Engelhardt H Tristram
Rice University, Houston, TX, USA.
Christ Bioeth. 2005 Aug;11(2):221-39. doi: 10.1080/13803600500203905.
The project of articulating a coherent, canonical, content-full, secular morality-cum-bioethics fails, because it does not acknowledge sin, which is to say, it does not acknowledge the centrality of holiness, which is essential to a non-distorted understanding of human existence and of morality. Secular morality cannot establish a particular moral content, the harmony of the good and the right, or the necessary precedence of morality over prudence, because such is possible only in terms of an ultimate point of reference: God. The necessity of a rightly ordered appreciation of God places centrally the focus on holiness and the avoidance of sin. Because the cardinal relationship of creatures to their Creator is worship, and because the cardinal corporate act of human worship is the Liturgy, morality in general and bioethics in particular can be understood in terms of the conditions necessary, so as worthily to enter into Eucharistic liturgical participation. Morality can be summed up in terms of the requirements of ritual purity. A liturgical anthropology is foundational to an account of the content-full morality and bioethics that should bind humans, since humans are first and foremost creatures obliged to join in rightly ordered worship of their Creator. When humans worship correctly, when they avoid sin and pursue holiness, they participate in restoring created reality.
构建一种连贯、规范、内容充实的世俗道德兼生物伦理的计划失败了，因为它没有承认罪，也就是说，它没有承认圣洁的核心地位，而圣洁对于正确理解人类存在和道德至关重要。世俗道德无法确立特定的道德内容、善与正确的和谐，或道德相对于审慎的必然优先性，因为只有在一个终极参照点：上帝的层面上才有可能。正确有序地认识上帝的必要性将重点集中在圣洁和避免罪上。由于受造物与造物主的基本关系是崇拜，并且由于人类崇拜的基本集体行为是礼拜仪式，所以一般道德尤其是生物伦理可以根据为了能够适当地参与圣体礼拜仪式而必需的条件来理解。道德可以概括为仪式纯洁性的要求。一种礼拜仪式人类学是对应当约束人类的内容充实的道德和生物伦理的一种解释的基础，因为人类首先是有义务以正确有序的方式崇拜其造物主的受造物。当人类正确崇拜时，当他们避免犯罪并追求圣洁时，他们就参与到恢复被造的现实之中。
