Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THEOLOGY TO MEDICAL ETHICS* JAMES M. GUSTAFSOm The purpose of this article is to develop a position on the contribution that theology can make to medical ethics, attending both to the forms of the contribution and to the substance of it. The order of development of the argument is as follows. First, it is necessary to indicate clearly what I mean when I speak of theology and of the work of a theologian, for different persons have different perceptions and convictions about what theology is. In a similar way, I shall indicate briefly what I think are the relevant dimensions of ethics. Second, theology is a source of many substantive themes which pertain to ethics, and to medical ethics particularly; I have isolated three affirmations to use illustratively in order to develop the more inclusive intention of this lecture. These are delineated and developed with reference to their contributions to a theological moral point of view, to certain relevant moral attitudes toward human life, and to a basic intentionality that informs action. In the course of the article I indicate some of the ways in which the contribution of theology to medical ethics must be supplemented from other resources adequately to address particular clinical moral issues. Theology and Ethics Some clarification is required ofthe term "theology"; at least the way it is used here must be delineated. My view is stated in fewer words than desirable but I hope with intelligibility. I regard all of theology as reflection upon human experience. Theology is reflection on human experience with reference to a particular dimension of the human experience denoted "religious." For many persons in the world of religion these days, any dimension of experience *This is an abbreviated version of the 1975 Pere Marquette Theology Lecture, used by permission. No offprints of this version are available. The complete lecture is available for purchase from the Theology Department, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233. l'University Professor of Theological Ethics, University of Chicago. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Winter 1976 | 247 that is ultimate, integrative, or passionately felt is "religious." I distinguish my usage from such elastic references to the word "religious." I reserve the word "religious" for that dimension of experience (in which not all persons consciously share) that senses a relationship to an ultimate power that sustains and stands over against humans and the world. Thus, in this usage there is nothing properly called religion where there is no sense of the reality of an ultimate power, or of objective powers (to remember that there are polytheistic religions). The ultimate power is never experienced directly and immediately (perhaps an exception might be a rare experience of a rare mystic) but is always experienced indirectly and in a mediated way. Thus, to paraphrase John E. Smith of Yale, an experience of the reality of God is always at one and the same time an experience of something else.1 Alas, that statement is not convertible : an experience of an historical event, for example, is not necessarily a meaningful experience of God. Thus, to speak of the religious dimensions of experience is not to assert that every person is aware of such, or that persons who are aware of such are conscious of their significance in every experience they have. The oddity of religion lies in the fact that some persons do meaningfully and affectively experience an ultimate power sustaining and standing over against them. Sometimes this is in facing death, sometimes in eating a hot dog, sometimes in sequences of historical events, and sometimes in the voice of a friend. Theology is an intellectual discipline that seeks to draw inferences (in a perhaps imprecise use of that term) from those dimensions of experience with reference to the power that is experienced. Thus, telling a story of a life experience is not itself theology. Rather, a story is merely data for theological reflection. Theology seeks to determine, on the basis ofinferences from the religious dimensions ofexperience, what qualities and characteristics can be appropriately attributed to the ultimate power, what purposes and intentions can be plausibly claimed for it, and what its relations are to the world. Philosophers with certain interests...