Who Am I?

"Gene, Machine, Dream”

When you look in the mirror what do you see?  When I look in the mirror, what do I see?  I see the face of a human being.  And depending on the time of day, it might be an ugly mirror – Ha!.  But to ask a more philosophical question, am I just an accident that is the result of a long chain of accidental events?  Does my being have any meaning beyond mere existence?  

How do we even find out the answers to these kinds of questions?  How do you define what it means to be a human being?  It seems like a pretty simple question, but it seems like even the United States Supreme Court has gotten into the act.  In the 1992 Casey decision on abortion, Justice Kennedy wrote the mysterious passage, 

“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

So, does that mean that I get to set my own standards and rely on my own experience to determine who I am, and what I am, or what makes me any different from rocks, plants, or animals?  What defines what it means to be a human being? 

I also desire to figure out if my being alive makes me a force of good or evil in the universe.  Or am I just a fluke in the universe?  Does my life make any difference in the big scheme of things?  If being alive is ultimately all that I have and all that I posses, how do I even determine what “good” is.  Or am I just using up perfectly good oxygen and valuable space on a planet that is already breathless and overcrowded?  

There is a need in each of us to be able to look into a moral mirror and to be reassured that the person staring back is basically a good person.  As Jonathan Rosenblum wrote recently in the Jerusalem Post, reflecting on human nature:

“The unprecedented prosperity of advanced technological societies has been accompanied by the near total breakdown of traditional morality.  Virtues of loyalty, self-discipline, moderation, even-temperedness, patience, honesty, thrift, and the like are scorned both in theory and in practice.”  

He goes on to suggest that values unaccompanied by personal effort do little to relieve the feelings of worthlessness.  Since we have becomes accustomed to instant gratification we want to immediately feel okay about ourselves, to feel morally superior even when our lifestyle doesn’t match our varied and unfounded values.  Yet we remain plagued with these difficult questions with no easy and no simple or pat answers.

Am I superior to other life forms?  Am I more valuable than a fish or an ape?  Where do I get a true estimation of my worth?  To what do I compare myself?  So many questions, and yet they become even more complex as science becomes more complicated.  What does it mean to be a human being when we can enhance and even expand our previously set boundaries by experimenting with genes, machines, and drugs?  

Do you know that scientists are now able to manipulate genes to determine the color of your eyes or your hair?  From genetic research to stem cell therapy, they have made amazing discoveries of the intricate ways in which we as human beings are created.  There is hope in all this research they will be able to use biotechnology to phase out currently incurable diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer, and heart problems.  Wouldn’t that be wonderful?  

Meanwhile, researchers have actually cloned animals, and have used genes from a jellyfish to change the hair color of a monkey to fluorescent green.  (What a waste of a gene.)  What will it mean if scientists successfully clone humans?  Will the clone be my brother, my sister, my son, or just a mere life shadow of the original?  Who “owns” a clone?   

This raises in my own mind (and maybe in your mind) the question, “Am I nothing more than a pile of dust of uncertain original animated by long strings of DNA?” 

Technology has also been harnessed by the engineers.  Micro-engineering has allowed the introduction of machines into human beings to replaced broken or diseased parts, like joints, heart valves, even lost limbs and eyes.  What was incredible science fiction “stuff” for movies only a few years ago has become not only possible but plausible.  Nanotechnology (the use of incredibly tiny 1/billionth of an inch sized “chips”) offers a fascinating range of mechanical implantations of little tiny machines or little tiny computers that will potentially give abnormal capacities to normal human beings.  

Cyborgs (the stuff of science fiction) are the combination of humans and machines.   Chimeras are the combination of humans and animal organs.  These are on the scientists’ computerized drawing boards right now and under experimentation in their laboratories.  The insertion of microscopically small “chips” or cells or chemicals will give new possibilities for manipulating and I believe monitoring our thinking, behavior, even our feelings.  Will it change our whole understanding of reality?  Am I in essence nothing more than a computerized machine with biological parts? 

But you know what else, scientists can also alter our body chemistry with drugs.  My feelings can be changed with a pill – imagine a “happy pill.”  But could chemicals also be used not just to restore health but to enhance life through motor skill improvement, mental capacity expansion (maybe I can finally remember your name), and emotional manipulation providing a pain free, pleasure filled, drug induced “nirvana?”  Does that mean that I am nothing more than the sum total of my chemicals?  Is life just an illusion; is faith a dream?  So many questions. 

