The Human Genome, Gene Therapy, and the Irrelevancy of God

Roots. We all have them, embedded somewhere in our past. I don’t recall my birth father and have never visited his grave in Biloxi, Mississippi. My parents were married in 1932, when he was 41 and she 27. I was born in 1934, and he died in 1939. I never had a chance to observe him for the ways in which I might be a chip off his old block. Nevertheless, a good part of who I have become has been determined by who he was and his contribution to my inherited gene pool.

Who we are physically is heavily rooted in the combined gene pool of our parents. Such features of ourselves as the color of our eyes, hair, and skin, our height and gender, and our susceptibility to various diseases are all an outgrowth of our parental gene pool. Your inherited genes can even influence such things as mental abilities, personality traits, and predisposition to certain kinds of talents and abilities. If a person, upon looking in a mirror one morning, is pondering the image that stares back, s/he might check out some old family photos. On the other hand, s/he might consider gene therapy. As incredible as it may sound, gene therapy can involve replacing a defective gene in your present genetic code, silencing a faulty gene, or editing specific DNA sequences.¹

Depending on your politics and/or religious persuasion, gene therapy may sound like science fiction to the unpracticed ear but, like it or not, gene therapy has quietly moved into real life. Messing about in the human genome may evoke images of Dr. Mengele² or Victor Frankenstein (a character in Mary Shelley’s 1818 fiction novel Frankenstein), but if such treatment can improve the human situation, why not?

If you are religious in a traditional sense (an avid church/synagogue/mosque attender), gene therapy may also suggest that those involved in genome research are playing God. At bottom, such an accusation “refers to the powers that science, engineering, and technology confer on human beings to understand and to control the natural world, including you.”³ In aiming at the ability to create life in a petri dish such researchers encroach on a role that has traditionally belonged to God (Gen 1:1-31, for example). And in fact, they have successfully created a kind of artificial life, the first synthetic cell: “it is the first self-replicating cell on the planet [whose] parent is a computer.”⁴

If (or when) they succeed in discovering how to create life de novo, however, they will not have proven the non-existence of God but rather threatened the relevancy of the concept of God. If human beings can create life, even artificial life, and change the human genome so as to alter what God is believed to have accomplished through Mother Nature, God becomes something like a good luck charm to which many may turn in times of crisis—when the limits of human knowledge and ability are reached.

All of what I have just described evokes aspects of the biblical Tower of Babel story (Gen 11:1-9). The sons of men built a city and a tower “with its top in the heavens.” And Yahweh, upon coming down to see the city and the tower, said: “this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (Gen 11:5 RSV). The story portrays Yahweh and his court (“Let us go down and confuse their language so they may not understand one another’s speech,” Gen 11:7 RSV) being intimidated by human accomplishments. Hence, God destroyed their ability to communicate and scattered them around the world (Gen 11:8-9). Apparently, Yahweh sensed that given their present course the sons of men would render the divine Self irrelevant.

Losing relevancy is a genuine, practical, existential threat to a God. Just consider how many Gods through history have fallen into irrelevancy and, eventually, into oblivion. Irrelevant Gods wait, one assumes, in a kind of mythical Nirvana to be rediscovered, to wait until someone calls upon them again and thereby renders them relevant. Or does irrelevancy mean actual death for a God? Has anyone out there ever heard of an irrelevant God being restored to relevancy to “run” the world again?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/cellular-gene-therapy-products/what-gene-therapy

And: en-wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene-therapy

²en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

³https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/playing-god

⁴newscientist.com/article/dn18942-immaculate-creation-birth-of-the-first-synthetic-cell/

HUMAN SUFFERING AND RELIGIOUS FAITH

When suffering comes, as it will to all of us, we usually wonder why we have been singled out for such experiences.  The classic work on human suffering and religious faith still remains the Book of Job.  The characters in this ancient drama provide several perplexing answers to the question: why me, God?  The protagonist in the book (Job) is extolled by God as the quintessential "righteous man" (Job 1:8), but in the prose prologue (1:1-2:13) Job is afflicted with unimaginable suffering, caused by Satan with the expressed permission of God.  Satan wants to test Job's faith: "Take away Job's blessings," Satan urges God, "and Job will curse you" (Job 1:9-11).   Job is completely unaware of this dialogue between God and Satan.

