This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Euthanasia technically means good death and originally was applied to giving some form of medical comfort to people who were in the process of dying, trying to make them comfortable. And I've said that in Proverbs 31 6, we find biblical support for that. And so in its original sense, euthanasia is certainly biblical. However, euthanasia today has come to mean mercy killing, and we need to consider that as a problem in Christian ethics. And as always, we begin with an understanding of terms and the drawing of distinctions. We've distinguished between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. terminal and non-terminal cases, ordinary and extraordinary medical techniques being used to help a person. And we distinguish between mercy dying and mercy killing. At the end of the lecture last time, I was looking at initial objections that might be raised against euthanasia. In each case, I found these objections wanting. And what I would like to do is to go on from that point and to ask whether there are whether this is a good case for euthanasia and whether we can't make a better case against it. And then I would also like to take time to pursue the difficult subject of brain death, which is really where the key questions are being raised in our day. The various initial objections to euthanasia were that we should leave death to nature, we shouldn't tamper with providence, that we have to recognize the fallibility of physicians, there's always the possibility of miracles, that if doctors engage in euthanasia, they'll destroy confidence in the medical profession, and then there's always the possibility of a social slide into tyrannical eugenics, if we even countenance one appropriate use of euthanasia. Let's begin by asking ourselves now today, what would be a just cause for life taking? a just cause for life taking. If I'm a doctor, I have a patient, whether the patient's comatose or not, or whether the patient requested or not, under what circumstances would we know, I mean, under what circumstances would there be a just cause for taking that life? How would I know that I was doing the right thing? Well, clearly the Christian is going to say in response to that question that a just cause for life-taking will be determined only by the giver of life. And the giver of life, God, makes these sorts of ethical distinctions and gives this kind of ethical information, reveals these things only in the scriptures. Only in the scriptures. Now, somebody conceivably could argue, well, we could find an answer to this question by studying natural revelation. But again, we should remember our basic philosophical and epistemological moorings here. We don't believe that natural revelation gives us any information that is not already found or can be found as well in the Word of God. The Word of God is a fuller revelation of God's will, including as it does the way of redemption. It doesn't leave anything out in terms of every good work that God wants of us. And consequently, any crucial moral distinction qualification on the Sixth Commandment against killing, for instance, can be counted on to be found in the Word of God. And so our principle here, our operating principle, is going to be that unless a case can be made from scripture that euthanasia is appropriate under some circumstances, unless a qualification can be found in the Word of God written, that the Christian does not have the right to engage in euthanasia. One of the cases that people attempt to make in favor of euthanasia is that euthanasia is really nothing more than initiating an anticipated death and doing so as self-defense against suffering or indignity. Euthanasia is only initiating a death that we already anticipate and it amounts to self-defense against the kind of suffering and torture that a person will have to go through or the indignity someone would have to go through if they waited for the natural course of events to play out. If you think of some terrible examples, it wouldn't be difficult to appeal to emotions at this point, to play to the gallery, and have a person who wants to convince us that euthanasia is alright, bring up some of the more difficult cases of a young person, for instance, suffering a disfiguring disease, one that wracks the body constantly, does not allow the person to sleep, makes the person hard to get along with, and the person simply wants to die. Now in such situation where there's suffering and indignity, shouldn't we allow this person to be put out of their misery? Now we're not talking about killing the person. If the person wanted to live, that'd be one thing. But here's the person who says, in his or her right mind, I want to die. Well, I think the Bible gives us at least three arguments, even in these emotional cases, cases of intense suffering and indignity, three arguments against the use of euthanasia even there. First of all, Job chapter 2, verses 7 to 10. Job 2, verses 7 to 10. So Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself therewith, and he sat among the ashes. So Job here is suffering excruciating pain. And said his wife unto him, Dost thou still hold fast thine integrity, renounce God, and die? But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What, shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? And all this did not Job sin with his lips. Bible tells us that Job was in a miserable situation in terms of his bodily comforts, and his