Jonathan Edwards, despite being considered one of the greatest American philosopher-theologians, has yet to grace the bioethics scene. In this essay, I contend that Edwards’ synthesis of Reformed theology and unique concept of beauty can provide a significant metaethics to Reformed theological ethics and contemporary bioethics. First, I explore Edwards’ notion of beauty and how its theocentrism integrates divine communication and creational typology in the context of redemptive history. Second, I develop a biblical framework for a covenantal, eschatological theology of (...) medicine, refracted through the lens of Edwardsian beauty, with Christ as archetypal physician and patient. Such a theology of medicine affirms the importance of desire in ethics over against a Kantian ethic of disinterested duty. Third, I end with a brief discussion of how such a framework can inform medical practice as moral formation and beautification. (shrink)

Janet Malek has recently argued that the religious worldview of the clinical ethics consultant should play no normative role in clinical ethics consultation. What are the theological implications of a normatively secular clinical ethics? I argue that Malek’s proposal constitutes an irreligious clinical ethics, which commits multiple metaphysical harms. First, I summarize Malek’s key claims for a secular clinical ethics. Second, I explicate both John Milbank’s notion of ontological violence and Timothy Murphy’s irreligious bioethics to show how they apply to (...) Malek’s secular clinical ethics, resulting in an irreligious clinical ethics. Third, I then show how an irreligious clinical ethics commits metaphysical harms to patients, clinical ethics consultants, and the institution of clinical ethics consultation. I conclude that Malek’s proposal for an irreligious clinical ethics must be rejected to maintain the metaphysical integrity of clinical ethics consultants, patients, and the institution of clinical ethics consultation. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 3, Page 386-400, May 2022.

Elucidating a metaphysics of medicine is vital for framing a coherent medical ethics. In this paper, I examine the historical case of Avicenna, the eleventh century physician-philosopher. Avicenna radicalizes the dissective power of reason using a logicized Aristotelian metaphysics to clarify concepts at the metaphysical level, which I call his anatomy of being. One of the practical consequences of Avicenna’s metaphysics is a dehumanizing eschatology of death. I outline the main elements of Avicenna’s thought that constitute his anatomy of being. (...) Through an examination of his logic, metaphysics, and psychology, I show how Avicenna develops a dissective logic. I conclude that one’s epistemology, as a method of knowing, entails a metaphysics, and, in turn, results in an ethical stance to the object of knowledge. For Avicenna, mental dissective logic applied to humans results in dehumanization, thereby destroying the humanistic impulse of medicine. (shrink)

Through the historical portrait of Galen, I argue that even an enchanted nature does not prevent the performance of violence against nature. Galen, the great physician-philosopher of antiquity, is best known for his systematization and innovation of the Hippocratic medical tradition, whose thought was the reigning medical orthodoxy from the medieval period into the Renaissance. His works on anatomy were the standard that Vesalius’ works on anatomy overturned. What is less known about Galen’s study of anatomy, however, is its philosophical (...) and theological edge. In this paper, I show that it is precisely because nature is enchanted that Galen undertakes the grisly practices of anatomical dissection and vivisection, which entail violence against nature. First, I illustrate the violent character of Galen’s anatomical experiments. Second, I elucidate Galen’s anatomical methodology as a form of philosophizing and theologizing with a scalpel. Third, I explicate the importance of the demonstration of divine teleology that anatomical dissection reveals. Fourth, I sketch how anatomical dissection as a way of knowing nature and God becomes a kind of anatomical, liturgical theology. I conclude that, at least for Galen, an enchanted nature is not in itself exempt from violence. (shrink)

Transhumanism seeks to transgress the human, regarding finitude and suffering to be fundamental problems that must be overcome by radical bioenhancement technologies. Christianity and transhumanism have been compared as competing deifications via grace and technology, respectively. I argue that the grace of deification is partly accomplished in union with Christ by way of suffering unto divine filiation. First, I explore how the grace of deification is accomplished through suffering, looking at Maximus the Confessor’s dyothelitism. Christ in Gethsemane expresses the fulfilment (...) of divine filiation, aligning Christ’s human will with the divine will. Second, I examine deification in light of Luther’s theologia crucis and how suffering leads to ‘Christosis’. A human’s divine mode of existing is filial and cruciform and thus Christoform. Third, I look at deification and Augustine’s totus Christus. The Church is transfigured into Christoformity as the members of the body suffer with one another in compassion. Taken together, dyothelitism critiques transhumanist exaltation of the will, theologia crucis critiques transhumanist power ontology, and totus Christus as shared suffering critiques transhumanist individualism. I conclude that suffering is transfigured: suffering, not transhumanism, is the way to true human enhancement. (shrink)

This article argues that Dr. Kornu has failed to demonstrate how Jonathan Edward’s theology of beauty can substantively contribute to a contemporary Christian theology of medicine. Edward’s appropriation of Neo-Platonic language is contrasted with the use of the same language by the Orthodox Church Fathers. It is argued that the absence of a mystical understanding of theology, sacramental church structure, and ascetical discipline within the Reformed Tradition renders any attempt to appropriate a Neo-Platonic understanding of beauty ineffectual.

ABSTRACT A recent issue of the journal Design and Culture included Lucy Kimbell's interview of object-oriented ontology philosopher Graham Harman. The invitation was premised on Harman's ability to counter the contemporary focus on user-centered design with an object orientation. Harman's appearance in the world of design discourse presents a paradox. To ask what object-oriented ontology that explicitly rejects anthropocentrism can offer user-centered and decidedly anthropocentric design practice seems to miss the point of an object orientation. An answer to the (...) paradox may reside in Ian Bogost's account of the metaphorism of object-oriented ontology. This essay explores Bogost's Alien Phenomenology, or What It's like to Be a Thing, which uses Harman's metaphor of black noise as “the background noise of peripheral objects,” and considers the design implications of Bogost's call to amplify black noise and linger in the speculative fiction of things, such as roasted green chile peppers, udon noodles, and pound cake. (shrink)

Louis I. Kahn is one of the most influential and poetic architects of the twentieth century, a figure whose appeal extends beyond the realm of specialists. In this book, noted Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn's focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy. Kahn's work clearly conveys a kind of transcendent rootedness, a rootedness in the fundamentals of architecture that also asks soaring questions about our experience (...) of light and space, and even how we fit into the world. In Louis Kahn: The Philosophy of Architecture, John Lobell seeks to reveal how Kahn's buildings speak to grand humanistic concerns. Through examinations of five of Kahn's great buildings, the Richards Medical Research Building in Philadelphia; the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla; the Phillips Exeter Academy Library in New Hampshire; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth; and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Lobell presents a clear but detailed look at how the way these buildings are put together presents Kahn's philosophy, including how Kahn wishes us to experience them. An architecture book that touches on topics that addresses the universal human interests of consciousness and creativity, Louis Kahn: The Philosophy of Architecture helps us understand our place and the nature of well-being in the built environment. (shrink)