Hello and welcome to the Pugcast. It's good to have you here with this episode and we are Interfered out to the country but Tom is in the middle of a blizzard back Peace so we're hoping that we get through this show without him losing power But I'm CR Wiley. I'm a pastor and I serve a church for outside Portland, Oregon and I miss senior editor at Tushdome, I'm glad tell us about yourself. I'm Glenn Sunshine. I'm a retired history professor Writer, freelance speaker and a whole bunch of other odds and hats Okay, great Tom. It'll use yourself and take us into the topic of the day at your show Okay, I am Tom Price. I teach theology, Christian ethics, a Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and I serve a local church here in Connecticut where we're getting blizzard Fresh blizzard Yeah, so our topic today is going to be something quite Disturbing and interesting as many of our topics are And so it derives from a recent first things article that some of you may have seen called zombie bioethics And the article is written by a Christian bioethicist and psychiatrist Aaron I think it's karate is how you Spell his last name and we can put the article details in the show notes I mean one of the things he's discussing is is that it is almost becoming a real possibility in modern medicine and research For some things that are simply downright disturbing and quite creepy. That's a good way of putting it But it's worth noting that at the outset that not only Are we developing technologies in the name of transhumanism which you know, Chris has been writing on Glenn and I've talked about quite a bit and you know, I've done some things with But we know that the end result of that often is Technologies that are dehumanizing in their consequences if not you know replacing human beings altogether finding ways to alter them or Transcend them Oftentimes that that you know like taking away the importance of work Something fundamental to them that you end up losing something central to be in human But a lot of the work being done in the medical fields is also in the name of all kinds of good motives and ends leading to radically disturbing and dehumanizing consequences and it has really been so Intense that medicine now has even altered itself understanding in the West in particular From what we can talk about a little bit later the the Hippocratic emphasis to this new utilitarian. It's not really new, but it has increasingly Taking over the mindset of medical technology besides regular technology So with this article Karate is addressing several medical researchers That put together an article in let me see if I have it with me in MIT review of MIT technology review And we'll probably put that in the show notes too and the title is worth mentioning of the article It's called ethically sourced spare human bodies that could revolutionize medicine Well, there you go. That's pretty But he's under me. Yeah, and the sub I'm ready to go ahead. They're using that word ethical. I don't think it means what they think it means That's right and listen to the the the next part of that's in very small prints of the title human body oids Could reduce animal testing improved drug development and alleviate organ shortages. So there's your utilitarianism But it's right right in the title and this is by a Carsten Charlesworth Henry Greeley in hero mitzu the koutchi I believe you pronounce that And they are probably definitely bioethicists and medical researchers themselves I haven't had enough time to dig into everyone's background But that's the article that spawned Aaron Karate to write the zombie bioethics review And and so what he's basically looking at is he's referring to this article article Where medical research and technology is getting to the point where it can create or hopes to be able to create Basically healthy human bodies But without the neurological system without consciousness Without being able to feel pain or Or be aware of any pain Without being able to think at all or be aware of it So at the embryonic level probably Pre reprogramming So that as they develop they don't develop into sentient beings But they are otherwise fully healthy bodies And their argument is well since in some sense they aren't human in the way that we're human They're not even animal in the sense that Animals are usually conscious of pain They would be at least in their imagination free of this And so they could be used Ethically in a whole host of different kinds of things that we're having, you know problems And in the field of medicine You know basically accomplishing like like you know We need organs for transplant and there's a lot of complications with that There's a shortage The problems of having to do it right as someone's dying The temptation to allow people other you know that would pro have a prolonged death to be euthanized So their body parts can be used to say five people I mean, they're all kind of utilitarian goods But this is sort of the initial Star you know reasoning and this is the initial so body oil is what we're talking about Yeah, yeah Well, this reminds me of you know science fiction tropes and and by the way everything that It's happening has been envisioned in a some some science fiction story Um, yeah, whether it's You know in the film in film or on television or in books so there's In one sense this is all new but in another sense there's nothing you order the son at and I do think that Science fiction authors have had a prophetic role in the last couple of hundred years It used to be that they were dismissed as kind of I don't know Uh Not not genuine sort of literary talents. They were you know providing Just pulp fiction trash for kids, but all of the people in Silicon Valley Who are doing creepy stuff seem to have been inspired by them But they never seem to kind of get the message that was often president the stories which is don't go there Yeah, yeah, yeah, I it's something that showed up on my Facebook memories. It's uh It applies even though it's not the exact context. It's a quote from lindenbane's johnson You do not examine legislation and the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered But in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered Well lbj is not known for his wisdom, but that sounds pretty good Now while he's not known for his ethics, but Yeah, but he makes a really good point about legislation and I think it also applies to technology Yeah, I think that's right And and this is the thing where we're arriving at the time where Potentials are starting to be actualized that you