wife's recommendation could be understood as something of a recommendation of euthanasia. At least die and get it over with, Job. Curse God and die. Now, obviously, you could also interpret that, curse God and take what God's going to do to those who curse him. However, I don't think that's what she's getting at. I don't think she's saying, well, God's really done you a bad turn here, so Who cares what he's going to do further to you, go ahead and curse him. I think what she's saying is, you've got this bitterness of soul, curse God, and then be put out of your pain, die. And Job says, she's speaking foolishly, and the Bible commends him, saying he didn't sin with his lips and all of that. Quite clear that you are not to curse God and just die, even in the midst of excruciating pain. In 1 Samuel 31, verses 3 and 4, let's turn to that and read the passage. We have the account of Saul and his armor-bearer, 1 Samuel 31, verses 3 and 4. And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers overtook him. And he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers. Then said Saul to his armor-bearer, Draw thy sword and thrust me through therewith, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and abuse me. But his armor-bearer would not, for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell upon it." Here's a case where an armor-bearer, even an armor-bearer who was not all that high in the kingdom, obviously, knew better than to kill so as to save someone in dignity. If you want, you can compare the story in Judges 9, verses 52 to 54 in this regard. Saul is concerned that uncircumcised people will get the credit for killing him, the man who was circumcised. And so he is, if you will, analogously, I think, in a position of going to suffer death with great indignity. And so he wants to die with dignity and prefers that his armor-bearer kill him, rather than to have the uncircumcised kill him. But the armor-bearer will not. and knows that this would be inappropriate. An even stronger case against euthanasia, we've seen one against euthanasia in the case of suffering excruciating pain, Job, another case against euthanasia when there is going to be the suffering of indignity at the time of one's death, and then finally 2 Samuel 1. This is after the death of Saul, and I'll begin reading at verse 1. And it came to pass after the death of Saul when David was returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had abode two days in Ziklag, it came to pass on the third day that, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul with his clothes rent and earth upon his head. And so it was when he came to David that he fell to the earth and did obeisance. And David said unto him, From whence comest thou? And he said unto him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped. And David said unto him, How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me. And he answered, The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead, and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also. And David said unto the young man that told him, How knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan his son are dead? And the young man that told him said, As I happened by chance upon Mount Gilboa, behold, Saul was leaning upon his spear, and, lo, the chariots and the horsemen followed hard after him. And when he looked behind him, he saw me and called unto me. And I answered, here am I. Now, we already know from what we've just read that this is a lie. It's a contrived story. And so in one sense, the ethical conclusion I'm going to draw from it is based upon a lie. You could say that, I suppose. However, the important thing is how David responds to a situation. The fact that it wasn't a real situation doesn't mean that his response wasn't appropriate to this kind of situation. Now we continue, verse 8, And he said unto me, Who art thou? And I answered him, I am an Amalekite. And he said unto me, Stand, I pray thee, beside me, and slay me, for anguish hath taken hold of me, because my life is yet whole in me. So I stood beside him and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen. And I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought them hither unto my Lord. Then David took hold of his clothes and rent them, and likewise all the men that were with And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of Jehovah and for the house of Israel, because they were fallen by the sword. And David said to the young man that told him, Whence art thou? And he answered, I am the son of a sojourner and a Malachite. And David said unto him, How wast thou not afraid to put forth thy hand to destroy Jehovah's anointed? And David called one of the young men and said, Go near and fall upon him. And he smote him, so that he died. David said unto him, Thy blood be upon thy head, for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain Jehovah's anointed." Okay, an interesting legal question. Should David have had the man executed without due process, without some confirmatory witness? Is it sufficient that this man's testimony was given and the testimony was self-indicting? All these things can be asked, but the important thing to note here is that this man claims to have put Saul out of his misery. Saul, according to the testimony of the Amalekite, said, I am in anguish. And then, interestingly, the Amalekite adds to this, and I recognize that he was in the process, in the throes of death anyway. I