John Ferrer

Amputations do not defeat classical theism, but neither are they any great gift to Christian theology. Of all the strengths of a Christian worldview, accounting for amputations is not among them. Amputations can seem gratuitous and proposing that a given case is indeed redeemed in the bigger picture requires some measure of faith; but, given the imago dei doctrine coupled with traditional theodicies, and a spate of contemporary defenses, Christian theism stands vindicated as an informed, plausible, and defensible account for evils in the world. Amputations would seem altogether irredeemable if life is just about pleasure, if meaningfulness did not matter much, and if our judgment of how to run things is broadly
reliable on a cosmic scale. Pleasure, however, is merely one facet of life. Our administrative ability is quite finite. And meaningful contexts can exist such that transcendent meaning rules over and crowds out normal trivial pursuits, terrestrial expectations, and pleasure ethics. There is great
redemptive meaning to life where human beings press through pain, power through loss, and overcome infirmity to reflect that extra length of God’s authoritative glory to the world, the glory of the imago dei. Though we would never volunteer to be amputees displaying such things, they
are still greater goods. There exist complex goods to where even the resurrected form of Christ kept his crucifixion scars intact.

This study attempts to construct a metaethical framework, consistent with Christianity, for addressing ethical issues concerning the human body.  This framing is “Christian” in the sense that key teachings from the historic Christian faith are proposed showing how Christianity can inform the metaphysical, anthropological, biological, and ethical dimensions within the concept of “body ethics.” In this study, it is argued that a broadly biblical Christian perspective can provide a helpful and compelling introduction into the vast field of body ethics by way of five navigational tools, enumerated as the main five chapters of this dissertation. Each of these navigational tools steers through a potential challenge to body ethics by using solutions consistent with historic Christianity. The first topic regards God and the nature and identification of beauty (chapter one), and the challenged answered is that of aesthetic relativism. The second topic regards the nature of ethical grounding (chapter two), and the challenge answered is that of moral relativism. The third topic is that of human nature (chapters three and four), and the challenge answered is that of nominalism (and its variants) wherein human nature is unbounded and potentially meaningless. Bringing all of these together is chapter five, proposing a divinely instilled objective physiological reference point for body ethics. There the challenged answered is that of impracticality; theology and theory find a practical referential point of application with a “normative physical form.” In short, the topical divisions are: (1) Who is God; (2) What is good; (3) What is man; and (4) what is God’s good for man? These elements together synergize into an objective Christian realist address of body ethics. More elements could be considered but these topics suffice in showing that historic Christianity offers a robust framework for addressing body ethics.

While the documentary hypothesis (AKA, the JEDP theory) is quite fashionable in higher critical circles, discussing the Bible, it is nevertheless, overly conjecture, and internally flawed on several levels to where it fails on its own demerits. It can be weighed as a scholarly theory, and it may have some merit in nuanced and informing current theories, but it's too faulty a foundation for fair-minded scholars of the Torah.

The "Republican war on women" is political rhetoric more inflammatory than substantial. It mistakenly treats women like they are little more than conduits for abortion and contraception, it treats politically liberal ideals as if those are the only values that women cherish, it detracts from actual cases of violence against women (spousal rape, female circumcision, domestic abuse, forced marriage, etc.). Lastly, the rhetoric of "war on women" distracts from a larger cultural war against traditional family values thus endangering countless women who value things like life-long marriage, monogamy, motherhood, homemaking, care-giving, gender distinctions, and child-rearing.