Fear the LORD and shun evil
Religion & Liberty Online

Fear the LORD and shun evil

A respondent over at Mere Comments gets right to the heart of what the scientific and technological ethos is (i.e., Technopoly):

“If we can do it, it’s right” and “If we can do it, we do it” which resolve to “it’s right if I do it.” Always an ethics committee is there to help sear the consciences of those involved.

These are precisely the guiding principles of university ethics panels that permit creation of genetic chimeras, promote embryonic stem cell usage and human cloning and the recent NAS “guidelines.”

Does it remind you of anything else? How about the Tower of Babel:

“Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

To this I respond,
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and shun evil.
Proverbs 3:7 (NIV)

Jordan J. Ballor

Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has authored multiple books, including a forthcoming introduction to the public theology of Abraham Kuyper. Working with Lexham Press, he served as a general editor for the 12 volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series, and his research can be found in publications including Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Religion, Scottish Journal of Theology, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Faith & Economics, and Calvin Theological Journal. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity & Politics at Calvin University.