In last week’s message, we saw Dr. Henry challenge the materialistic explanation for human nature, a view very prominent in today’s world. Theologically speaking, living in this way is inconsistent with who we truly are as human beings. We can only be fully who we are meant to be when we live in light of the reality of the spiritual aspects of existence.
Nu. 2: Relating Man in the Image of God to the Health Sciences
Today we get to hear Henry’s comments on ethics and human nature given to the Christian Medical Society in June of 1988 at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. As befitting the presentation of a theologian to a group of medical professionals, Dr. Henry shares the philosophical underpinnings for their work and what questions Christianity can answer. He challenges them, and us today, to wonder just what human beings actually are. Are we nothing more than what philosophical naturalism would leave us, beings without out souls and even whose minds are nothing more than chemical reactions? This is more than an academic question. The person who sees humans as nothing more than several billion pairs of DNA strands has a significantly different view of medical ethics from that of the Christian who sees human purpose as wrapped up in an individual’s response to an infinite personal God. While not dismissing the importance or place of general revelation, Dr. Henry looks to the specially revealed reality of humans as made in the image of God as the cornerstone of a true anthropology and of ethics.
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