Engineering Life Out of Existence

Engineering Life Out of Existence

For many years I have heard about the great benefits that genetic engineering would bestow upon mankind. It would conquer heretofore unconquerable diseases, increase longevity, reduce human suffering, improve crop production – the list is long and if you did not bother to look beyond these goals you might conclude it was the long sought answer to many prayers. Yet genetic engineering has always bothered me since I first heard of the idea back in high school. There has always been something inside me crying out against the manipulation of life at the genetic level in service of scientifically defined goals. But it has only been within the past few years I have pinned down what exactly frightens me so about it.

It is more than merely the possibility that scientists might create some kind of “Frankenstein” or fear that the food supply will be degraded in the long term. It goes much deeper than that – to the very question of why we have life in bodies at all. What is the purpose of physical life? Why do I have a body and why do you? Why does that tree in the front yard have its particular life form? And what about the jellyfish and plankton in the sea? What is the purpose of all this life form?

It would seem essential to understand the purpose of physical life before you would dare tamper with its structure, yet that is precisely what genetic engineers are doing. Many scientists will tell you they believe in a higher power, but they can’t prove it and they don’t permit it to enter into their scientific thinking since this goes contrary to the “discipline” of science. Science is essentially materialistic in its view. If you cannot provide physical proof that something is true you are only speculating. Science can only accept that which is physically verifiable.

I maintain that existence is fundamentally spiritual. It was spiritual long before it was physical. Thought precedes the existence of anything. We know this from our own experiences. Things don't come to be unless thought of first. A body cannot exist unless someone thinks of it. So who thinks of each body? Some say God does. Some say every “body” is the product of God creating it first. I would agree with this to a point. The stuff of life is God’s creation. It was God who saw the necessity of creating bodies so that spiritual entities could struggle and learn in them. But the actual formation of each body, including genetic choices, is to a great degree the product of the choices of the entity attempting to live in that body. God doesn’t make all the decisions about what we look like any more than He makes all the choices about what kind of attitudes we develop, who we like and dislike, who we marry, what purposes we have while we live. These are to a great degree individual choices, and they have to be, or no one would learn anything. God created physical life so spiritual entities could learn. No doubt He guides us WHEN WE ASK, but we must have the wisdom to ask. God doesn’t just dole out goodies. Life is for learning and the process of forming our own clay or body is part of that learning.

As a higher life form we should know that life is for learning (and of course, intellectual learning is a very small part of it). We should know that we would never learn anything if God stepped in and made all the decisions. Which leads me to what is frightening about genetic engineering. If a group of scientists decides to impose what they think are the best genetic choices for a particular life form, aren’t they interfering with the spiritual learning of the entity assigned to that body? The scientists set themselves up as the arbiters of what is desirable or undesirable to serve their purposes. Does this not clearly violate the choices of the entity assigned to that living body? If, for instance, you have chosen genes that lead you to die of liver failure when you are fifty, you need to know why you made that choice. Why should science save you? Isn’t the real lesson in life to learn to manage your own body right?

I do not believe our scientists have the required high moral commitment to make these decisions. If they did they would be agonizing on these very questions and, lacking clear answers, make a hasty retreat from genetic engineering. They would be forced to admit they just don’t have sufficient understanding of the purpose of life to manipulate it on this level. It is too easy to say because some group is suffering or a population is hungry, that gives us all the moral justification needed to go ahead. But it does not, and there is the chance we could end up severely distorting natural life on Earth if we persist in this pursuit.

Some people (and plants and animals) have decidedly superior genes than others. This is not an accident. It is based at least in part on choices, I believe. I would be a fool to say I comprehend the complexities involved in our genetic selections. They are as many and varied as each individual spiritual entity in creation and correspond to the particular learning each entity must do at a particular point in time. But I am quite certain that scientists’ intervention into this fundamental area of life is a move in the direction of denying spiritual life the chance to learn. This is fundamentally contrary to God's purposes. He provided the raw material of life for all to use for learning, Anything that subverts the spiritual learning of any entity should be opposed.

I am not charging all people interested in genetic engineering with being intentionally wrong, but I do wonder if these ideas have even dawned on most of them. I challenge them to look farther than the short-sighted goal of simply improving the temporary physical well-being of the people alive today. Are they really doing anyone any favors, especially the ones who have to live and learn in bodies whose gene structure has been altered? Is it wise to force longevity into bodies that never planned to live long? Aren't they just creating hell for these people, by preventing them from moving on and making their next steps?

We have already begun the march down this road of genetic engineering that too many accept without question. Before you accept it or justify it as a panacea for the relief of human suffering consider the possibility that if we carry it much farther we risk transforming all life form on earth into something basically unusable by the spiritual entities who need it for learning. This is a question that deserves a long and carefully considered answer, because it affects everything about everyone's future. If Man gets too good at this science he might find himself denied the use of clay (i.e. physical existence) altogether, for this geneitc manipulation is certainly not what God intended, and tragically Man may also deny lower forms their chance to learn, even though they never wanted any part of this. I know very well the Creator can and will destroy physical life on this planet if it ceases to be used for the purposes for which He created it. If this does not concern everyone deeply than we indeed have much to fear.