Life's continuum is the evolved podium on which pro-life/ pro-choice differences can be reconciled. Earth's large-scale aborting of life, human and ecological, and the great anxiety over abortion now occurring, is a joined angst that demands conscionable consideration. Conscionable choice demands proportional consideration of human survivability and ecological sustainability.
Love for life energizes every fiber of self-reflective consciousness. Pro-life compulsion finds any assault on life profoundly offensive, but especially, the intentional abortion of human life. The very thought of abortion is radically repulsive; it grates on the grain of right reason and prompts reflexive defense of the unborn. If this is true, how is it that, in this time, intuitional sense fails to prevent abortions, and even allows choices against the better mind of intuition?
The reasons behind this obscenity are complex and globally troubling. The decision to abort is no easy, much less, gratifying choice. But as experience and history testify, choices, good and bad, have good and bad outcomes, and the cumulus of outcomes can become game-changing from a status-quo that will never return.
In our times we are experiencing such a game-change. Human overreach is suffocating Earth's web-life by polluting air, water and soil, and by species' extinctions in the artificial and energy-intense hyper culture of a select few species. Human culture has become a corporate culture of spoliation and death, a prostitutional pursuit beyond justification.
The conundrum of exploiting web-life to extinction impacts female intuition more directly than male, for, female angst over abortion affects her person more immediately and consquentially; life's dependence on female nurture persists from conception to death. Trafficking and spoiling life are with gut-wrenching angst that demands proactive response.
We need to settle our minds about life and reality, that is, to open our minds to the evolved reality of energy/ matter unity and the continuity of life and consciousness. To be "pro-life", one must be "pro-choice", namely, practiced in habits of choosing the conscionable option and avoiding the unconscionable. Sometimes choice isn't between good and evil, but between the lesser of evils. That is the conundrum we face today.
There are those who rail against personal/ social decadence, and for good reasons, but who do so from misguided and unproductive presumptions. The misinformation driving cultures through millennia has contributed largely to the cumulus of outcomes conflicting conscience; more of the same, of ideological righteousness and judgmentalism, does nothing to mitigate the bad situation or reverse bad outcomes of misguided culture.
The worldview presumptions of ancient cultures persist in world religious traditions and continue to drive people in self-destructive directions. At the heart of cultural confusion and fixation is the theological understanding that God acts directly and individually to create the soul of each and every person; therefore, man or woman cannot gainsay or undo what God does directly. Human consciousness has yet to discern how God uses the medium of nature to create body and soul together, and the moral implications that compel humankind with respect to other-life abortion.
So, the question is, "how does God create the individual human soul?" Does God create souls independently from nature's energy/ matter evolution? If it is believed that soul is an extra-world creation, above and apart from material evolution (what is "supernatural"), then, fetal abortion directly affronts the will of God.
If, on the other hand, nature is the medium in divine creation of the human soul, then the wellbeing of nature is of priority value in divine intentions, and action that aborts other natural life is a direct offense against God. In the light of this truth, evolution takes on a new dimension of moral importance; which is to say: wasting the amniotic graces of nature is an abortion that denies natural soul. What is the moral proportionality in natural and human abortion? This buried sensitivity is the moral angst that weighs on woman more heavily than on man.
Dominion theology divides the realms of the spiritual and the material in distinct and separate categories; this error of insight belies the truth of nature, namely, the unity and continuity of energy/ matter co-evolution. In pitting spirituality against materiality, the theology of dominion culture drives people into schizophrenic thinking and acting that accumulate destructive and terminal outcomes for nature and humankind. Corporate institutions, including churches, are blind to the natural abortions of their doing.
People at the "religious right" are uncompromisingly intolerant of the thought that pro-life is also pro-choice; for them pro-choice is pro-abortion, and in this presumption they are wrong. Too often, life's circumstances sometimes seem so soul-wrenching that a choice that is both pro-nature and pro-life cannot be seen; the pro-life decision pits the life of the unborn against the sustainability of nature.
The waste of nature is an overwhelming abortion that weighs heavily on intuitional conscience. The economic price for wasting nature will not be escaped, as is presently being experienced by global humankind - which focuses the public mind on population reductions and stopping unconscionable waste and excess consumption. Disregard, disrespect and disdain for nature, as practiced by public institutions are unconscionable. The examination of conscience begins with church, which represents public conscience.
