Stewardship of Life

Genesis Chapters One and Nine provide a broad guideline for making bioethical decisions. We are the stewards over God’s creation; we are the decision makers and cannot avoid responsibility by crying, “It’s in God’s hands.” As frightening as it seems, God has chosen to delegate those difficult decisions about using medical technology to us.

When we see ourselves as stewards over medical technology, it becomes obvious that we need not always use it. Good stewards pick and choose among the available resources and use them only as needed to further God’s plan. We need to ask ourselves, “Will those three extra days of life on a respirator in an intensive care unit further God’s plan for our loved one’s life?” If not, it is perfectly reasonable for a good steward to forgo the respirator. I do not mean to make light of these decisions; we can never know enough when the decision must be made. Our greatest resource remains prayer. But I do contend that a technological possibility is not a mandate for the steward.

On the other hand, there are limits to what we can decide. In Genesis 9:6, God explicitly defines one limit: we are not to kill one another, for each human is in the image of God. If there are exceptions to this limit, they must be well argued. Our starting assumption is otherwise.

When I talk with people about making end of life treatment decisions, I find it helpful to ask the three “S” questions: Is this a case of stewardship? Is this suicide? Is this sacrifice? If a decision is good stewardship, we can embrace it. If it entails suicide, we must reject it as inconsistent with the Christian story. If it involves sacrifice, it warrants further consideration. Jesus’ sacrificial death was justified because, in giving up his temporal life, he secured eternal life for many. We must honestly assess what our deaths will accomplish and be careful not to give up our lives unless the ends in view are more significant biblically than the preciousness of a human life.