[I had the privilege of attending a conference in Chicago “Remaking Humanity.” I had the chance to hear keynote address by Dr. Jarry Richardson.  Now we don’t make a lot about positions and titles here in our congregation but for those of you who do not know Jarry Richardson, I want you to know that Jarry was born in Nigeria, the son of missionary parents.  He went to the medical school for training that is rated by U.S. News and World Report as the number one medical institution in the world, Johns Hopkins University.  He is currently serving at the number two place in the world, Mayo Clinic, as a consultant in the Division of Adult Psychiatry and in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine.  He is also an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Mayo Medical School.  I would like Jarry to tell us a more about the use of chemicals in defining reality.]

Dr. Jarry Richardson:

"This was a two-day conference.  One the first day the theologians, ethicists, and philosophers argued about what makes a human in the image of God.  Basically to summarize some very interesting talks, they came to the conclusion that attributes alone are not what make us as humans in the image of God.   That means no matter how smart we are or how impaired we are in our attributes, that’s not what determines our being in God’s image.  

Now as is common in these conferences one of the most memorable statements for me was made by probably one of the smartest philosophers there who brought this whole business of what makes humans different from machines down to this one statement: “We do not cut machines slack.”  We cut humans slack but we do not cut machines slack.  That tells us there is something definitely different in how we think about other people and how we think about machines.  

The second day of the conference was about enhancements, genetic enhancements, nanotechnologic enhancements, and the topic I was asked to address was enhancing human beings with drugs. 

Now I spend most of my professional life working with people who have broken brains.  They are broken people and the major thing that is broken is their brain.  I reviewed the literature on enhancement, which is not dealing with brokenness but dealing with improving us above whatever is normal for us.  Cognitive enhancement is already there with Ritalin. Provigil is there for more alertness and better sleep.  Prozac is available for better emotional stability and even in some studies improved relational ability in double-blind studies. 

But the thing that struck me most was the emerging opportunity and practice that is out there for what is called cosmetic psychopharmacology.  We have cosmetic surgery.  Why not have cosmetic pharmacology?  We can’t go to our doctor or provider (because most doctors are too busy to work with people who are not sick) and say: “You know, I would like to have a little better sense of humor, I would like to be able to think more clearly, attend better, be really socially just delightful, and not need much sleep,” and be able to get all those things.  

The thing that struck me most was looking at the issue of possibly enhancing belief, which comes pretty close to home for me as a Christian.  What is interesting is in the brain there are systems.  They activate on PET scans or other scans when someone is in a believing state.  There is a system that lights up when people have an epiphany.  If people meditate over and over on a particular spiritual concept, their brain may actually get better and better and better at lighting up at that meditation. 

I know from clinical experience that people with severe depression often loose a lot of their ability to believe God and it comes back almost always when they are restored to health from their depression.  Even people with dysthymia, which is a long-standing low-grade depression, often feel, with appropriate chemical treatment, as if they are able to be closer to God.  They do not feel as far away.  

Theoretically, it is possible that one could have an agnostic who wanted to believe who could be taught to light up that part of their brain that promoted belief.  Why not have access to drugs that would improve our faith.  What do you think?  One of my colleagues at the conference was the respondent to my talk, and he brought up issues like,  “Why not have a drug called Prothink, which allows us to think philosophically and theologically better.  We already have Provigil and Prozac, but why not have something that will help us believe better?” 

The introduction of Evangra: 
 
STAGE ONE:  

Now the first stage of this new drug (and we are taking this to the ridiculous extreme to make a point), is that seekers discover that Evangra helps them connect to their spiritual life better.  Youth ministers begin to offer Evangra at outreaches.  Increased numbers of youth make decisions for Christ.  Evangelism is more successful so every church as to get Evangra.

STAGE TWO:                

Evangra becomes a popular way to enhance the experience of worship.  
 
STAGE THREE:

Users notice that worship seems less fulfilling when they do not take the drug.  Users begin to question whether the decision to become a Christian was genuine or was mainly chemically influenced or experientially influenced.  Users are uncertain now whether it is Christ or Evangra that is the source of their spiritual experience and strength.  Now discipleship to a drug for most of us would be much easier and simpler than a moral obligation to a personal God.  So lets just take Evangra and stay home. 
 