The callous idolatry of male super-arrogation and patriarchal dominion is an anxiety of soul that dominates all aspects of male/ female relationships. Persistent insult results in enduring trauma, both psychological and physical; instituted male dominion frustrates female sensitivity every step of the way in religious, political and corporate decisions. The persisting phenomenon of the "culture of death" is mortally telling on all life, and except for the healing virtue of femininity, humankind will not be rescued from its self-induced blindness. As Walter Brueggemann says:
"Adam, that is, mankind, has a partner and mate, adamah, land. Humankind and land are thus linked in a covenantal relationship, analogous to the covenantal relationship between man and woman ...unfortunately, in our society we have terribly distorted relationships between man and woman, between adam and adamah, distortions that combine promiscuity and domination.... Likely, we shall not correct one of these deadly distortions unless we correct them both".
(Quoted by Monica Steffen, "Ethical Land Use", Quantum Religion, pg 212ff) http://www.authorhouse.com:80/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=16722
In the divine order, God entrusts "choice" in the matter of new life to women; men need to have the same pro-choice confidence in women that God has. Humankind needs to learn not to obstruct divine order, rather, facilitate women in their ordained roles. Divine revelation in creation is gradual and evolving, aided or obstructed by human behavior/ misbehavior. God self-reveals from generation to generation, if only human insight is open to divine/ natural symbiotic purposes.
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Comments: 21
The argument here that Pro-life is "Pro-Choice" is based on a presumption that the article acknowleges but then chooses to ignore.
"Human consciousness has yet to discern how God uses the medium of nature to create body and soul together, and the moral implications that compel humankind with respect to other-life abortion....If, on the other hand, nature is the medium in divine creation of the human soul, then the wellbeing of nature is of priority value in divine intentions, and action that aborts other natural life is a direct offense against God. In the light of this truth..."
How do we know this to be the truth if we admit we can't discern it?
"Other life abortions" are beyond a woman's control. Abortion on demand is what we as individuals and as a society will have to give an account for.
No other creation of God's makes a conscience choice to abort their offspring. Only mankind does this horrible un-natural act of destruction. To compare "natural abortion" with abortion on demand is to compare God's sovereign will and omnipotent control over his creation with mankind's selfishness and finite understanding of truth.
Lee, you ask: "If, on the other hand, nature is the medium in divine creation of the human soul, then the wellbeing of nature is of priority value in divine intentions, and action that aborts other natural life is a direct offense against God. In the light of this truth..." How do we know this to be the truth if we admit we can't discern it?
I disagree that "we can't discern it." Reason, science and experience discern the continuity of evolved life in the natural energy/ matter continuum; that consciousness is the evolved complexity of self-aware life is more credible and satisfying to faith and reason than the presumption that God operates outside nature in the animation of living matter. Public acceptance of evolution has moved beyond the fixations of Scholasticism.
The point here being: that there are grounds for rational conversation in discerning cause-and-effect of "natural abortion" and human abortion; if we are honest, we cannot escape admitting guilt in bringing about the trashing of nature and causing human anxiety because of it.
What reversal of conduct will humankind take to stop its overload of nature and excess consumption that bring on "natural abortion" and expose us to our complicit guilt?
You say: To compare "natural abortion" with abortion on demand is to compare God's sovereign will and omnipotent control over his creation with mankind's selfishness and finite understanding of truth." You miss the point: pro-choice, the option of conscience, is pro-life. Condemning women out-of-hand if she comes to a tortured conclusion to have an abortion is to deny her conscience out-of-hand. Sure, women will make mistakes of judgment as we all do every day, but that does not deny her God-given right for making personal choices of conscience. Men need to back off and respect her right of conscience. I read your expressed view as too judgmental and insensitive to woman's right of conscionable choice.
The right approach, it seems to me is to discern causes for abortion and provide women alternatives better than choosing abortion. I think President Obama is approaching the pro-life/ pro-choice dilemma in the riight way.
The death of nature and human unsurvivability are of-a-piece, which means nature's and human abortion are of-a-piece. Absolutist thinking produces only heat not light if it is blind to the human cause of gross abortions of natural life and human.
I am confused first the article says we can't discern the truth on the subect but you say we can?
Why can't nature "handle" the "excess consumption and overloading?" Isn't that what evoltution is suppose to do. Why do humans have to have forced abortions in order to compensate for what evolution is suppose to do?
The "human cause of gross abortions" is selfishness and convenience.
Evolution responds to trials-and-errors in its own way. Errors occur when certain species cause imbalances. Ecological eras come and go. Radical die-offs in nature have occurred in the past and may well again occur in the future, and as are happening now.
Evolution is about ecological balance, i.e., balancing the energy equation of vitality, which can radically alter directions evolution takes. Neither God nor evolution can turn a blind eye to human excess — gross abortions of nature register in gross human abortion; human ignorance, "selfishness and convenience", including prostitution and exploitation, are factors.