suppose somebody might be able to come up with a better biblical analogy, but this is really quite a fine analogy in terms of the moral circumstances, because the Bible specifically says Saul was in pain, he was in anguish. Secondly, he was going to die anyway, so why not hasten the death and put him out of his misery? It seems to be a perfect illustration. Somebody is going to say, though, and rightly so. I think you should think through these things. Somebody is going to say, this is not a normative illustration. because we're talking about the Lord's anointed, as this was a special case. David specifically says that this man should have known better than to raise his hand or to honor the request to die if it meant he had to kill the anointed of the Lord. And so there's a special circumstance that comes in here, making it a hasty generalization to reason from it to other cases. You don't take an extraordinary case and make it normative for other cases as well. Saul is in misery. It's an awkward Hebrew word there, by the way, and some people have taken it that Saul is giddy, that he's just kind of mindless. But I think the better interpretation is that he needed to have his misery relieved, and he requests that it be relieved. It's a voluntary case of euthanasia, and it's a case where the malachite recognizes that it's a terminal situation, and so he goes ahead and he takes Saul's life. Now, as it turns out, rather than making this an extraordinary case because Saul's the Lord's anointed, I'm going to argue that the case becomes highly appropriate for our use because it creates an a fortiori situation. In terms of euthanasia, the argument goes that because of human dignity, we have the right to be relieved of our misery. We deserve comfort in the midst of our death, even if it means hastening the death process. We deserve to be comfortable and to have our misery relieved. Now, if that is a normal human right, then the Lord's anointed would have that right par excellence. He would have that above all. If anybody has the right to comfort and dignity in the midst of death, surely the Lord's anointed has that right. And David, one would think, in reasoning through this, what we would see is a hypothetical situation, an imaginary situation. David certainly should have seen, if we take the premise, and let's grant to our opponents the premise that we have the right to have our misery relieved and hasten our death. If that premise is true, David certainly should have perceived that that is all the more appropriate. Because when you think about the other comforts of life, isn't the king more entitled to the other comforts of life? than even the normal person in his kingdom? Well, surely he is. Isn't the king worthy of respect above even those in his kingdom? Well, surely he is. Isn't the king therefore to be granted what everybody else has the right to in perhaps an even greater measure? Doesn't he surely have the right to be comfortable and to die with dignity? Surely he would. if everybody else has that, and yet David could not see anything here but an assault. He didn't see here relieving of misery. He didn't see here the granting of dignity. He didn't see here the granting of what is a fundamental human right. David could see only the assault upon the Lord's anointed, and for that reason he had the Amalekite executed. So far from being an extraordinary case, what you have is the case becoming extraordinarily strong. Because just because of the extraordinary circumstance of Saul as the Lord's anointed, the very thing we're debating would have been Saul's par excellence, and yet it wasn't Saul's. Saul did not have a right to be comfortable or to gain dignity by hastening his death. So I think that 2 Samuel 1 perhaps is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, direct biblical response to the case for euthanasia. Can we initiate an anticipated death in a voluntary circumstance as a self-defense against suffering or indignity? We see that we cannot. Job would not die, even in the midst of suffering, excruciating pain. The armor-bearer of Saul would not kill him to save him the indignity of uncircumcised men bringing about his death. David cannot see in the Amalekites' false claim to have relieved Saul of his misery. any justification. David says it was a capital crime, and again, totally apart from whether there should have been due process and all the rest. Nevertheless, it was such that it called for the death penalty if it were true, and David assumed that it was. Do you have any questions at this point? That's really rather crucial to my point of view, 2 Samuel chapter 1. Euthanasia, it seems to me, therefore is excluded. Well, another line of argumentation, obviously these are all going to bear some relationship to one another, but kind of a different facet on this argument. Another argument runs that we have the requirement of being merciful and preventing suffering in people. Now, it isn't difficult to develop that line of thought from biblical evidence. That's for sure, blessed are the merciful, Jesus says. One then has to ask, how blessed are we? If, when we can relieve the suffering of people, we will not do so, we will not extend mercy to them. You think of somebody who, say, because of an accident, is going to be in some form of traction, or is going to be paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. Now, last September, NBC television broadcast a TV drama entitled, Act of Love. And in this