Job's three friends in the central poetic section, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, tell Job that his suffering is due to his sins.  Such is the general view of antiquity: sin causes suffering; Job is suffering; therefore, Job is a sinner (Job 4:7; 8:1-6; 11:4-6).  Job rejects their views as "windy words," and calls them "miserable comforters" (Job 16:2-3).  Job admits he may have sinned, but continues to insist that his suffering is out of proportion to whatever his guilt may be (Job 6:24-30; 9:20-21; 10:5-7; 12:4; 13:2-5; 16;2-3; 19:4; 23:3-7; 27:2-6). The chapters by Elihu (32:6-37:24) are a later addition to the book, but Elihu adds a further reason for human suffering: God refines or disciplines the human being through suffering (Job 36:8-12).

In God's response (Job 38:1-43:6) he does not answer Job's questions (Job 23:3-7; 6:24-25), but simply intimidates Job with his awesome power and superior knowledge (chapters 38-41), but the reader of the book, having read the prologue, knows that Job is suffering because of the capricious backroom bargain struck between God and Satan (Job 2:1-6), which is not something God is apparently willing to admit.  In the end Job simply capitulates (Job 40:1-5), accepting that he will never know why he is suffering (Job 42:1-6).  The book as a whole affirms that "no theoretical solution to the problem of suffering is possible" (Eissfeldt, Old Testament Introduction, 457).

It is perplexing to me that sufferers persist in thinking that they have been singled out to suffer by an invisible power for some particular reason.  As we are taught in public school curricula (perhaps not in faith-based schools), the universe for all its regularity is still full of randomness.  For example, a desiccated brown leaf falls in front of you as you walk into the back yard.  It is not an unusual event—in a sense it is a non-event, meaningless, unless you assign some significance to it.  Another example: even though your car is the only one in the lot to suffer the indignity of bird droppings, few of us would ask "why me, God?" but would shrug it off as the random act it is.  In spite of the regularity of the universe (meaning: things usually work that way) deviations from regularity in the physical world do not have religious significance, unless we decide that they do.

Many think, however, that God micromanages the universe, and is therefore responsible for every-day tiny details, such as thinning your hair and clogging your shower drain (cf. Matt 10:30).  They will imbue with religious significance even the most banal events in the most insignificant pedestrian day.  Hair loss, however, is a perfectly natural occurrence—your thinning hair is likely due to genetics or perhaps a diet deficiency.  The truth is we live in a dangerous universe and are subject to any number of debilitating diseases.  The state of our health depends on our genetics, our physical condition, our diet, the quality of our medical care, and, unfortunately, on our ability to pay for medical services.  "Mother Nature" is the more likely cause of your suffering—another is the lack of progressive health and human welfare programs in your community, for which our political leaders share the heaviest load of blame.  

            People who suffer do not turn to God for help with their physical pain.  Physicians do the better job of helping us manage our physical pain.  God, on the other hand, perhaps does better with helping us manage our mental and emotional suffering—although some illnesses in this area require medication and God is reduced to playing a supportive role.  Many testify that faith in God brings spiritual comfort and emotional peace in their suffering.  Such faith in many ways is a spiritual elixir bringing palliative psychological and emotional comfort to the sufferer.  Such "spiritual therapy" cannot be measured in a test tube, but for believers what it produces is just as real as aspirin for a headache.

            The "why me?" question, however, completely stumps true believers, even though they may find spiritual strength to bear the indignities of severe disease.  The answer of the author of Job is surprising: people suffer and there is no theoretical explanation.  In the prose epilogue God chides Job's three friends for not telling the truth about God with their orthodox answers (Job 42:7-9), but God commended Job for "speaking of me what is right" (Job 42:7).  Job never learned why he was suffering, but he refused to accept the easy orthodox counsel of his friends.  The only thing of which he seemed sure was that God was not punishing him because of his sins.

What should be said about other reasons given by religious people for their suffering—testing, discipline, personal growth toward spiritual maturity etc.?  These answers raise the question: what kind of God, do you suppose, would do such unconscionable things to people in the name of improving them?  As Job said to Zophar: "Your maxims are proverbs of ashes" (Job 13:12)—or as we might say: "your truths are bywords of baloney."
 

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University