know again They were actualized in the imaginations of scientific writers because you know You can think through Imagine it to at least certain consequences that if we were able to get Get to the place where we could Allow this to happen. They could be imagined and then there's a certain amount of moral breakdown that has to happen Also in the imagination of the science fiction writer to imagine what it would look like for a world already itself for that Yeah, well getting to that point getting you know sort of the readiness I think that we find ourselves unable to appreciate the value of taboos We we tend to dismiss those as I don't know unrational or superstitious and And and so doing we We don't even give any sort of attention to what maybe is at work Uh in the taboos that's intended to preserve something of great worth That maybe people have lost sight of how the taboos does that but they still at least observe the The taboos and in the process end up preserving this thing of value um That's right taboos on a certain level is Is expressing uh, you know a deeply intuitive grasp of reality boundaries and natures It's it's another way of discern not just through reason not just through experience But in a very i don't even know what the best way of putting it but uh, but a very human way of of Even as a group being able to recognize this and being able to preserve it and and and to discern it And I think that's one of the things we're losing is that that discerning capacity it goes with other things And so we we used to this certain taboos We're discerned by a group of people even if you know we'll learn with the Hippocratic community committed to certain convictions They could definitely find areas that were just no go zones and that was taboosomedicine You just you don't even consider it the science fiction writer might for an imaginative story But not Not someone doing that, but maybe a good way to step into what the specifics are of this issue by going going at it from the changes that have happened in In medicine that that that changes from the Hippocratic Emphasis to this utilitarian medicine Glenn you are gonna. Yeah. Just before we get off of the idea of taboos um I forgot who it was, but there is At least one prominent thinker who argues that civilizations are defined by their taboos Right, you know that that what where the boundaries are In terms of acceptable behavior and what you can cannot do and what is legitimate and illegitimate Those are the things that really define a civilization And right now we are in the process of decilization Rising or something ourselves by effectively eliminating all taboos on pretty much anything Right this touches a little bit on um Cultroom and and just you know his concerns about desecration and filip reef and death works and yeah, that's it Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they are definitely on to what what you know has has now pretty much happened in any arena in which research education thought Cultural experiment I mean entertain everything. I mean you look at modesty levels all of those things are no longer even for women who usually would Pre you know be kind of put a gate around certain kinds of immodesty for what it communicated and the various taboos bound up with it and then you know of course now people are even breaking them down Beyond just kind of alternative family to to where justifying things like incest and everything else It's it's disturbing where Things that used to be fundamental Just are not you usually could see it maybe just in one or two Kind of episodes revealed every so often that you just knew were depraved to where people argue for its normalcy and and untroubled By it and and that and that that is what is happening in medicine and I think at least with according to a Correality and and you know, I would say very similarly and we've said the same is something in the utilitarian disposition That moves away from essences in natures and what's good for them and and a focus even on the particulars That share in those universals which have boundaries around that that requires to do justice the certain kind of things and not injustice Um once that's gone and it opens up to you know Things like you try to figure out in the trolley problem and ethics and things like that Um, it it really does become it opens the door to a lot and so one of the things he does and some other works Correality he's he's I've looked into some of the things he's he's talked about in in he's part of a lot of these good groups one of them's called The Hippocratic Society which I didn't didn't realize was yeah Now not necessarily all conservative thinkers, but they're sort of like the federalist society, but in medicine their retrieval of the classic Hippocratic and the contributions of kind of Abrahamic faith Christianity in particular to medicine and the commitment to life and they're against abortion they're against euthanasia They would be against these things and it's a growing society that is aware of where alternative Um new medicine is taking things and they likewise are starting to become a groups committed to preserving and protecting classic medicine and practicing it and you know It's a retrieval group, but they are also trying to at least supply alternative to where things are going But one of the things is the traditional view as he puts it is a doctor should do no harm To especially healthy bodies or healthy people and even to bodies that aren't healthy They shouldn't be doing harm. They should be healing and accord with what healing is for that kind of Nature body and they should prioritize also the each patient's individual Good And this was one of the things that we hope for it never was perfect But if whether you're poor or rich, whether you I mean illness can fall on anyone And the the the place You want to be able to go to and trust who is Helping you because they have a huge advantage in power over you They could do serious harm if applied improperly so break that trust down And that good will and you've really you really have a problem and we've already seen uh I think the covenin vaccines really revealed one of the utilitarian takeovers um Yeah Of that but that you've really seen that shift and and so in the way he puts it in the shift has has really moved away From the emphasis on the good of the patient Which is interesting he mentions one of the things he mentions something I forgot is that you know Medicine taken care of the physical body is one of the i core classical profession Right Along with law along with being a