drama, brother's brother is because of a motorcycle accident, as I recall, whatever it is, is paralyzed from the neck down. And he is somebody who has been sexually active as a farmer, works outside, is very active in terms of his lifestyle, likes to run around, ride motorcycles, the whole thing. And the drama portrays the progressive disintegration of his personality in that he now has to adjust He can't read. He never developed any reading skills. He doesn't really have a mind for enjoying abstract things. He's not the sort of person who likes to be entertained. And so, I mean, his lifestyle has just been totally altered and he can't bear it. And so he pleads with his brother to shoot him. And then the story develops how the brother acquiesces to the request and then finally goes to court and the defense that is offered. And in the defense that is offered, the lawyer Reasons the crucial line is that love sometimes overwhelms reason and you should not convict a person for an act of love for an act of love See the lawyer wants to grant it was unreasonable to do this But it was an act of love and therefore being motivated by love Then we shouldn't hold it against this person. That's the title of the play to act of love love overwhelms reasons Well, love doesn't overwhelm reason in a biblical perspective. Love is not unreasonable and reason is not unloving. And so the contrast is obviously inappropriate. But let's ask ourselves now, could it possibly be reasonable and loving? Could it be merciful in such a circumstance to relieve the person's suffering? Now notice that this is a non-terminal case. He's not dying. He's not in the process of dying. As the first case I gave you where the young person is in excruciating pain and it's just a matter of time, but there's no way to relieve the pain until that time. Here there's no pain, there's just indignity and if you will, psychological torture because of the changed lifestyle that is necessary. Should we be merciful in this situation? Well, I think that's a rather classic illustration of people taking biblical concepts and running with them halfway. If you take a biblical concept, mercy would mean that if you could relieve somebody's torturous situation, that ordinarily you should. That's true. However, you clearly are not understanding biblical mercy if the mercy leads you to do what is contrary to God's will. It is not enough to say the Bible commands mercy, one must show that the mercy the Bible commands could lead to love overwhelming, if you will, the ordinary requirement of protecting human life. And so I started with the hermeneutical principle that we have to have biblical evidence for euthanasia. And what I'm suggesting is that we haven't really been given specific evidence when you appeal to the blessed or the merciful. Because the question then becomes, what amounts to mercy in a situation like this? Would it be more merciful? Would it be more merciful perhaps to help develop the mind of the paralyzed brother, to give him the kind of entertainment that would be more satisfactory, to perhaps develop in him a reading ability where he could come to appreciate that. Now I don't want to be unrealistic either, it just may be there's some people where even that approach isn't the appropriate one, but in a sense if somebody says, well that is so hard, it would be so excruciating for the trainer and for the brother and all the rest, if that's the opinion, that somebody takes, then what we want to say as Christians is that what you call mercy then is the easiest way out of the plight, and that's not mercy. Mercy is willing the difficulty and to go through the hard work of making the situation more bearable. Another argument that is often set forth in favor of euthanasia is the argument that suffering can sometimes reach a point where the intrinsic value of human life becomes meaningless. Suffering can sometimes reach a point where the value of human life becomes meaningless. And we have to ask ourselves whether in fact the Bible teaches that. Can the value of human life become meaningless because of the level of suffering that somebody has to undergo? And at this point I want to remind you because we're in such a, well, academic setting in this particular lecture. that it is not difficult to give plausibility to these arguments when people are in the midst of a circumstance that you have to go in and be a counselor. They have somebody that's on a respirator, an older person who is suffering pain and all the rest and wants to die. We can imagine the circumstances and plenty of stories have been written where your heart really goes out and you say, oh, wouldn't death in fact be merciful? Wouldn't death be a relief in this situation? we just recoil from the suffering that some of our fellow human beings have to undergo. Is it true that suffering, in some of these dramatic situations, can suffering reach a point where the intrinsic value of human life has now been forfeited or has just become meaningless? I mean, it's just obtuse to appeal to the intrinsic value of human life when the human life is in such a miserable, deplorable suffering state as we see before us. Well, Romans 8, verse 18, I think, supplies some guidance for us here. Paul says, Therefore I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us. Now, obviously Paul is not speaking directly to the situation where a person is suffering unto the point of death, and the question is, should we hasten that death? Paul