Issues of LIFE

William E. Moody

A NATIONALLY televised physician-assisted suicide. The uncommon birth of octuplets. At first, these two recent events in the United States might appear to have little in common. After all, in one instance a doctor has been charged with homicide. In the other, a mother's strength and courage in embracing life have been widely reported.

Material methods,
even when
allied with
advanced
technologies,
do not decide
the vital issues of life.

Yet there are some related questions raised in both cases, and they demand careful thought. When the most recent suicide was assisted by Dr. Jack Kevorkian employing medical techniques, the use of modern technology was purposefully directed toward an induced end to human life, and in an extraordinary manner. Then, some weeks later when a mother in a Houston hospital prematurely gave birth to eight babies who were originally conceived using medical techniques, modern technology in that instance was directed toward induced beginnings of human life, and in an extraordinary manner. As Lance Morrow, writing in TIME magazine, expressed it, "All life is sacred. But as these manipulations (to generate life, to cancel it) go on, I think I hear the distant, rushing sound of divinity escaping" (Jan. 11, 1999, p. 41).

The Sentinel isn't entering a debate here about the validity of individual rights in extreme circumstances. What we're raising for deeper consideration — and prayer — is whether the technology of material means, in the hands of human beings, has the central role in determining ultimate issues of life. Or, whether spiritual means—prayer, spiritual understanding and inspiration, trust in the law and will of God to heal and bless—are paramount.

Perhaps if we first consider what life actually is we can then get a firmer grasp on the answer to these questions. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is a book that explains the fundamental spiritual reality of existence and sets forth God's laws and their application to our individual lives. Its author, Mary Baker Eddy, devotes considerable space to answering questions about life's essential nature and substance. She affirms that immortal, divine Life is God, infinite Spirit, Mind, and that man's true, spiritual being must eternally express the Life that is God. She also writes: "Life is without beginning and without end. . . . Life is neither in nor of matter. . . . Life is not limited" (pp. 468-469).

Science and Health further explains that matter (or any material means and methods)—because of its finite, tentative, and insubstantial nature—cannot possibly hold or determine the issues of life (e.g., see pp. 92, 181, 526). This fact becomes progressively clearer in our experience as we come to realize more fully the reality that Life is God—eternal, always present, omnipotent—and that man actually reflects the one divine Life. Material modes and methods, even when allied with advanced medical technologies, do not decide the vital, spiritual issues of life.

In the Bible, the prophet Isaiah refers to God as saying of man, ". . . I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him" (43:7). And Moses counsels the children of Israel, ". . . choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days" (Deut. 30:19, 20).

Here the Bible shows us that God, divine Life, is the sole creative source and power. So, man, Life's outcome, can only express and know his life in God. Trusting God in prayer, understanding the spiritual reality, relying on His divine law and perfect will for good, we humbly and steadfastly follow the Bible's counsel to choose life in God. This life cannot be induced materially either to live or to die. Divinity isn't escaping us or being lost to humanity. The God who is infinite Life is the satisfying, healing answer to the issues of life.

William E. Moody
Editor

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March 22, 1999

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