minister or a priest and and um and so They were professions because you had to make a public profession for That you're committed to this good so that they could be institutions of trust and and so one of the things It starts to become lost with this utilitarian Emphasis is it moves into a broader set of social goals rather than the health of the individual or the healthy body And so basically you can see the the emphasis shifts And the emphasis now is is not so much loyalty to the patient and they're good But a new role starts to develop even for the physician Where if you look at it just an epit- examples you can see now the there is a rise of doctor Assist the suicide or euthanasia right helping a person die with dignity a healthy body in a lot of cases We saw this tragic example of a 26 year old in Canada Who he he had he suffered with diabetes and had depression enduring a depressive episode Which is not uncommon he wanted out and during this phase he sought help and they helped him That's not the time to be making those decisions Um The irony of having a suicide hotline and Made Medical assistance in dying the irony of having both of those things in the same Right the same environment is is just bizarre yeah But but yeah, I wanted to actually just take a step back and ask what health care is Yeah It seems to me that that a proper definition of health care is Restoring a body at toe to degree. It's possible restoring the body's natural functions. Yeah Um now Abortion and euthanasia You are actually for the mother in abortion you are thwarting the body's natural function and you are killing the child euthanasia you're come this is the only two Medical procedures which if properly carried out resulting the death of some to someone yes, right Um, and then the other one is trans Yeah, you know, I mean these the these trans things are Functionally fundamentally about preventing the body from functioning normally That's right. So in in what sense can you even call that health care That that's state that's the change to definition and and that's what he that's kind of what he's getting to He said things that are you know changing the relationship in the role of the doctor to assisting with What they call you know death He puts it Also, they become bitters of the pharmaceutical industry Yes, where it's not necessarily what's good for the patient. It's what's good for the profits of themselves or the in you know their funders or or the larger political uh Group that is basically making decisions for medicine to have to follow or pressuring them You have these this kind of the the for profit surgeries And this is one of the things he says now there's it's opened up basically if the technology You know if if it's feasible and and they can you have the technology and someone's willing to pay for it They're obligated to do it and both for the for the you know for the funding and everything else But also they're not supposed to be able to tell someone who wants the alter Healthy body parts that they're not allowed to do it if they're willing to pay for it and they they want it done and they are literally shopping up Healthy body parts and altering them in the trans case in particular And so it's very very the new medicine basically takes the the tools of medical technology Which can be validly used for healing the individual patient and now is using them for different ends And even state sponsored um murder uh we don't think about it especially Protestants because they usually tend to be okay and on board with With capital punishment Um, but on the flip side should physicians and to what extent should they be what what extent is that state sponsor to which there's a The role of those that are doctors should be involved in that those are at least questions that can be asked One of the things related to the matter you brought up Glenn is uh when it comes to the discussion What is health? There are a lot of folks who would say that's subjective There are a lot of people who would say that you shouldn't impose your understanding of health on somebody else Right because we've lost any I guess ability to talk about Design or intention or you know healthy function and now it's all About sub-accualit actualization and expression So we've kind of gotten into those those waters, but the other thing you bring up at time which is really a distorting um Force and all of this is the profit motive know with regard to uh the health care industry. So yeah once upon a time we didn't speak of Health care in that way that's a newer development and Is really almost impossible for people to understand What a professional is at least as it was as we understand it historically today. It means you're paid Which is almost the opposite Yes, that's right. Well, let's man Especially for a minute I think we didn't get how to pay for what we did But but the idea though is that you know We did a professional athlete is an athlete is paid to for right? Yeah is supposed to But the idea that even an athlete would be considered a professional was would have been absurd That's right saying that you know just as recently as the 19th century and You know it's like you noted it's it's you you've been entrusted with really valuable truths skills Knowledge for the benefit of your community, you know when you're a minister You claim the gospel you administer the sacraments for the spiritual health of the people that are interested to you in your community if you're a lawyer Right you are working with the law and If you're if you're a medical professional you're you know You're a healer and so what's the what what kind of price tag can you put on any of those things? You know, what is the value of health? What is the value of justice? What is the value of eternal? There is no dollar amount. It doesn't make sense. That's right So historically, I know you know, we just simply provided honor area for these valuable professions in order to demonstrate that we really honor those men in particular and back in the day who have been entrusted with the with these matters And now because of the forces of you know profit making and all of that we get these distortions Yeah, in every every area. Yes, that's right and the Christian ministry is not Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean we you know, we've seen that the public trust and ministers and you know and and high-end ministers. I mean we wrestle with it, you know with bishops You know hands in a lot of cookie jars Or at least charges of it which which do distort What you know the integrity of what they offer