Discussions in Germany regarding appropriate end-of-life decision-making have been heavily influenced by the liberalization of access to physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia in the Netherlands and Belgium. These discussions disclose conflicting moral views regarding the propriety of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, threatening conflicts within not only the medical profession, but also the mainline churches in Germany, whose membership now entertains views regarding end-of-life decision-making at odds with traditional Christian doctrine. On the surface, there appears to be a broad consensus (...) supporting the hospice movement and condemning physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. The German Supreme Court has held that treatment decisions should, in absence of known patients’ wishes, be made in light of commonly shared values, unless these violate the principle of “in dubio pro vita”. The Roman Catholic church and the Evangelical Lutheran church in Germany have developed an advance directive for treatment choices at the end of life, while condemning physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This stance is in tension with the strong emerging support for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, a development that promises to open up foundational disagreements within mainline German Christianity regarding the appropriate approach to intentionally terminating human life. (shrink)

Aquinas’s conception of the relationship of faith and reason calls into question the arguments and some of the conclusions advanced in contributions to the debate on physician-assisted suicide by David Thomasma and H. Tristram Engelhardt. An understanding of the nature of theology as based on revelation calls into question Thomasma’s theological argument in favor of physician-assisted suicide based on the example of Christ and the martyrs. On the other hand, unaided reason calls into question his assumptions about the nature of (...) death as in some cases a good for the human person. Finally, if Aquinas is right about the relationship of faith and reason, Engelhardt’s sharp contrast between “Christian” and “secular” approaches to physician-assisted suicide needs reconsideration, although his conclusions about physician assisted suicide would find support. (shrink)

This issue of Christian Bioethics explores foundational debates regarding the orientation and application of Christian bioethics. Should Christian bioethics be approached as essentially a human activity, grounded in scholarly study of theological arguments and religious virtues, oriented toward practical social ends, or should Christian bioethics be recognized as the result of properly oriented prayer, fasting, and asceticism leading to an encounter with God? The gulf between these two general perspectives—the creation of immanent human goods versus submission to a fully transcendent (...) God—is significant and, as ongoing debate in Christian Bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality over the past nearly three decades has made clear, the implications are both intellectually engaging and spiritually profound. (shrink)