Bioethics and the Christian Life: A Guide to Making Difficult Decisions

by David VanDrunen

Publisher:

Crossway

, 2009

Overview

Just about everyone will face a difficult bioethics decision at some point. In this book a theologian, ethicist, and lawyer equips Christians to make such decisions based on biblical truth, wisdom, and virtue. Though a relatively new discipline, bioethics has generated extraordinary interest due to a number of socially pressing issues. Bioethics and the Christian Life places bioethics within the holistic context of the Christian life, both developing a general Christian approach to making bioethics decisions and addressing a number of specific, controversial areas of bioethics. Clear, concise, and well-organized, the book is divided into three sections. The first lays the theological foundation for bioethics decision-making and discusses the importance of wisdom and virtue in working through these issues. The second section addresses beginning-of-life issues, such as abortion, stem-cell research, and infertility treatments. The third section covers end-of-life issues, such as living wills, accepting and refusing medical treatment, and treatment of patients in permanent vegetative states.

Contents

Top Highlights

“I believe that the most theologically sound and balanced approach is a version of the last: secular bioethics and Christian bioethics are distinct but legitimate. Christians should participate in the mainstream health-care system and contribute to its bioethical debates, while recognizing that their Christian faith has radically transformed their perspective on many important issues of life and death.” (Page 29)

“How does God exercise his sovereignty? Christian theology has often used the word providence to answer this question. Providence refers to God’s sustaining all things in their existence as well as his governing and directing them to their appointed ends.” (Page 41)

“One of these things to remember is that God’s sovereignty always works for the benefit of his people” (Page 44)

“Contentment is the virtue by which we submit to and find peace in God’s will for our condition in every circumstance of life.” (Page 87)

“Engelhardt argues, there are no commonly held metaphysical or theological convictions that could serve as a basis for substantive moral conversation and agreement. Some common, secular bioethics is possible, but it is procedural only, not substantive. In other words, secular bioethics is simply a set of procedures and rules that people agree to live by. This is what Engelhardt calls the ‘principle of permission’ that binds people who are moral strangers to one another.” (Page 27)

Product Details

• Title: Bioethics and the Christian Life: A Guide to Making Difficult Decisions
• Author: David VanDrunen
• Publisher: Crossway
• Print Publication Date: 2009
• Logos Release Date: 2017
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Medical ethics › Religious aspects--Christianity; Bioethics › Religious aspects--Christianity; Christian ethics
• ISBNs: 9781433501449, 9781433512650, 9781433512667, 9781433521836, 1433501449, 1433512653, 1433512661, 1433521830
• Resource ID: LLS:BTHCSCHRSTNLF
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T22:23:02Z

About David VanDrunen

David M. VanDrunen (Ph.D., Loyola University Chicago; J.D., Northwestern University) is Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary California. A minister of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and an attorney, his books include Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (Eerdmans, 2010), and Bioethics and the Christian Life: A Guide to Making Difficult Decisions (Crossway, 2009).