These stem cells will hopefully be able to provide the basis for the cure of many incurable and untreatable diseases. Understandably, there has been an outcry from almost every sector, from the EU to the Vatican, calling this action (which most knew was inevitable) atrociously unethical. What I would hope to do here, with the Advent season newly upon us, is to look at the ethics of cloning within the perspective of Advent and birth of the Lord.
The season of Advent is a time of anticipating the coming of the Lord. An attitude of patient waiting is at the heart of the season. Patient waiting has been an integral factor in salvation history. There was a four thousand year wait from the time of Adam and Even until the Incarnation, and we have now been waiting two thousand years for the second coming of the Lord. In some ways, the phenomenon of waiting almost defines our existence as humans. Adam had to wait for Eve to be created; for a creature he could enter into communion with. A mother must wait nine months for her child to be born. And indeed, our lives are an exercise in waiting to die and return to the heavenly Father.
This attitude of waiting shows our creatureliness and our dependence on the Creator. In waiting, we come to realize that are not in control of our lives, that the Almighty guides our destinies and awaits our free response. It illustrates the necessity in always being seen in relation to God, that we are forever “waiting on the Other.” And this relation is defined by obedience and submission to the Lord, for we are simple finite creatures and he is all knowing and Almighty. It is the Blessed Virgin Mary who is the perfect example in being the “handmaiden of the Lord” and always being open to the will of God.
However, sin has impacted the phenomenon of man’s waiting. Because of sin, waiting in patience is difficult. We like to have things done and finished now. We want to take control of our own lives. We want things when and how we want them. We want to follow our own wills and refuse to submit to God’s initiative, and thus we fall into disobedience.
Truly we can say that the first sin was intimately tied to waiting. Adam and Eve took the fruit from the tree instead of letting God give it to them, and thus suffering and death entered into the world. What’s more, now man has more waiting to do for his lack of patience – he must wait for the Messiah to come. So in the perspective of sin, Advent is therefore not only about waiting for the Lord’s coming, but about purifying oneself from the sin that precipitated his first coming.
So with the discussion of waiting and sin, we are brought to the ethics of cloning. Cloning is a sin against our creatureliness and our need to wait upon the Lord. As most can understand, in cloning another human man has set himself above and against God his Creator. And is it any coincidence that the announcement of the first cloned human comes right before Advent, the season of creaturely waiting, and even more that it was made on the Feast of Christ the King, as man sets himself up as his own king with power to create and destroy life?
How similar it is to Adam’s sin. Adam was given dominion over all of creation, but he was still open to grace and obedient to the Lord. It was the serpent who tempted him and Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and “become like Gods.” The core of the sin wasn’t to become like Gods, but to become like Gods now. God created man to be divinized, to share in the divine nature, but he had to wait until God gave it to him as a gift. The first man’s sin is a refusal to wait for God’s initiative in granting him a share of his life, his wisdom and his knowledge.
Cloning is to become like God the Creator and refuse to wait for his initiative in claiming a dominion over life and not waiting for God’s creative action. In addition (and herein lies the real ethical problem), cloning violates the meaning of human sexuality. It violates the person’s sexuality and relationality. Sexual difference, being created as man and woman in the image and likeness of God, no longer matters; man can reproduce asexually (man is no longer created in the image of God, but the image of himself). Rising from this, it infringes upon the value of the fruitful union of man and woman in marriage. And finally, it goes against the child’s right to be conceived and born in a natural way. In cloning, man steps outside creaturely obedience and puts himself in God’s place.
But what of the good intentions to alleviate suffering and cure diseases? Certainly this is noble, for “blessed are the merciful” is one of the Beatitudes elucidated by Jesus himself. However, the ends do not justify the means; we do not do evil in order that good might come from it. And in cloning humans for stem cell research (which entails the destruction of the embryo), this is not just the taking of a human life but the production of human beings for the sole purpose destroying them in order to supposedly help other humans. And it is a person who is created, not just an “embryo.” An embryo is a stage of human development just like a child or adult not a substantial entity in and of itself. Although it may seem good to many, it is a grave devaluation of the human person and an affront against God’s power as Creator.
Truly, it is all based on man’s desire to live forever. It is a nostalgic longing for the tree of eternal life in the Garden of Eden that Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden in order that they may not eat of it and have their punishment last into eternity. Whether it be through the Philosopher’s Stone, the elusive Fountain of Youth, or now cloning and stem cell research, man has always longed for immortality. Yet he can never escape the fact that as long as one might live on this earth, death is inevitable.
And this brings us back to Advent and the coming of the Lord. The whole reason the Word became Flesh was to give us eternal life – to enable us to live forever in his heavenly kingdom and share in his eternal divine nature. But in order to do that, God became a little child, waited for thirty years (imagine, God having to wait!), and then fulfilled his mission by suffering and dying, and again waiting for the Father to send the Spirit and to raise him up on the third day. In doing so he sanctified our waiting and our suffering and gave us the power to endure them both.
Yet we must be obedient to him, and recognize that we are sinful creatures in order to lay hold of these graces and to participate in his plan of salvation. The season of Advent teaches us the value of waiting upon the Lord’s salvific will. It teaches us that we are creatures, yet through the birth of the Lord, creatures destined to become like God!
(Copyright 2001 Catholic Exchange)