is talking, nevertheless, about what we are to make of the suffering that is possible in our lives. And Paul says, under inspiration, that the suffering of this present time is not even worthy to be talked about. It's not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be ours hereafter. Romans 8, verse 18 is the passage we're looking at. I can imagine somebody hearing this line of argumentation responding, well, this is really not fair because the Apostle Paul, such an idealist after all, and what does he know about these things? He's not aware of our modern excruciating circumstances. Some of these torturous illustrations that could be used to call out an emotional response from us. That's true, Paul may not have known of some of the modern forms of torture and pain, but nevertheless he knew an awful lot in his own life, a great deal indeed. 2 Corinthians 4, verses 11 to 18 might help us get a realistic appraisal of the position Paul is in to make his remark. 2 Corinthians 4, and I'll begin reading at verse 11. He says, For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. that the life also of Jesus may be manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death works in us, but life in you. But having the same spirit of faith, according to that which is written, I believe, and therefore did I speak, we also believe, and therefore also we speak, knowing that he that raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us also with Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that the grace being multiplied through the many may cause the thanksgiving to abound unto the glory of God. Wherefore, we faint not, but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceeding an eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Now this is the same apostle who in this book is going to remind us that he was stoned, and he was beat many times, and he was shipwrecked, and he underwent all these difficulties, even this thorn in the flesh, whatever that ailment was, we don't know, but that thorn in the flesh that Paul had to endure, and three times he, in excruciating pain, appealed to God to remove it from him. This is the same Paul who, when he wrote to the Galatians, reminded them how they received him as an angel from God, Even though he was so disfigured, he said they should not have looked upon him. They should have turned away in disgust from his sufferings. So this Paul who suffered and suffered and suffered now reflects upon all of that excruciating pain and he says well our light affliction is but for the moment. This is the Paul then in Romans 8 who says for I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared. And so if we ask the question, can suffering reach a point where the value of human life becomes meaningless? We have to answer from the apostle Paul himself, his own experience and under inspiration said, no, it's not. The suffering that you undergo in this life is not going to remove the value of human life. It's not even worthy to be compared to the glory to be revealed later. And it is light in comparison to what God is doing. Certainly our outer man is decaying, Paul said, but nevertheless, we're being renewed day by day. Suffering is a grand opportunity for developing sanctified Christian character. I'm not at all suggesting some Roman Catholic medieval idea of developing moral character by willingly undergoing suffering, and I'm certainly not suggesting that we endorse a stoic approach to life. Recently, by the way, we've had that kind of thing illustrated. It's the name of this fellow who was imprisoned because of his Liddy, Gordon Liddy. Fellow was engaged in the Watergate break-in. He says that he punished his body and punished his body so he'd be able to take even more if need be. So he was able to burn himself and to go without eating for days and to jab himself with sharp objects and that sort of thing. Well, that is not at all a Christian outlook on life. We're not supposed to develop character by willingly going into suffering. However, when we find ourselves, either through no fault of our own or because of our following of duty that has brought us into suffering situation. We shouldn't say that that suffering somehow now has deprived us of our dignity and that we should escape that suffering at any cost. We should take that as an opportunity for sanctification. And I know I can hear it now because I've heard it so often. Well, that's easy to say in the midst of our setting here. It's not so easy to say when you have to look at the person in the face who is constantly vomiting, who has headaches and all these sorts of things because of blood poisoning or something. And there doesn't seem to be any relief in store. Well, I know that it's easier to say here than it is there. And I don't want to take away the existential agony of having to counsel that. But the fact remains that what we counsel is not to be based upon our own feelings and our own wisdom. The Bible says, lean not unto your own wisdom. We need rather the objective word of God. And the objective word of God says we should not take pain and suffering as a sufficient ground for lowering our view of the intrinsic value of human life. I'd like to just throw into our discussion here, I've taken up the three major arguments that are offered in favor of euthanasia, all of them in one form or another appealing to emotion. What I want to do here is that there's no easy way to integrate this into the outline. I