Category Archives: Ethics

Comments related to ethics, or how we should live

Organ Donation

Organ Donation – Second Thoughts About Body Parts

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Gilbert Meilaender, a professor of theology at Valparaiso University, an independent Lutheran liberal arts university, has written a thought provoking essay on organ donation, title, Second Thoughts About Body Parts. (Click on title to read the essay.)1

Gilbert does not definitely rule out organ donation from brain dead donors but his comments suggest that he struggles with the concept and gives a number of cautions about proceeding down this path. He expresses understanding about the struggle that Christians go through who are faced with a loved on who will die without an organ transplant (see p100 or the last paragraph in this summary.)… Read the rest

Organ Donation, Personhood

Personhood and Organ Donation

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In the blog titled Personhood-the-most-important-question-today I raised the question with respect to Vital Organ Donation, “Does vital organ procurement result in the death of the person?  Or is the person somehow separate from the body, such that the person can be dead and the body still alive?”

In blogs titled Personhood-What Is It? and Personhood-Image of God, I said that persons are specially created by God.  Persons are the image of God.  Persons are united body and soul.  A persons special status begins at conception and continues until death, at which time the body returns to the dust and the soul goes to God.… Read the rest

I Believe, Personhood

Personhood – Image of God

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In my blog post Personhood-What Is It, I said that to have personhood, is to have the intrinsic value of a human being with all the rights and responsibilities that go along with being human.

The Christian worldview, the worldview of the Bible, holds that God, with the creation of mankind, gives mankind special intrinsic value.  A name for this intrinsic value, in modern language, is personhood.  Mankind is created in a special way that is different from animals.  Genesis 1:26-27 says,

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

… Read the rest
Organ Donation

Organ Donation – Are Brain Dead Really Dead?

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In the blog entry titled, Vital Organ Donation – The Most Important Question, I proposed the following “most important question.”

The question:  Is it possible for a person to be dead while their body is still alive?

The answer one gives to this question depends on what one believes is the make-up of a living person.  The true answer to this question comes only from a true understanding of what it is to be a living person.  From a biblical perspective, with death of a person, the body goes to the dust and the soul goes to wait to be reunited with the body to face judgment at the last day. … Read the rest