working out a biblical ethic


involved are made by God, in his image, whether we, or they, accept it or not. There is huge value invested in human life. Value can be determined in two ways: either intrinsically, bound up with the very substance of the thing (such as the 24 carat gold making up a ring) or extrinsically, because of one feature or another (such as its beauty). Imagine you wanted to create a valuable painting. You probably wouldn’t start by randomly drizzling paint over a canvas. You’d probably find it to be about as valuable as a ruined canvas! It has no extrinsic value because it is not particularly beautiful, and no intrinsic value because at the end of the day it’s just a mess! Yet, one of the most expensive paintings ever purchased is entitled ‘No. 5’ by Jackson Pollock, at $140 million, which he made by seemingly randomly drizzling paint onto a canvas! Pollock’s painting is extrinsically valuable because people think it beautiful. At first glance it has little intrinsic value until one recognises


SUMMER 2011


that, since Pollock is a famous artist, the fact that his hand drizzled the paint adds a deep level of intrinsic value. Something only valuable for extrinsic reasons can lose its value easily, if someone disagrees about its beauty, or it loses one quality or another. Intrinsically valuable things can never lose their value because the value is bound up with their very existence. This principle is important to the value of human life. In recent years ethicists have insisted on the variability of the value of human life. We are valued according to our ’ethically relevant characteristics’ such as ability to relate to people, or reason, or the value ascribed to us by others in terms of their relationship with us (family, for example). 13 Loss of these characteristics produces a less valuable (and therefore expendable) life. This extrinsic view of life’s value is alien to the Bible. Genesis states that humans are made ’in God’s image’. 14 As God created human life, he


wove intrinsic value into its existence. This value cannot vary. We need to be careful to avoid defining the ‘image of God’ as simply human characteristics – like creating, or reasoning. It is possible to agree that these traits are ‘like God’ and therefore could be part of God’s image in us. But they cannot be the full definition, otherwise it could be suggested that the Bible actually teaches ‘ethically relevant characteristics’ - that the image of God and value of life could be lost! Rather, being made in the image of God means that we’re like God in every way that we’re like God(!) We pour ourselves out in every aspect of life, whatever our abilities. There is no possibility this likeness can be lost. Life is intrinsically, immensely valuable. In our ‘worship-ethic’ we aim to be centred


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