Faith and reason can help us deal with ignorance and overreach if only we are open to learn from history and willing to change from ways of self-destruction — that is what conscience, INTENTIONAL SYMBIOSIS is supposed to bring to the table. All divisive factions need to gather at the common table and seek reconciliation with each other and nature.
"...that is what conscience, INTENTIONAL SYMBIOSIS is supposed to bring to the table."
The problem is that our conscience is often wrong. We need to "listen" to our conscience because it can be a helpful guide, but much of the time our conscience can become seared. We need a benchmark to go by so we know if our conscience is healthy or has become desensitized.
"All divisive factions need to gather at the common table and seek reconciliation with each other and nature."
I would say we all need to seek reconciliation with God. That should be our main objectice. When we do this all else falls into place.
God is in relationships. God's voice is in the whisper of conscience. When we reconcile with one another we reconcile with God
The challenge of personal conscience never lets up; the challenge is to faith and reason; faith and reason together are constantly proving conscience, the requirement of love. Conscience is what the example and teaching of Jesus Christ model personally.
Sense of relationships changes in consciousness as one grows in wisdom, age and grace. Change in awareness of relationships changes sense of responsibility, which challenges reason and faith to apply wisdom, the judgment of authenticity. The discernment of truth, of personal authenticity, is an ongoing process of self-reflective consciousness that puts demands on reason - thinking. Church's place is to help personal consciousness (conscience) discern right and wrong in personal relationships, in the contemporary context, not to impose presumptions of past thinking on personal conscience..
Fixation in past thinking (the problem of institutional absolutism) gets in the way of personal consciousness; fixation in past ideology (worldview) is incompetent in dealing with the ever-changing present.
At its root, conscience (cum scientia) is about self-reflectivity in the present context proving its authenticity against the consciousness of wisdom, faith's imprint in conssciousness. No institution can replace individual responsibility. Collective consciousness authenticates church and civility - what is an unrelenting process of personal/ social moral awareness, of symbiotic purpose, of love.
In the evolution of self-reflectivity, authenticity, communication is the universal mechanism for advancing personal/ social consciousness, faith, hope and love. "The Rest of the Story" is yet to unfold in individual/ communal consciousness/ conscience.
I think you put too much faith in conscience that has no benchmark.
"fixation in past ideology (worldview) is incompetent in dealing with the ever-changing present."
The only reason our worldview should change is if we realize it is not based on truth.
Do you believe absolute truth exists?
"Do you believe absolute truth exists?"
Tell me what absolute truth is and I'll tell you if I believe it exists.
Consciousness of God is itself an evolving phenomenon. Truth (God) is in relationships. All relationships of human consciousness are subjective. How can there be absolute truth in subjective relationships? Isn't absolute truth a concept created in/by subjective consciousness? I don't know any religious leader or collective of them who know absolute truth.
Surely there are sustainable insights (truths) that have been brought forward from of old; these need to correspond with new insights. It's critically important that bridges (faith/ reason) be built between old and new insights; constructon and maintenance of bridges are the responsibility of everyone and accomplished by communication, consciousness and conscience.
The benchmark of conscience is premised in understandings of universal wellbeing, personal and social. Religions must seek common ground if the confusion of benchmarks would be reduced.
"The definition of truth lives cynically in the heart of muddled boundaries and the re-definitions in which the modern mindset has engaged. The language game our society plays is a brilliant sleight-of-hand move, designed to obscure truth and celebrate falsehood. Tolerance sounds better than anti-truth."
"Truth by definition is exclusive. Everything cannot be true. If everything is true, then nothing is false. And if nothing is false then it would also be true to say everything is false. We cannot have it both ways."-Ravi Zacharius
Truth is reality according to the Creator God.
No leader religious or otherwise has knowledge of all truth. But this does not mean absoulute truth does not exist.
Who defines wellbeing? What is the benchmark for universal wellbeing? Is it tolerance?
"And tolerance, the catchphrase of the modern world, sounds better than anti-truth. Tolerance has been deemed the absolute picture of virtue, while absolute truth has been carefully ushered out of the picture. G.K. Chesterton said it well when he said toleration is the virtue of people who do not believe in anything. When we play with our words, we play with morality." -Ravi Zacharius
You say, "Truth is reality according to the Creator God." How does "absolute" truth differ from "reality according to the Creator God?"
If we can't say what absolute truith is, how can we say rationally that it exists? Just because we can't say that it doesn't exist doesn't mean that it exists.
Can't we say that subjective truth is the correspondence of relationships with interpersonal wellbeing? "Reality according to the Creator God?" Trial and error, cause and effect, experience gives to self-reflectivity what conscience is. By now there is some social consensus as to what behavior is conscionable and what is not. Conscience continues to be in process of learning.