to where there's a lot of jokes that come about you know because because of it But similarly we're seeing this happen one of the last places you would have expected it would be medicine I mean starting to to have jokes about whether or not they have your interest at stake In this kind of what we just think about the pandemic, you know as The as information is finally sort of seeped out we we know that decisions were made Not with all of our interests solely in mind That's right with the interests of companies and and their products and the the remuneration that certain Well, the sort of under the table stuff that was going on with certain people who were entrusted with regulatory power Just you know, and so it's all just kind of undermined You know It's just there's some people are still living in denial of course and those people still tend to wear masks Yeah, that's right but But it seems like even the even the slow to come around to finally Acqueous is that yeah, I mean there was just a whole lot of Self-dealing going on and all that And and to and to look at you know one of the things that really gets pushed under the rug with it is just the fact that You know in places like China for example that can't aren't regulated outside these I mean it it happens outside too But these viruses are being played with technology is playing with these things can do and they you know It wouldn't be it wouldn't be outside of the realm of imaginative possibilities that sinister motives to destroy a lot of Of people um and they often they've already found people From China and some of the universities here bringing things in Oh, yeah, that can be do and that's you know That's another show and everything but it is something where technology is allowing us to go And then you know and then you it's not out of my realm of imaginative possibilities that it's something a bit unleashed to which the The profit increase of the only people who have the solution the vaccine for it can benefit and it's sick to think that way But after the pandemic It's not out of the imaginative possibilities. I've heard disturbing rumors too about Organ harvesting particularly in China China. Yes, and this is this is one of the things actually that Caret caret caret and and some other people have been discussing I'm one of one of his colleagues is writing a book. I'll get the name for that I was writing a book on that in particular and that gets back to the like with it with we're gonna we will get to body always But but emerging bioethical technologies that are making this shift from as you just mentioned things that were considered in harmony with Our human nature and the way they function and the way we can discern their functioning and the kind of ends built into our very bodies To this changed view like you say there's a changed anthropology of view of the human in in the west I think psychological man is one of them that that imports it that's where the trends You know where if you psychologically feel a certain way in your quote-unquote inner self which would have made no sense prior to the 18th century really Then that's the real you and not the embodied and that's already conditioning a world for oh the body isn't the real you It's consciousness with plays a big role as we'll see in what the definition of brain death is right Brain death is what it means to be human consciousness and you can still have a healthy body functioning very well But if you're brain dead then you're not considered human or human anymore And that opens up to the legal problems that are bound up with Death dying and and the body But there are three that that are mentioned here. One is a germline gene editing Um, that is where you that that differentiate itself from what classically went by the name of somatic gene therapy That is just treating an individual To germline editing is where heritable changes are passed to future generations So basically this is where you get into concerns about altering things re-editing gene editing For whatever set of purposes and goals and goods There is first of all no consent from future generations right and there of course the unintended long-term consequences And then the other is a course in vitro gamia to genesis if I say that right IVG could produce human eggs and sperm from adult cells Opening possibilities for new family structures of reproduction. We've talked about this but also raising consent and identity issues Also potential embryo farming and consumer driven Genetic selection designer babies Right well related to that that what we're we're getting at then is the prospect that we could have Babies who Come into the world without the benefit of a mother or at least You know one in the immediate generation proceeding in that in other words if you go further back of course mother but the But you know, what does that do it so many respects In terms of For example, I've been doing a lot of work on my family tree and I noticed something There's always a man and a woman with every generation. It's just him. It's just amazing It is Now you have a through this in in sort of a insertion of technical and manip- technical manipulation The prospect of creating a generation without that and how does that Child and I would think of this child as a victim from get from day one um Relate to the larger sort of human family as a result Yeah The person that I know who's doing the best work on this is Katie Faust She's got an organization called them before us That is that is Really on the front lines of this this issue Of the fundamental point being that we've subordinated Children's good to parental or to adult wishes Right and so adult desires have been trumping The what is known to be best for children and these technologies will only make it worse Right. I saw something here recently too and it was sent along to me by someone on Facebook uh a article in wired Uh, which is an odd place for it to appear considering the nature of it But it's about kind of what the people in Silicon Valley refer to as the as the homosexual mafia basically Gays have a great deal of power in Silicon Valley Not just because it's San Francisco but because They own a lot of the companies they're in charge of a lot of the companies. I everywhere Same Altman Tim Cook, you know, you can go down the line, you know Peter um Oh, what's his last name anyway So you know this and so there are the there's a it's a it's a very creepy and um controlling and uh clen dustine reality there and and some of those people are the people who are Helping to fund this kind of stuff