STAGE FOUR:

Religion specific drugs are designed to enhance particular kinds of religious experience.  Those of us who like contemporary praise music can really sing to that and those who like the more solemn church music can really get into that, we just have a contemporary drug and a traditional drug.  Now in the interest of public safety, governments will promote feel good religions as alternatives to what they may label as militant fundamentalist or over committed and perhaps anti-diversity like us in terms of what we believe.  Experiments proceed to develop implantable devices that may actually allow us with pushbuttons or maybe allow someone else with pushbuttons to control our spiritual experience.  Now traditional religions have a really hard time competing.  

What do you think about that?  Well as ludicrous at it sounds, it really suggests the point that it is not our attributes our ability to believe that brings us closer to God or makes us more in God’s image.  Nor does losing our ability destroy the image of God in us.  
 
The opposite end of the example, the story many of you in medicine know, the story of Phenious Gage.  Phenious was a devout, faithful, kind dependable family man who suffered an industrial injury that damaged a part of his brain about the size of a nickel, nothing else.  He became a profane, belligerent, hostile, unreliable, promiscuous alcoholic.  Just because a tiny part of his brain was damaged.  
 
Now I do not believe that a sovereign God values us any less if our brains are broken, and I am glad that there is a sovereign God who sees beyond our brokenness.  So what does define a human being and being the image of God if it is not our brains or our believing?  
 
How was Jesus human?  Was Jesus super cognate?  Was He the smartest man that ever lived in intelligence tests?  Was He physically superior to any other human being?  Was even His ability to believe super human?  I do not think it was.  I think that is what helped define him as human as he was like we are.  
 
So the issue is not a quantitative difference of attributes.  The way I conceive of that is difference between the most brilliant human being and the most cognitively impaired human being is nothing compared to God intelligence.  So from God’s perspective, I do not believe He sees a lot of difference in this huge spectrum of attributes whether it be thinking, emoting, physical, or believing.  

So how are we made in His image?  First of all, as the Scripture tells us, God said so.  He said we are in His image.  He did not tell us entirely how we are.  It is based on His authority that we are made, and animals are not, in His image.  
 
One of the words that catches my attention in the creation story is God says,  “Let us create them in our image.”  That reminds me of what I think is a critical part of what being in the image of God is.  That is the relational portion of God that is reflected and imaged in us.  We are not identical to God; we are a reflection of His relational self.  Our image is dependent on Him.  
 
No matter how hard we try with all our science, medicine, and technology, that dependence on Him will never, ever be diminished.  One powerful and unique way we are in His image is in our relationship with Him.  Again the Scripture is full of this: the great commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.  It was love.  It was a relationship and everything else followed from that.  It is a reciprocal relationship of love.  
 
The Epistle of John talks about how our obedience shows Him our love.  His response is that He reveals Himself to us.  He somehow makes Himself known to us through His Spirit which lives in us in a relationship with us, not controlling us and not treating us like a machine, but being in a relationship with us.  John 16 says,  “This is eternal life that we know, relate, the only true God in Jesus Christ.”  The only reason really for our existence in that relationship is to glorify Him and be loved by Him.  
 
So the issue is not enhancing our belief or our experience or even our comfort because I do not believe that when we do not experience God emotionally that means that we are no longer in His image or that He has left us.  His peace is really something that does not meet a definition in any of our psychological, philosophical, or biomedical spheres because it is His presence with us that helps us understand and sense who He is.  It is not our level of cognition or emotion or even ability to believe.  So as the words of the song that we often sing, “It is not about us, it is all about Him.”  
 
*************

Gary concludes:

That is one reason that I am not afraid of scientific progress.  People in research like Jarry are approaching this issue with a sense of who God is and who we are.  We know that there are bad people that can use scientific progress for bad reasons for their lust for power or their desire to control.  But as Christians, we through the Incarnation can understand that what makes us uniquely human is not a chemical or machine or computer or anything else.  It is that unique capacity for a loving relationship with our Heavenly Father.  That is part of the good news that we must communicate to a world that is hell bent on nanotechnology or biochemical reengineering or genetic manipulation.  We were created for a loving personal relationship with God and that makes all the difference in this seen world and in the unseen world to come.