2005).

There was a news item I found regarding stem cells, embronic human clones and essentially replacement body parts: http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,67575,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

Stem cells and cloning and everything related to them seems to bring out the extremists on either side. I am not talking about the moral issues particularly.

What I am taking about is the idea of the viability of a particular medical practice. Cloning for example: can cloning a human work? We generally know the process: remove the nucleus from one cell and replace it with the nucleus of the organism to clone (highly simplified).

We (as a people) have a good idea of the physical (viewable) processes that go on from pre-conception to birth. What we do not understand are the things that are not "visible." Visible in the sense of being able to test via the scientific method. Who was it that said that this life is but a mere shadow of the life to come? (Aristotle?, but I believe it is the position of the Church) We "see" such a small part of what actually exists in God's creation.

Even though we see such a small part of the true creation, we tend to think in very limited view of how things must work. For example cloning. When cloning first was discussed, a lot of people expressed to me that there was no way cloning could work. They made their assertions on the base idea that only God could create life. Life (any life, animal, plant, human) could only exist by following a certain action-effect sequence established by God.

When Dolly the cloned sheep was announced, I found this group of people split into two camps. 1. cloning was a lie used to either obtain money or discredit religion; 2. ok, cloning does work, but it will only work for non-humans. Since humans have a soul and animals/plants do not, cloning will only work for these types of organisms.

Looking just at item group 2, I find a idea that I could accept. I do not usually jump to conclusions, but I was so horrified by the fact of cloning, I gravitated towards an idea of cloning that at least kept the sanctity of human life intact. This group of people, myself included, came to the decision that the granting/creating of a soul for a human happens at conception.

But the question remains, is this how and when a soul is granted to a human? I tend to disagree with the notion of constraining God's operation. I don't mean to say that we cannot know how God works, if even in little ways, but that I am not in a position discern how God works. So I leave this an open question, one that does not matter to my salvation.

Medical ethics is becoming a issue that is drawing much attention lately. Advances in medical technique are starting to encroach on formerly solid beliefs in how God works. But this controversy is not necessarily new. Consider the Christian Scientists. Now I cannot say that I know much about them, except that as a principle they do not accept current medical treatment as a Godly way of treating illness.

I believe that most people who are modern day Christians, including Orthodox Christians, accept modern medical procedures without much concern. Accepting that God gave us the ability to learn and understand the human body and develop remedies to what ails our physical bodies. But in light of stem-cell therapies and cellular cloning, where do we draw the line?

Will we allow into our bodies a new heart, one that was cloned from our own tissue? Is this immoral (immoral in that it is against God's will)? Or is this an extension of the unwritten logic we have used to justify surgeries and other medical treatments?

I foresee a future in which Christians will be torn by this dilemma. Not unlike Christians are now regaring how Christian Scientists view medical treatment. But I what I see is something darker. There will be those Christians that will accept the practices of cloning in exchange for the 150-year life span. They will scoff the those "fools" who think there is a problem with the ethics of these treatments. And there will be those that accept that life is for a time and that those who would try to save their life will lose it...