Well, and that's the thing I mean we did we talked about we're kind of robot wounds That's one of the ways they conceive of you know, basically once they once they produce this um bring them up So detached But I'm gonna get to some kind of you know, I'm gonna put on my scientific. I mean, no sorry my science fiction had it a moment and start imagining some other Things that could come about from this body oids which again as he put it is to create Gra a lab-grown human bodies without brains For research or organ harvesting or drug testing um because it's hard on you know I mean it I understand I mean We don't want to try drugs as we often have to on conscious animals or human beings who I need to try it, but there's a lot of risk involved um, but so again, I understand The desire to kind of not have to do that, but this is gonna raise a lot of issues and One of the things at least let me give a little more definition to what the these Body oids are understood to be So a human or human like body without brains engineered to be nonsensient but biologically intact fully functioning healthy human body But apparently no sentience and they um the people with the proponents Invision them as potentially unlimited an unlimited source of organs and experimental subjects Arguing that using them could avoid the pain ethics associated with both animal and human testing And some discussions are even creating such beings via stem cell technology and artificial wounds and traditional in vitro growth So on the one hand Let's say for all those single ladies out there that don't want to have babies physically they're Working there's maybe single moms um not only single moms but single moms professionals make great incomes Don't want that but they still want kids or The gay male couple or female couple that That don't want to physically have while some can't physically have obviously Um and yet you can basically, you know pay to have have uh You know, yeah, so instead of having some third world woman who carries your child and then maybe you know It gets out and yet it's an awkward problem You just have this body oid that does the body the body oid that does it for free and And then yeah, that won't be your child Because there's no consciousness. There's no brain Yeah, well, I think but what if they're able to if to healthy functioning body For the body oid will it would it be able to carry the carry? Oh, I feel a living human womb yet without being so Limitates the pain of labor. Yeah, yeah, sort of a plastic one Yeah All right, so there are some automatic questions that come up this way How does the body function without at least part of a brain intact Because the brain controls the body. Yeah, these are things of course. Yeah, that Carrier iity or is going to raise. I mean whether One that could even be possible with a human body. I mean the human body isn't in in sold Body um and and just on the technological level I mean, you know, you you've got a problem there now the other thing is that on the psychological level Children bond with their mothers in utero That is one of the fundamental things that happen. So how do you do that? You know, I mean, this is this is one of the fundamental problems behind surrogacy Yeah, what what do you do with the child bonding to the mother? um You've eliminated that completely unless you want to put into computer program or something that talks to the baby Play's Mozart for the might well see this is that this is the interesting thing having no con this is where they you know my scientific I'm at you know My my science fiction imagination goes off I mean with the way in which we're creating AI and all of that why doesn't that become the substitute consciousness in planted in these so they're almost You know mimicking human but more like a real embodied physical human than a robot And that is more troubling than just a robot being Because what you have is a soul apparently a soul is a consciousness Uh conscious Consciousness Consciousness you can say the word Human but put with a similar room or us, you know, uh, AI or whatever in there and it I mean I'm not saying this is what their goal is but I'm just saying that the way Technologies try to merge and the way in which You know Sinister thinking and creating a product go together it wouldn't be far out of their imagination But one of the things he raises and I think's worth raising is first of all he's challenging their claim that body Oits are not at least human in some very real sense because they are Real human bodies that are living and just like we would speak of disabilities even or even for those in a coma you you would not You know Even though they aren't quite the same the way they're being defined you would see it more as maybe it was highly disabled A human being not a what he kind of but he he says that's where the term zombie comes in it's almost for them These creatures are zombie-like kind of you can well they use language like a prophylactic It's a it's a way to sort of like mitigate the sort of the discomfort Yeah, and analgesic or maybe you know the way to put it to prevent the conscience from rising up and protest You just sort of like suppress it with language, you know, we've seen it for years with regard to the term fetus as opposed to baby and all that's right So zombie or in their mind they're kind they're like zombies that their bodies that you know And if we've all seen and of course, but you know you know you can shoot a zombie without without any pain of conscience You know that's video games that that help us do that you remember night night of the living dead, you know Yes, that's what you do to keep them from getting after you and then of course there is always the you know what what happens if If they uh they do come after you Well, they're they're going after your brains you remember that right that's their way they want to eat your brains So yeah, there's all sorts of weird stuff that goes on in kind of not just science fiction, but in horror where you actually In a very sort of us. I don't know. It's it's almost like a You know, there are certain concerns or like Hanks of conscience which are being suppressed. Yeah, but find ways of expressing themselves nevertheless Like when you think about you know the legend of the vampire The vampiric character of like sucking someone else's blood where the life is contained in order to preserve your own youthful Yes, you know, that's not just something that people are um, you know saying oh isn't that terrible, but there's some kind of kind of deep um, I guess discomfort