Human Dignity and Bioethics

The Mystery of the Human Soul | 79
through the redemptive sacrifice of Christ. The Bible, in other words,
is more interested in the theory of salvation (soteriology) than in the
theory of man (anthropology), even though it permits speculation
about the essential attributes of man in certain books. In sum, human
dignity based on the Imago Dei refers primarily to mysterious
election while still mentioning reason and lost immortality, which
gives man a special moral status because he is a rational but fallen
creature made in the image of the eternal God.
Guidelines for Bioethics: Utility, Knowledge, and Dignity
Bioethics can benefit from these meditations because it needs more
than utility and the advancement of knowledge as guiding principles;
it needs a principle like respect for human dignity based on the special
moral status of human beings as creatures with rational souls
mysteriously tied to bodies but even more mysteriously elected by
God as creatures with immortal souls that are an image of eternity.
Perhaps this is what people mean when they say that man is body,
soul, and spirit—physical body, rational mind, and immortal spirit.
Perhaps it is the “human person” whose unique and irreplaceable
personality is partly known to reason but fully known only to God,
who gives everyone on earth a personal calling or mysterious personal
destiny. In other words, science tells us about the body and
especially the physical-chemical reactions of the brain; philosophy
tells us about the rational soul united to the body; but religion takes
us into the mysterious realm of the divine image of eternal destiny in
each human being. If this is the whole truth about man, what are the
implications for biotechnology?
While analyzing specific policies is highly technical (and beyond
the scope of this essay), I would like to conclude by sketching some of
the implications of human dignity for limiting utility and the quest
for theoretical knowledge. Let me state briefly five lessons:
(1) First and foremost, the mystery of the human soul as the basis
of human dignity implies a certain reverence and awe before the unknown
and unknowable causes of human existence in the partly rational
but mysterious universe. This suggests caution about scientific
experimentation on human beings for the sake of relieving suffering