just want to bring up factors that are important in our consideration of euthanasia or aspects of this argumentation that are important for ethical reflection. I've been saying, here's an appeal to emotion, an appeal to emotion. Now, somebody could, and somebody would be right in doing so, respond. What's wrong with an appeal to emotion? I mean, especially if we are convinced that the primacy of the intellect is a Greek approach to human nature and not a biblical approach to human nature. If the emotions are in fact as depraved as the intellect in the unbeliever and are being sanctified even as the intellect is being sanctified in the believer, if we believe in the unity of the human person, if we believe that the Bible gives and it does direct commandments to our emotions, we are to rejoice We are to sorrow with those who sorrow. Since the Bible indicates that our emotions are important to be sanctified, the unity of the human person and all that, and we don't believe that the reason has to keep the unruly emotions in line. then why shouldn't we appeal to the emotions? Maybe the emotions will direct us into a path and do so more efficiently and directly, direct us into the right path quicker than our minds would. Maybe it'll take a long time for us finally to figure out, oh, this is why euthanasia would have been right. Why don't we simply just let our emotions do the appropriate thing when a person is suffering? And we want to be merciful. We want to say the value of human life has been sacrificed because of the point of the suffering. and we need to defend this person against the indignity and suffering they're undergoing. Well, the key point is why shouldn't we let our emotions lead us to do what is right? Well, our emotions will lead us and sometimes our emotions will run ahead of our intellect. Sometimes we have kind of an emotional response to something and although we can't defend the position It turns out that upon reflection, our emotions were right. A former seminary instructor of mine often used the illustration of a person going as a good, reformed Presbyterian who understands the regulative principle of worship and the grandeur of worship and the majesty of God and the respect that is necessary. Nevertheless, going to a Pentecostal evening revival meeting and really getting caught up with all this emotional outpouring of joy and exhilaration in the Lord. And while the person's mind is saying I know this isn't the right way to worship God and it really is just a little bit tacky that all these people are acting this way. Nevertheless his emotions are saying well I love Jesus too and it feels good to say so. Now what do you do in that circumstance? Do you then throw cold water on your emotions because my mind knows better? and just hold strictly to what your mind says? Or do you just, you know, say, well, forget my mind. It feels good, so it must be good. No, well, both of those are contrary to the Bible. Both of those responses are irresponsible responses. The answer is to bring your emotion and your intellect into line. Now, in some cases, maybe not the one we're talking about, in some cases that means the mind will finally rebuke us. When we look reasonably and excursively at the argumentation of the evidence, we say, well, I really shouldn't be enjoying this. It's wrong. I can think of cases where that would be the way it would work out. In the particular illustration I've given, however, it seems to me that we might find out that maybe we've been just a little hide-bound and tradition-bound and a bit priggish about worship, and there should be joy and exhilaration. After all, I don't get the impression when I read the worship of the Old Testament that these people were all staid and long-faced when they worshiped God. They sang and they danced and they made merry and In fact, so much so that I understand that Michael, David's wife, felt that he too was being a little tacky and that he shouldn't have been so unrestrained in his rejoicing at the return of the ark. So, in that case, your emotions were right, I would think. Your emotions were right. Worship should be a joyous experience and there's nothing wrong with letting your hair down a little bit and saying praise God and amen. Worship should be that. And what I had to do is, well, my emotions forced me to go back and re-evaluate all the evidence to see that although I was right to a point in my views of worship, nevertheless I had to correct that by supplementation, not by taking away what I had said, but by putting it in a broader context. So there the emotions stimulate the intellect to go and to be corrected. So the intellect can correct the emotions, the emotions can in a sense lead to the correcting of the intellect. But now notice in that what I consider to be a very good example, paradigmatic of where the emotions should lead the intellect. the intellect still had to satisfy itself. There still had to be evidence. There had to be the correction of the intellect. It is not that the intellect says one thing, the emotions say another, so we flip a coin and now we take the emotions. Or we say, the emotions are usually right, the intellect is wrong, so intellect, you're corrected, although we couldn't begin to tell you why you were wrong. It was rather that the emotion stimulated the intellect to redo its homework, if you want to put it that way. So now coming back to euthanasia, I don't want to throw out an appeal to emotion. It would be untrue to the