with it with the with kind of this impulse that we all have to kind of live out out other people's expense and You know, that's kind of one way that it expresses through the vampire story It does I think that that you know a lot of those that some people just skip over is that's a you know horror films just a shriek from but even in many cases they are they are asking these these Or they're at least creating ways of that if you think hard about them They're on to something that we end up dealing with at one way or the other I mean all the way back with Frankenstein and you know these sorts of things Right You know actually the vampires provide an interesting Side-line on this the original vampires were Uh, non-corporeal for the most part who just sort of um Uh, sucked the life out of you not physically um But their bodies would would Remain trash and all that that was that was the theory um And actually there's some pretty weird stories surrounding that which we now understand but they didn't at the time What ends up getting interesting is Starting probably with bram stoker you start getting a neurotic side Yeah surrounding vampires Which is the thing that has been progressively pushed further and further and further in the popular Manchination surrounding vampires You know, they're no longer quite the monsters in the same sense that they were There's something fundamentally sexual about them That that chick now this is totally off subject But that that particular change is rather interesting in light of the idea of You know preserving your youth by sucking the life out of somebody else Suddenly that is now associated with sex or the whole bunch of other things I mean there's there's there's something really interesting going on. I hate I hate to To Bring it up, but it's not far outside of the depravity of humanity just turn body oids into those kinds of And yeah, and I think there will be a huge industry for something more than robots. Yeah No, I like that my my my my and went there too Yeah, but I think uh You know, you're you're comment glint about the sexual kind of Uh Features to this to the vampire legend. It's chick fiction too. I mean, it's kind of I know It's a disturbing thing to consider about there's there's an appetite for this with women That doesn't seem to be present with men. I mean men have their own problems But for some reason it's if you'd look up the vampire stuff. It's all marketed to women I don't know what to take that what to do with that, but it's just a fact Well, it's probably the strong pursuit, you know, good guys probably don't want some guy with a cape or most guys So with a bunch of fangs chasing them around They'll be meeting they'll be meeting uh a group of rednecks very quickly That are worse than vampires But get getting to the body weight thing um what we have here is the reduction of of you of of human beings To a particular function nor bodies to a particular functional state But there's also a kind of reduction that fails to appreciate the irreducible complexity of kind of just even our bodies I mean you brought it up Glenn that there's you know in in um Baring a child a woman's body is altered, but also uh there's uh You know stuff going on physiologically not just psychologically in terms of sort of this through this really amazing relationship between a woman's body and it and a child's body and it doesn't stop at birth It continues for months So that the proc being the in personal contact direct contact with the mother's body Is actually part of the final phase of sort of like the child's gestation well, you know, I mean The Some of the blood of the baby circular bear pliers again some of the blood of the baby circulates in the mother and vice versa So it ends up happening is if the mother is um is sick as god let's say an issue in her lungs The stem cells from the child will heal the mother yeah, you know, I mean and then after birth when a mother kisses a child It conveys information through the lips to the mother who then will you know about the baby state of health And the breast milk will adjust in accordance with what they find I mean it is the level of complexity here that they're only just discovering is absolutely astounding And they think they can do this artificially Yeah, and yeah, and and again that is not nest I mean for them I think to talk predominantly is the body organs right now and these are just possibilities that these things could be used for Well, I've heard about mechanical wounds. I've heard about yeah, those Those are thinking about they are thinking about that in particular, but whether or not they think body oids could could end up I mean, I think that again, that is one of the possibilities, but I think even the ethical justification First of all whether or not they lack consciousness is one issue Secondly, like you said, I have my My metaphysical questions on just how much matter is just matter That's a whole another issue And the fact that you you'd never have pure matter you have formed matter with finality built into it And the human body is bound up with form and finality which is bound up with being which is grounded in Ultimate consciousness in the full sense of the word got divine mind in purpose And so that itself means there's a boundary there of that form is not for x mere exploitation and consciousness isn't the boundary line It's the fact that that embodied form even materially is engifted and built in with a boundary of that makes it sacred This is why they're historically was even a sacredness as you mentioned the burial And the you know the sacredness of the way you you you know Don't touch a core all these things that are bound up with those taboos around death that relate very much even to the way you're supposed to take a body and manage it And what you're getting into time is the metaphysical dimensions of our embodiment and It occurs to me that as these Antivic or technological trends continue that The that there's either going to be a real parting of the ways yeah between those of us who Intuit these connections to this larger reality and those who don't Or there will be an alteration of the Christian faith and a um Adulteration of the Christian faith yeah that that will be really Well, it'll be heretical and it'll it'll it'll it'll and it's hard to anticipate how how many different ways that could play out But yeah, I do think that it creates a very enormous set of pastoral challenges. So let's say you're You know 50 years from now, and we've got just a slew of people walking around Who are the victims of this