Drawing Distinctions Responsibly and Concretely: A European Protestant Perspective on Foundational Theological Bioethics

Abstract

Public discourse in continental Europe gives a uniquely prominent place to human dignity. The European Christianities have always taken this notion to be an outgrowth of their theological commitments. This sense of a conceptual continuity between Christianity and secular morality contributes to the way in which these Christianities, especially (but not exclusively) in Germany, have perceived their public role. In an exemplary manner, this essay engages the secularized societal environment. In meeting the secular discourse on its own home ground, it seeks to recapture the theological roots of that discourse’s defining value commitments. The challenges that modern societies present for Christians are seen not as a threat that would destroy a presumed original societas Christiana. Instead, these challenges create an opportunity to transform the Gospel’s message so as to have it conform to, but also allow it to criticize, contemporary scientific knowledge about the world and man. Bonhoeffer’s rendering of the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms here makes it possible to link the Christian understanding of man as “in the image of God” with the secular affirmation of human dignity. As an intermediate concept, “in carnate reason” allows the bioethical discourse to preserve crucial aspects of the Christian tradition, while at the same time giving space to a constructive as well as critical exchange with secular discourse partners.