Reformed world and life view in anthropology that we want to promote in our theological curriculum here. So we don't throw out an appeal to emotion. But we do remember that when emotion is appealed to, it's emotion being appealed to so as to stimulate the intellect to get all the evidence in view to correct its mistakes. So that when somebody appeals to the excruciating pain and suffering and indignity of some patient and says, now don't your emotions go out to this person, why shouldn't we allow them to die? Person's going to die anyway, why shouldn't we allow them to die? Now that should force me to go back and say, well, I'm going to look at the evidence again, that's for sure. But until I can bring emotion and intellect into line, the appeal to emotion is nothing more but a trigger. It cannot be the final plunging of the bullet. So that is not all directed toward euthanasia, but it's a very good time, I think, to start considering just exactly how do we view the interaction of emotion and intellect. Because unless you've been, as I have in some cases anyway, in the midst of a counseling situation where your emotions do tear you away from your intellectual conclusions, you don't realize how tough it can be. It's better to know in advance how you're going to handle it when it comes up than to get in the situation and finally have to just flip a coin and follow one or the other. Okay, so the first point has to do with whether appeal to emotion is wrong. My second somewhat random consideration here is about economics. We've been talking about the intrinsic value of human life vis-a-vis suffering and indignity but there's another factor here and that is the economic consideration. We as Christians, as responsible people, holding to the values presented in the law of God and the economic requirements of God's law, owe it to ourselves, and we are under obligation to God, to consider whether the expenditure of our money for, say, sustaining somebody who is not going to be able to, on all reasonable expectation, make any intelligent contribution to our family life, our church life, interpersonal relations, anything of that sort. A person, let's say a comatose patient, That is, it's costing $3,000 or $4,000 a year to keep the machinery running just to have the apparent signs of life, breathing and blood circulation go on in this person's body. Whether we should be putting out that kind of money when, and of course you can draw the scenario out and make it a real crisp and clear case when in fact you have pledged that money to help orphans in Mexico. So instead of building the orphanage or the hospital in Mexico with your money, all your money is being sunk into what amounts to somebody who doesn't even know the money is being spent. and is not going to recover at least from any known human source apart from miracles and we aren't to live our life on the expectation of miracles, we already know that. So is it really moral for us to sink all this money into this situation? Do we have a situation here where perhaps the economic angle tells us turn off the machinery and the angle having to do with human life and dignity says you must keep the machinery going. Do you have a conflict between the 6th commandment then and the 8th commandment? Economic purity versus purity with respect to the dignity of life. That's not easy work. That's not easy to deal with at all. However, we do get some help when we remember I'll just review this briefly from our previous course, that God never puts us into situations of genuine moral conflict. We're never in situations of genuine moral conflict. For there's no temptation taking you, but such as is common to man. God is faithful. Who will, with the temptation, make also a way of escape, that you may also be able to bear it? 1 Corinthians 10, 13. We have the assurance of God that we're never in a situation where whatever we do is going to be sinful. That is, so that if we keep the machinery going, we're going to sin by not expending our money in a proper way, not showing proper stewardship of our funds. And that if we take account of the stewardship of our funds, that somehow we're going to be guilty of complexity and murder. We're never in a situation where whatever we do, one of those sins is going to be committed because there's always a way of escape. And you know that because God is faithful and he doesn't put us into circumstances that we can't handle. There is always a way of escape. And so I think that what we have here is a case that's analogous to the Gestapo coming to the door asking whether you've seen any Jews or whether you're hiding them in your basement and they put it to you in such a way and they're able to discern from your actions what the answer would be. If you do not convincingly lie to them, some Jews are going to die. And yet if you do convincingly lie, really throw yourself into it, you're clearly violating the commandment not to bear false witness. In that situation, it's true that there are two different commandments that bear on the circumstance, one seeming to lead to this conclusion over here, the other seeming to lead to the opposite conclusion over here. And the way we resolve that again, now what is the pattern for dealing with that situation? The way we resolve it is to ask the scripture to speak to the relationship of these two commandments. We do not take the approach of the hierarchicalists who say, well now we know in advance that life is more important than