stuff? Yeah, he wrote there's that But then there's just the ongoing challenge of angelistically of proclaiming the gospel to people who We know for example when I was growing up the The task of evangelism could take so many things for granted That you just need didn't need to get into right you just say well We all know they're a men and women we all know that you know, we're made in the image of God We all you know, so there are all these different things that you could just say Well, we don't need to talk about that Yeah, that's right now now it's no you got to talk about everything So conversion is not just this narrow sort of thing to ask Jesus into your heart kind of stuff conversion is like we got to challenge the You know sort of the larger sort of intellectual and spiritual climate of our world who that is That is self-consciously anti-Christian and we and we have in a way a harder task than even the early church did I'm not saying they didn't have certain things that are harder than what we do I'm talking about in particular what you're talking about because The Hellenic world and the Jewish world out of which and into which they went still had aspects of these In place You still had the place for for for reason Descerning certain kinds of inherent natures and goods it became a debate about the best way and what who had the fuller picture And who could could articulate it but Even the significant of family life Even where you had a in Hellenic culture where you did have high levels of promiscuity and there was homosexual You still didn't have an undermining of the family the family was still Classically understood predominantly And of course you did have certain devaluation of life and in high arcies of whose worth that are not even within Judaism for that matter and Christianity Had to have had to wrestle with that itself even though its ideals have been You know the full image of God in any one human and I guess that's you know, that's one of the things that you hear did you know because The image of God is not only our material Aspect but definitely includes it all the way down to male and female he created them Then then We can't just go along with this and Christians that do are clearly moving in an anostic or transhumanist direction And yeah, you're right. I mean you've mentioned I think more recently Chris and and we've talked about it a lot over the years is that that We even in in the world's where familiar with have certain risks at emphasis on dominion the wrong way Progressive dominion theology is what led in in to a lot of these technological moves And then also kind of certain post millennial conceptions that are highly immunized that it's through all of the ways that we do Things we are going to be the mediums for bringing in The eternal kingdom and so technology is one of the big things we do and we've gained mastering control over so many things through that and while there is probably a truism there there is also the The fact that there is the libido dominanda that is still in place from the earthly city and It's hard sometimes to discern when we're we're part of the you know Jerusalem or Babylon Right You know light heart today on his sub stack was talking about a a sonship Particularly in the context of the Trinity and he said I think he was quoting Hunters fund Balthazar You did oddly enough Theologians have not really talked a much about the nature of sonship in in the godhead And light hearts argument from this is that our failure to take into account what the what god the father and god the son mean Um has led to an misunderstanding of while parenthood in this world And that fundamentally the attack on parenthood That we see is actually an attack on god himself on the Trinity on the doctrine of the Trinity and everything else And through other short piece, but I thought it was it was extremely interesting and I think extremely relevant to some of the stuff we're talking about here Yeah, yeah, I I get to get a sense of what he's getting at and I'll have to take a look Yeah, and it yeah that kind of stuff is is uh you know von Balthazar was or even the emphasis on sonship and form and and and form and form taking playtos idea but anchoring it in the in the sons Very form being the form of the father and then being the form that forms all things in the way in which we do have a kind of stamping of the infinite father And therefore we all have stamps of our own father and and and and this stuff is is definitely there and it does relate because when we're talking here about a material body oid we're dealing with the the physical aspects of That form and that image if you want to use that language and so we can't just say just because we haven't allowed the sentience The develop that we aren't still desecrating something sacred and we also have to deal with the fact I mean Something showed up in my Facebook memories about a Kid that was born without most of his brain who is perfectly functional yeah And you know, so we have to deal with the the mind brain duality here just because it doesn't have a brain Or the parts of the brain that we think control consciousness doesn't mean it isn't conscious. That's right That's that's right. I think too we we really need somebody to do some work And maybe it's been done and I just don't know about it and how to how to talk about Insolent and consciousness Spirit and consciousness It's more or less the case in my experience that consciousness is the term the word has more Has essentially pressed the terms spirit and soul out of common use yeah people now when they're talking about Anything Whether we're talking about artificial intelligence or human and human intelligence The the the term that's always employed even by Christians is consciousness and I do it, you know, but but How do we distinguish between those two things are are they just two words for the same thing Are they different things you know that kind of stuff and I do think they're they're a huge change of difference by the way Definitely the way we use them Because we have imported so much of the modern conception of the self into them classically of course There would definitely be be be aspects of the thinking Asper the rational natures of us which will obviously include awareness and consciousness and a mental action and Descerning and communicating and relationality all those kinds of things But it would have been understood predominantly as soul And or spirit that depending on what school of thought and that you know as in sold bodies is that's kind of one Christian way of reading it