Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures - 2
Date: December 11, 2006
Time: 4:24pm est

What happens to our culture when the vast majority of people become accustomed to thinking about the human as a product, as one more potential artifact to be produced by human ingenuity? In Benedict's opinion, what happens is that we descend from understanding ourselves as being created in the image of God, to understanding ourselves as being made in our own image . The Holy Father continues:

All this demonstrates that the growth of our possibilities is not matched by an equal development of our moral energy. Moral strength has not grown in tandem with the development of science; on the contrary, it has diminished, because the technological mentality confines morality to the subjective sphere. Our need, however, is for a public morality, a morality capable of responding to the threats that impose such a burden on the existence of us all. The true gravest danger of the present moment is precisely this imbalance between technological possibilities and moral energy (p. 27, emphasis my own).

It is no secret that persons who espouse what Benedict calls a "technological mentality" will almost by default relegate moral discourse and the whole broad enterprise of ethical consideration to the realm of the utterly subjective. Recourse to that realm-so the idea goes-may have its usefulness (things like religious sentiment and moral consideration can give us a helpful psychological boost from time to time), but it is otherwise utterly unempirical, essentially irrational, and entirely skewed by one's tastes and preferences. It is certainly not the stuff of science, and morality-like religion-is best kept out of the public square. Such an attitude, the Pope says, is perilous. Why? Because scientific advancement and the progress of human knowledge untethered from sustained and rigorous moral reflection will eventually implode on itself and society. A culture's "moral energy" - the stamina to ask hard, probing questions, to insist on the reasonable limits of scientific endeavor, to uphold the inviolable dignity of human life from conception to natural end-must keep apace with the advancement of scientific endeavor. And it must do so, not to squash that progress, not to impede science or "stand in the way of cures", but precisely to assure that science successfully achieves its genuine goals-without destroying humanity in the process.

Such an attitude is not "medieval"; it is, rather, based on a cursory glance at history, and a probing understanding of the human person and human weakness-precisely the kind of considerations from which the contemporary scientific mindset must never abstract itself. Researchers are human beings capable of moral failure or moral greatness. Whenever we touch the human in the laboratory, there are necessarily far-reaching questions that must be answered on the moral plain. Scientists, researchers, those engaged in healthcare-all would do well to strive to be sound moralists as well. But as Benedict notes, the disconnect today between the two realms of science and morality is considerable-dangerously so.

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