Theology and Bioethics: Exploring the Foundations and Frontiers

✍ Scribed by Leroy Walters (auth.), Earl E. Shelp (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1985
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 327
• Series: Philosophy and Medicine 20
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

We who live in this post-modern late twentieth century culture are still children of dualism. For a variety of rather complex reasons we continue to split apart and treat as radical opposites body and spirit, medicine and religion, sacred and secular, private and public, love and justice, men and women. Though this is still our strong tendency, we are beginning to­ discover both the futility and the harm of such dualistic splitting. Peoples of many ancient cultures might smile at the belatedness of our discovery concerning the commonalities of medicine and religion. A cur­ sory glance back at ancient Egypt, Samaria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome would disclose a common thread - the close union of religion and medicine. Both were centrally concerned with healing, health, and wholeness. The person was understood as a unity of body, mind, and spirit. The priest and the physician frequently were combined in the same individual. One of the important contributions of this significant volume of essays is the sustained attack upon dualism. From a variety of vantage points, virtually all of the authors unmask the varied manifestations of dualism in religion and medicine, urging a more holistic approach. Since the editor has provided an excellent summary of each article, I shall not attempt to comment on specific contributions. Rather , I wish to highlight three 1 broad themes which I find notable for theological ethics.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xxiv
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Religion and the Renaissance of Medical Ethics in the United States: 1965–1975....Pages 3-16
Theology and Science: Their Difference as a Source of Interaction in Ethics....Pages 17-25
Scientific and Religious Aspects of Bioethics....Pages 27-44
Hartshorne, Theology, and the Nameless God....Pages 45-48
The Potential of Theology for Ethics....Pages 49-64
The Role of Theology in Bioethics....Pages 65-78
Looking for God and Finding the Abyss: Bioethics and Natural Theology....Pages 79-91
Front Matter....Pages 93-93
Theology and Bioethics: Christian Foundations....Pages 95-113
Theological Frontiers: Implications for Bioethics....Pages 115-133
Contextuality and Convenant: The Pertinence of Social Theory and Theology to Bioethics....Pages 135-161
Feminist Theology and Bioethics....Pages 163-185
Doing Ethics in a Plural World....Pages 187-201
Front Matter....Pages 203-203
Salvation and Health: Why Medicine Needs the Church....Pages 205-224
Love and Justice in Christian Biomedical Ethics....Pages 225-243
Contemporary Jewish Boethics: A Critical Assessment....Pages 245-266
Medical Loyalty: Dimensions and Problems of a Rich Idea....Pages 267-282
Responsibility for Life: Bioethics in Theological Perspective....Pages 283-302
Epilogue Does Theology Make a Contribution to Bioethics?....Pages 303-307
Back Matter....Pages 309-315

✦ Subjects

Ethics; Philosophy of Medicine; Theory of Medicine/Bioethics