We tend to think very Cartesian whether we like it or not even about consciousness that it's like some kind of ghost in the body That's what's going on here It's a ghost in the body And so if you just don't You just kind of read the ghost and you just have a body you don't have Quote on quote what is identified with a real self and therefore a real person so personhood has become I think in philosophy The theologians that have used the language of personhood well. I'm spain and figures like that They are trying to retrieve classic meaning they're trying to use personhood with what would have classically went by um Soul and spirit it with all while good but recognizing this element of relational Self that's involved there, but that's one of the very things questions of personhood and consent to write at the heart of what's troubling here Um when human life begins is one how humans at earliest stages should be treated ethically Um, but also what counts as a human person All right another thing you know that has been on my mind a lot lately because of artificial intelligence and robotics is the tendency We have to think of the body as a machine So getting back to your point earlier about the ghost in the machine while that's referring to our bodies and and sort of saying that their machines And they're not when we yeah when we think about scripture You know there's other ways of referring to our bodies and temples. They're clothing um, we know um, let me think of some other got jars You know, there's this idea that you know, the sort of the material that we're made from soil clay Is in some sense our home. It's a dwelling so yeah, we particularly the language of the temple You know, it's a place in which we dwell But it's because of the presence of our spirits or souls and that's another conversation That the that the bodies are our temple like in sent in a sense that they're sacred Yeah, so there's sacred space Uh, they're not just stuff Yeah, and that's right and the soul animates them all the way through and this is why you can it you know, you cannot just Say the only part of what the soul is is only the consciousness and this is where when Glenn's getting to these aspects of our material natures that are doing all this communication to the full formation of a baby We're dealing with something more than a machine We're dealing with so and they aren't severable the the the this is the thing the reduced human nature is the insold um Body it that's the reduction. It isn't so I understand in Christian faith that the soul can be held by God uh in place until it reddies itself for resurrection You know after our physical death in the meantime, but nevertheless It's the temple is its dwelling place and in some sense it isn't it isn't at all something complete without it Yeah, what when you read in Genesis what it says is that God breathed it's translated the breath of life But it's literally the spirit of life Yeah spirit breath and all that that being the same thing Uh And man became a living soul so so the so the living soul is the body plots the spirit that's right And frequently the word soul is translated as life Yeah, um, you know when you're reading uh Whoever would save his life would lose it but ever whoever loses his life from i say well find it the word life all the way through there is she hates soul Yeah, I mean so you know it yeah, you you can't really You can't really talk quite so right and this is why the life talk especially in the abortion debate and everything else is so fundamental And but I think also in the body oil case you're dealing with life here and And that That itself is you're dealing with now of course I understand where they go well You consider an ant life and you consider and you don't have the same level of value and believe it or not again I understand that I agree there is isn't the same level of hierarchy going on here But on the flip side, I think Christians have been at sometimes the wrong side because they're They want to avoid being with the radicals on sometimes the environment issue But I think we're coming to realize that the way we've also stood With technology and the natural environment um and being ready to exploit natures and and and things Beyond merely Needs and necessities and and you know some of the things were allowed to cultivate to almost You know wreaking havoc on you know like destroying a trees and Tolkien I think we've we've lost an antenna to tune into the the sacredness of life of all created things And that there is a justice due to everything. I'm not saying it's what the radical environmentalists are saying But on the flip side It's also not what the exploiters through technology are saying either And I think we're awakening to that as well and that has relevance even to the material dimensions of the human body If I can throw one more thing in I know we're running short on time here I want to go back to the idea of consciousness replacing soul or spirit It seems to me that there's a connection between that and the growth of expressive individualism Yeah, so that what you are is what you think you are and if you're not thinking you aren't Yeah, that makes sense and and this is why I think also I mean light hearts point fun Volta's are as point is a way of kind of addressing that issue as well and and this is a lot it it's a lot of modern Trinitarians tend you know tended to talk about the Trinity as three different centers of consciousness um That that leads into tri-theism and so that again I think the retrieval of the riches of biblical language and theological language To having to to run that path again is is really where a lot of our labor especially in christian ethics is And should be carried out some of what I've been doing and it's not easy You have to read stuff on body and soul. It's very difficult Even in the platonic worlds and Aristotelian worlds and and and even if you you can kind of get a hold of their anthropology pretty easy The stuff and the debates that go into that stuff and they're significant for christianity and why christianis of one path and another it requires some labor So the hard work has to be done if we're going to contribute and I do hope a whole you know I'm glad to see a lot of people are moving in the retrieval work But I hope this area you know I can do do my best we do our best, but definitely a generations to come are gonna have to run with it hard Well, that's a good point to end on Run hard Anyway, thanks for listening to this episode of the theology podcast. 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