If we say we can't know that absolute truth exist are we not claiming to make a statement of absolute truth?
Absolute truth is reality according to God. But no human has the mind of God. Man does not have knowledge of all truth because God has not revealed everything to us.
What is interpersonal wellbeing?
"By now there is some social consensus as to what behavior is conscionable and what is not. Conscience continues to be in process of learning."
So G. K. Chesterton and Ravi Zacharius are correct. In your view, Morality apparantly changes becaue of the process of learning. If this is the case anything goes. How can a person really know if something is right or wrong?
Do you believe in moral absolutes?
What is interpersonal wellbeing? To wish for others the same wellbeing I wish for myself, and to facilitate others in experiencing universal wellbeing we all aspire to.
Do you believe in moral absolutes? I know that self-reflective consciousness acquires understandings of universal imperatives and that all are obliged to comport personal behavior in keeping with them. In the sense that these are compelling on all I consider them "moral absolutes." This is not to say that circumstances will not arise in which "moral absolutes" can conflict with each other; in such circumstances one must inform her/his conscience in accord with one's best informed judgment. The confict of the right-to-life of Earth's ecological networks and the human right to "increase and multiply" is such a conundrum.
I still don't understand how you define "wellbeing."
How can you wish something for yourself or others if you can't define it?
Words are meaningless if they have no defintions. Words must have a benchmark just as our conscience does so we have a starting point to determine what is right or what is wrong.
Do you believe in moral absolutes? This is a yes/no question with a possible need for explanation.
Let me help you out. Do you believe rape for the purpose of pleasure is ever right in any circumstance?
"Let me help you out. Do you believe rape for the purpose of pleasure is ever right in any circumstance?" Absolutely not!
To pretend that we know more than we know is arrogance. Why is grass green? Do you deny grass is green? Is greenness of grass an "absolute truth?" A universal imperative of belief?
"Absolute truth" is an "object" of subjective consciousness, an "ens rationis." In self-reflective consciousness it is a reciprocal of "ratio entis." This I would suppose is about as close as we can get to understanding "absolute truth." The "ratio entis" and the "ens rationis" should correspond reciprocally in subjective understanding; objective truth and subjective truth are correlative; individual truth is subjective.
You have your subjective understanding of "absolute truth", I have mine. There are certain things that we come to by intuitional sense. The answer to the question you raise is one of them.
In your own personal self-interest, what is "wellbeing" to you? I trust that your personal expectations of wellbeing are not all that different from mine, from that of the rest of humankind. I have my subjective sense of wellbeing, you have yours. When one's personal expectations abridge the rights and expectations of other, we intuitively, conscionably, know it is wrong. This is a matter of collective experience, of emergent consciousness/ conscience; personal conscience informs collective conscience; collective conscience informs personal conscience — what evolution is about.
See COMMONWEAL, June 5, 2009, pp 17-19, John F Haught, "MORE BEING, The Emergence of Teilhard de Chardin"
"You have your subjective understanding of "absolute truth", I have mine."
Absolute truth is not dependent on mine, yours, or anyone else's understanding of it. An absolute truth is an absolute truth because God made it so.
By saying rape is wrong for the purpose of pleasure you are saying moral absolutes do exist. Which means absolute truth exists. Well, at least one anyway.
"In your own personal self-interest, what is "wellbeing" to you?"
Wellbeing is having a right relationship with the God of the universe, the One who created us. This means living a life that follows the truth which God has revealed to us to the best of our ability.
"When one's personal expectations abridge the rights and expectations of other, we intuitively, conscionably, know it is wrong. This is a matter of collective experience, of emergent consciousness/ conscience; personal conscience informs collective conscience; collective conscience informs personal conscience - what evolution is about."
This sounds good. And I would agree we need to follow the Golden rule to the best of our ability. But someone has to determine what does or does not "abridge the rights and expectations of others." Who is the judge?
Does not abortion abridge the rights of unborn babies? Even the preamble of the US Constitution secures the wellbeing of the of our posterity(unborn).
"We the People of the United Staes...promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United Sates of America."
The founding fathers understood absolute truth:
"We hold these truths to be sef-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are ednowed by their Creator with certain unalienalbe Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
These truths are from God and were not designed to be given or taken away at the whim of a conscience influenced by selfishness and convienence. But that is what happens when there is no benchmark. Anything goes.
If we can say forced abortion is "ok" because of our conscience has evolved to this "collective experience, of emergent consciousness/conscience, then why can't our personal conscience inform the collective conscience which then informs our personal conscience that rape is "ok." It seems evolution drives immorality.