truth, therefore you do this rather than that, or that we know that truth is more important than life. In the first place, one wonders how you make those decisions apart from the scripture giving us some incidents, say Rahab or something like that, that shows us that one takes precedent over the other. But you see, if the scripture gives us just that kind of circumstance, a normative illustration, or some principle that will guide us here, then the scripture itself is telling us, thereby, how to understand the law more fully. That is, the scripture itself is qualifying the meaning of the law. So then, at least in that case, I resolved the I at least resolve that particular case by looking at the situation of Rahab and how the New Testament refers to it and say that the Bible never intended for truth to be told under such circumstances. It's not as though we have a conflict and now I've got to have a hierarchy. It's that I have to understand the law more fully. So now in our euthanasia situation, when somebody says economically you're under obligation to turn off the machine, from the standpoint of the sixth commandment, you're under obligation to keep it running. What we have to do is to read the scripture to understand the full implications of economic ethics, the full implications of life ethics, and then see how economics and life interact. And one of the ways that we do that is by taking account of the fact, for instance, when a life has been unjustly taken, when there's been a case of murder, the Bible says there is to be no economic, no financial retribution exacted. There can be no monetary compensation for that. It must be life for life. They say, well, that doesn't have anything to do with euthanasia unless you're talking about euthanasia being a capital crime or something like that. Well, it does have something to do with euthanasia in that it shows us the relationship between money and life. And in that particular case, we see that life is in a separate category and a unique position. Monetary considerations may not alter the value of life, the life of the victim or may not protect the life of the accused. Now, since we don't believe that the patient is an accused person, we don't have to draw out that side of the analogy. And therefore, it seems to me economic considerations may not, in the end, be sufficient to turn off the machinery. May not be sufficient to do so. OK, one other consideration in the time that's left in this lecture, and then I'm going to come back and take up Another side to euthanasia, I'm going to argue that there are cases where we can engage in mercy dying, not mercy killing. And then I want to take up brain death as well. But the last consideration here that I want you to remember is the eschatological consideration. We've had the consideration having to do with appeal to emotion, the economic consideration, and then the eschatological. So we have emotion, economics, and eschatology as our three factors. Eschatological considerations, it seems to me, are helpful in Christian counseling when somebody reasons with us that euthanasia should be allowed. Often enough, the person who is reasoning that we should accept euthanasia is looking only at the present circumstance, not the future circumstances, but only at the present circumstances, and often in an insensitive way, only at the present circumstances for those who are conscious and living. However, the Christian doesn't believe that human life, when bodily life ends in this present circumstance, that that puts an end to conscious existence. We believe in an eschatological afterlife. And consequently, we must, in the midst of talking about the case for euthanasia, suggest that as Christians we can only support euthanasia, at best, for Christians. And I think you can see where this line of thought goes, obviously. Somebody might say, well, this person's a Christian and therefore is going to be in a happier circumstance after they die. I don't believe you can even make a good case there, but if you can make a good case anywhere, it has to be in that situation. Because in the opposite case, for a non-Christian, no matter how bad the suffering, pain, and indignity is now, it's going to be infinitely worse after this person dies. I mean, are we really being merciful to the man in suffering if we expedite his going into eternal suffering? Are we really keeping him from indignity? Are we really protecting him against indignity if we put him into the most critical situation of indignity, eternal torment and the exposing of his sin? So eschatological considerations are often forgotten by ethicists, and I think this is a valuable time to remind people that we have to remember the whole circumstance and not just the limited one about the family's response to the suffering here and now. There's also the eternal suffering that's possible for an unbeliever. Well, these are somewhat random factors, but please do remember the emotional, the economic, and the eschatological aspects to the question of euthanasia. Let's take a brief break, and when we come back, I'd like to argue that there are some cases where we should allow ourselves to die, and they do not amount to suicide. This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute. Duplication, sharing and distribution is encouraged. For more information about the life and ministry of Dr. Greg L. Bonson, visit our website, www.bonsoninstitute.com, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.