Conscience is only a useful tool when it is guided by absolute truths. Otherwise we have no grounds for law and justice. How can we in good conscience judge people and confine them to a jail cell if we do not have a benchmark? How can we have a benchmark if truth and morality are not absolutes?
Methinks we're going in circles. Where do we contact the Creator God face-to-face? In people-to-people relationships. "What you do to the least of my brethren you do to me." Consciousness struggles to understand Godlikeness, to be Godlike, and conscience compels actions consistent with Godlikeness. This is the struggle of "religion and civility," personal and communal. Peace.
http://www.authorhouse.com/Bookstore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=24059
"Where do we contact the Creator God face-to-face?"
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
2 Timothy 3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
"Consciousness struggles to understand Godlikeness, to be Godlike..."
Agreed. That's why we can't trust our conscience alone. We must use the the Word of God to guide us. Psalm 119:9 Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
"...and conscience compels actions consistent with Godlikeness."
Not necessarily.
Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
"This is the struggle of "religion and civility," personal and communal."
Relgion and civility both have their place, but having a personal relationship with the God of the universe is the only way to have peace.
Romans 4:20 He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
23 ¶ Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;
24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
1 ¶ Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
We are justified in God's sight by faith in Jesus Christ not by the "good" works we do unto others.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Our treatment of others can reveal our heart relationship with God, but is not a way of being justified before God.
James 2:17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
If we can be justified in the eyes of God by doing "to the least of my brethren", then why did Christ have to be crucified?
Thank you. I have little quarrel with the above. Life moves forward. Purpose is future-driven; conscience fails us if we are only past-oriented.
http://www.secondenlightenment.org/SERVICE%20TO%20RELIGION.pdf
I don't me to belabor this discussion, because I have enjoyed it and perhaps we can do this again. But I do want to answer my last question: "then why did Christ have to be crucified?"
I read this just this morning:
"We look at life through the eyes of reason and say that if a person will control his instincts and educate himself, he can produce a life that will slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we continue on through life, we find the presecne of something which we have not yet taken into account, namely, sin-and it upsets all of our thinking and our plans. Sin has made the foundation of our thinking unpredicatable, uncontrollable, and irrational."
"We have to recongnize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming. Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue-if sin rules me, God's life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that. The culmination of sin was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will also be true in your history and in mine-that is, sin will kill the life of God in us. We must mentally bring ourselves to terms with this fact of sin. It is the only explanation why Jesus Christ came to earth, and it is the explanation of the grief and sorrow of life."
My Utmost for His Highest-Oswald Chabmers
My God Bless you, Sylvester, with the everlasting gift of salvation through faith in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lee, you say: I don't me to belabor this discussion, because I have enjoyed it and perhaps we can do this again. But I do want to answer my last question: "then why did Christ have to be crucified?"
The answer is in God's mind, which I make no pretense of knowing. But from the insight of Christian culture and my intuitional sense, I believe Jesus died to exemplify the continuity of divine love and the possibility of transformational ascendancy into divine purposes of love - the "universal imperative" of life. Jesus "had to die" because death is the means to fuller life. Death and life are reciprocally related; each is the transformant of the other.
See: http://www.evolution101.org/Thinking%20Global.pdf
26. In the evolving...
Submitted by Sylvester L. Steffen on April 6, 2008 - 2:26am.
In the evolving interdependent systems of Cosmos, Earth and Humankind, the "analogies of reciprocals" reveal subject/ object relationships as means/ end, in which the object-outcomes (end) become subject-means (agent). The reciprocal relationship of faith and reason, for example, has faith as the subject-means (cause) of reason's object-end (effect), and vice versa.
The process of evolution advances by means/ end reciprocity in which subject/ object correlations obtain. The "analogies of reciprocals" principle helps us understand the practical implications of faith/ reason, reason/ law, conscience/ morality, religion/ civility, and intrinsic order/ civility/ humanity/ sanctity.
Purposeful living is by the intentional correlations of means/ ends as subject/ object. The fullness of humanity and holiness (humanitas/ social, and sanctitas/ personal) obtains in essential mutuality within intrinsic order, that is, of faith, reason, morality, conscience, lawfulness, civility, etc, what constitute virtues in the "Naturalis Sacramentum Ordinis". Personal/ social evolution is by way of the method "cogitata perficiendo, cogitando sic perfecta" (by processing thoughts, and thereby thinking [more] perfected), a process of intentional resonance
NB: the limited inclusion of means/ end virtues here doesn't imply that there are not other means/ end virtues. "Go and be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect."