Magical-mythical uncanningness of nature as an inhibition for technological use
Early mankind had a mysterious and mainly uncanny impression of world and nature. Magical, apersonal powers and forces, numina, seemed to rule over life and death. When hunters and gatherers killed animals out of necessity to survive, they were always in great fear and used protective magic against vengeful spirits; taking fruit and
plants from nature had to be freed from guilt through ritual sacrifices. Later mythical societies already turned the natural powers into personified beings whose activities between light and dark were described in myths: spring and tree ghosts, gods and demons of heights and depths – they were all tempered in their ambivalence through sacrifices.
All early religions cultivated a timidity towards the numinosity of an intransparent world. People tried
to soothe and overcome those hostile elements using bans, magic, spells and prayers. This was of course far from “mastering nature”. Magical fear and mythical narrations obstructed every insight into the processes and rules of nature.
Judaism: change of paradigm by the human mission in creation
The liberation of mind from the uncanningness of nature first came up in Judaism. With the imperative of the first creation account: “Subdue the earth” (Gen 1), the mastery of nature became a godly mission to mankind. According to this, man is basically allowed to use nature without fear and without restrictions; the only restriction exists within man himself as he has to regard his mission to rule in analogy to the divine power of creation.
St. Paul later refers to this liberal element that is contained in this mission, as follows: “the world, or life and death, or the present and the future – everything belongs to you” (1 Cor 3,22). He continues: “But you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (1 Cor 3,24). Continuing this idea, Anselm of Canterbury (11th century) refers to the power of mankind as “omnipotence under God”.
This development can be regarded as a "religious quantum leap".
Beyond mechanical skills, the technological mastering of nature required a knowledge of the natural laws. It was only possible to research and apply those natural laws due to the freedom man gained towards creation in Judaism and Christendom. The Islam, which came up later on, threw up the question whether such laws were not contradictory to the almightiness of God, who could let the sun rise in a different place every day.
The Arabic philosophy of the Middle Ages stagnated over this question as the teaching of natural laws, to which God obeyed or had to obey to, was almost regarded as blasphemy. Due to his almighty powers, God would have to be able to deviate from the natural laws at any time; therefore, the laws could not possibly be reliable. Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996) points out that since the 14th century, the Arabic natural sciences lost the leading role they had held up to then and he argues that this was caused by this particular theological doubt; since then, there had been no more relevant contributions to the culture of technology.
In Christendom, this dilemma was overcome by the teachings of Thomas Aquinas. According to him, God is causa prima, the primary cause, but his creation contains causae secundae, secondary causes, which we know as natural laws. Through this explanation, thus, Thomas offered an almost immeasurably liberal dealing with nature in the sense of the Genesis mission, at least in theory.
The non-Christian world adopted the results of this research and the possibility to master nature from the heritage of European Christendom. However, it remained blind towards the theoretical precondition that research and mastery of nature (and man) are limited by the fact that the mission of man – which is clearly stated in Genesis – demands that he is a
“shepherd of being” (Heidegger) and not an exploitive creature. The task of shepherd leadership is an immediate consequence of the likeness of God, which is underlined in Genesis just before.
But can this task already be understood in the sense that it also refers to biotechnology? Yes it can, and at the same time, (bio-)technology is restrained by bioethics; one could even say: it is balanced, compensated or even optimized by it.
A second source of de-mythologisation: ancient Greek philosophy
In order to lay a deeper foundation for the relation between biotechnology and bioethics, let us look at another historical approach to the technisation of nature: at ancient Greece of the 5th/4th century BC.
Apart from the usual mythical personification of nature in form of Gods and Goddesses, there is the philosophical conception of nature as the sum of natural things. The whole of “mother nature”, which is beyond comprehension, turns to a lot of conceivable single things, to an innate legitimate rule of its change and technical handling. This taming of nature through rationalisation was introduced in European history by the Greeks.
Above the entrance to Platon's academy, one could read the following challenging phrase, which was even blasphemic with respect to the old mythical view of the world: “Let no man ignorant about geometry enter here.” Only he who is able to measure the former mother Gaia, the earth, has adopted the basic law of thinking, namely measuring, calculating and counting. Being fearless is required as a new attitude towards everything:
splitting the physis into its single parts, analysing its causalities and using it for human purposes. The approach to an objectivated view on nature no longer consists of numinous powers but of rational contexts, which can be distinguished in fourfold causalities (efficient, material, formal and final cause).
Application in Christendom: Man as deus secundus of a creatio secunda
From a historical point of view, this double source, the Jewish mission of man in creation and the Greek rationalisation, leads to a double possibility:
On the one hand, it is the impulse of an immense creative power of man, who is able to change, improve and replan all given things – it is the way of thinking that has kept the human sense of being
in active excitement since the Renaissance. In 1486, during the key century of modern age, Pico della Mirandola, who coined the term of dignitas hominis, fearlessly introduced Adam as “second God” (deus secundus) into the creation that had not been thought to an end. On the basis of the Genesis mission of man, this sets off an interminable
“second creation of the world”. At the same time, the Greek “objectivity” appears: the sense of power of logical reasoning. It refers initially to the external nature (fabrica mundi), namely to all spatial, material or other things that follow the newly discovered rules. Descartes stands for this context: “it is possible to arrive at knowledge that would be very useful in life and that, in place of that speculative philosophy taught in the schools, it is possible to find a practical philosophy, by means of which, knowing the force and the actions of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies that surround us, just as distinctly as we know the various skills of our craftsmen, we might be able, in the same way, to use them for all the purposes for which they are appropriate, and thus render ourselves, as it were, masters and possessors of nature”.18
The consequence: The "(mis-)measure of man"
This “knowledge of domination“ of an autonomously creative mankind led to a second possibility that took over more and more the longer it existed: Even the “external” side of man itself was captured rationally with the newly gained methods – depictive and still “innocently”
expressed through the “(mis-)measured man” in the art of Leonardo and Dürer, showing bodies with the measurements of the golden ratio.19 Later on, at the height of the geometric-mathematical thinking in the 17th and 18th century, the body is even regarded as res extensa and compared with the regulatory circuit of a machine – l’homme machine.
In fact, for about 500 years, the modern age considered nature as a kind of mechanical workshop. Adam feels appointed as a kind of almighty sovereign who sees his fellow creations as an anonymous “counterpart”, an empty shell of his indulgence, as “accusation” and “resistance” (the literal translation of ob-ject), which has to be overcome. Francis Bacon, one of the fathers of modern natural science, explained that one would have to put nature on the torture rack of the experiment in order to force off its secrets; Kant uses the image of reason as a judge who puts nature on trial: “Reason must not approach nature in the
18 René Descartes, Discours de la méthode, VI.
19 Compare the ambiguous title: Sigrid Braunfels u.a., Der
“vermessene Mensch”. Anthropometrie in Kunst und Wissenschaft, München 1973.
character of a pupil who listens to everything the teacher has to say, but as an appointed judge who compels the witness to answer questions that he himself has formulated.”20
In a last step, even the psyche was analysed, which had been spared so far. Particularly perfidious are the rather primitive attempts especially of the French enlightenment, to interpret even the passiones animae, the passions and processes of the soul, as chemical or mechanical reactions.21 During the 19th century, the newly emerging psychology reconstructed the concept of natural sciences with the attempt to reveal that all human activities depend on strict rules and to disclose the behavioural schemes of the individual. Even man himself was “explained” by this; man himself was rather a slave of natural processes than a free sovereign over nature. Thus, the sense of sovereignty that man had in early modern times changed into the knowledge of human functioning as one natural creature among others. Sovereignty and servity in contemporary man’s sense of self are thus in peculiar context to each other, not really in contradiction to each other. Some leading representatives of neurobiology as the latest discipline underline this sense of explication (“thinking is nothing but…”), along the lines of the discussion in the 18th century. This does not even interfere with the objection that the statement of continuous determination would have to be applied to the scientist first of all.
From biotechnology to bioethics
This previously unknown freedom of research also brings about restrictions for the technical mastery over nature – and for the mastery of mankind.
Those restrictions are implicitly already present in the Genesis mission of man in the sense of a caring and shepherding handling of the entrusted creation, but particularly with mankind itself, who has a right to be begotten and not to be made according to the plans and means of some human beings: genitum non factum. However, such constraints were often not adopted when the result of research and technology were adopted by a non-Christian or agnostic biotechnology, as its preconditions were not embedded in the original culture. Technology is rapidly adopted, the underlying idea of human being is not.
20 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Vorrede zur 2.
Auflage, I, 26.
21 In the literature, this topic was taken on at a high level:
Goethe’s Wahlverwandtschaften are designed as chemical attractions of the elements; with his doll Coppelia, E. T. A.
Hoffmann created the automatic human being, whose eye (the seat of the soul) is the only thing that reveals the dead machine.
Wherever theologically based anthropology is unknown or even denied, scientists and technicians tend to allow their actions to be restricted by short-sighted consequentialistic considerations at the most: “What is the more or less direct consequence of my actions and what ethical restrictions are there to my actions?” On this basis, one may well find a certain degree of compromise between Christians and non-Christians or agnostics; however, they tend to relate rather to the purpose of actions (preferential utilitarianism) than to their meaning.
However, where the sense of meaning has to be considered, such compromises become more and more difficult. The more it concerns man himself, his qualities and his creation, the more difficult it is, to get across bioethical arguments with Jewish-Christian roots to a non-Jewish-Christian world. In the end, as the answer to the question for the sense of existence determines the weal and woe of the individual and of mankind, it will be the mission of
Christendom to at least point out to those who persue a solely purpose-oriented bioethics the knowledge about the likeness of God and the subsequent self-restrictions for handling creation. It is impossible to force anyone to believe. But it is possible to communicate the revelation about the likeness of God in a plausible way. Those who are not completely superficial may reach for it if necessary. After all, many deeper thinkers – and verbally most cultures and legal systems – agree with the idea of human dignity, which is ultimately anchored in the likeness of God.
The new consciousness of the biblical roots of biotechnology and bioethics can also be a contribution of European Christendom to new-evangelisation. An essential point in this context is the idea that an anthropomorphic theology, that is a doctrine given from God and accepted by mankind, is replaced by a theomorphic anthropology, that is a human doctrine that is oriented towards God.
Il perturbamento magico-mitico della natura come inibizione per l’utilizzo tecnico.
All’umanità primitiva il mondo e la natura erano apparsi misteriosi e prevalentemente inquietanti.
Considerate forze e potenze magiche, impersonali, numina, la vita e la morte sembravano signoreggiare. Cacciatori e raccoglitori praticavano l’uccisione degli animali, inevitabile per la loro sopravvivenza, pieni di timore e con magie cautelative contro gli spiriti vendicativi.
L’appropriazione, dalla natura selvatica, di piante e di frutti doveva essere giustificata ritualmente attraverso sacrifici. Civiltà mitiche successive svilupparono sin d’ora essenze personificate basandosi sulle forze attive nella natura, i cui effetti chiaro-scuri venivano descritti nei miti: spiriti primordiali e degli alberi, dei e demoni della sommità e dell’abisso, che dalla loro ambivalenza venivano resi amichevoli mediante sacrifici. Ogni religione primitiva coltivava il timore dinanzi alle divinità di un mondo imperscrutabile. Attraverso la scaramanzia, l’incantesimo, la maledizione e la preghiera si cercava di placare e di superare le ostilità. Non poteva esserci alcun discorso sul dominio della natura. Paura magica e interpretazione mitica impedivano ogni conoscenza sui processi della natura e le loro leggi.
Ebraismo: cambiamento di paradigma attraverso "l‘incaricodella creazione" agli esseri umani
La liberazione della coscienza dal perturbamento della natura avviene innanzitutto nell’ebraismo.
Con l’imperativo del primo racconto della creazione: ″Riempite la terra e soggiogatela!″ (Gen 1, 28), per ordine divino, l’organizzazione della natura veniva affidata all’essere umano.
Fondamentalmente l’essere umano può, dunque, utilizzare la natura senza paure e limiti; l’unico limite all’essere umano è posto in se stesso, poiché egli deve intendere il dominio in analogia alla potenza creatrice divina. Paolo più tardi affermerà che l’elemento della libertà è racchiuso in questo incarico: ″mondo, vita, morte, presente e futuro:
tutto è nostro″ (1 Cor 3, 22), e prosegue: ″ma voi siete di Cristo e Cristo appartiene a Dio″ (1 Cor 3, 24); Anselmo da Canterbury / d'Aosta (11 secolo) seguendo questa linea di pensiero definisce l’essere umano come ″onnipotenza (al di sotto) di Dio″.
Questa elaborazione è quasi un ″salto quantico religioso″.
Il dominio tecnico della natura sull’artigianato richiede la conoscenza delle leggi della natura, che è stato possibile esplorare e sfruttare a fronte della libertà conquistata in riferimento alla creazione nell’ebraismo e nel cristianesimo. In seguito, l’Islam poneva la questione se tali leggi non siano in contraddizione con l’onnipotenza divina, che in ogni momento potrebbe far sorgere il sole in un altro luogo. Su questo tema, la filosofia araba del Medioevo cadde in una stagnazione, poiché la dottrina delle leggi della natura, a cui persino Dio si attiene o dovrebbe attenersi, si avvicinava alla blasfemia.
Dio, in forza della sua onnipotenza, dovrebbe potersi discostare dalle leggi della natura in ogni momento; perciò esse non sarebbero attendibili.
Secondo Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996), a causa di questi dubbi teologici, dal 14 secolo, le scienze naturali arabe persero il rango di guida che avevano assunto fino ad allora; Da quel momento non ci sono più stati, da parte (della comunità) islamica, significativi contributi alla cultura della tecnologia.
Nel Cristianesimo questo dilemma è stato superato dalla dottrina di Tommaso D’Aquino. Dunque, Dio è certamente causa prima; ha, però, plasmato la creazione come causa seconda, che noi conosciamo come leggi della natura. In tal modo, Tommaso rendeva possibile teoreticamente, al primo occidente, una quasi sconfinata libera interazione con la natura, in conformità al senso già delineato nell’incarico della Genesi.
Il mondo non-cristiano si è appropriato dei risultati di questa ricerca, e della possibilità del dominio della natura, dall’eredità del cristianesimo europeo.
Intanto il mondo seculare rimase, però, cieco nei confronti del presupposto teoretico, secondo cui alla ricerca e al dominio della natura (e degli esseri umani) sono posti al contempo dei limiti, e che l’incarico degli esseri umani – come risulta implicitamente dalla Genesi – richiede un esserci
″di pastore″ (Heidegger) e non ′sfruttatore′, poiché l’ordine del dominio pastorale è una conseguenza immediata del nostro essere immagini di Dio, che poco prima la Genesi (1,26-28) sottolineava.
Si può già intendere quest’ordine nel senso che biotecnologia e bioetica, bisogna richiamare l’attenzione su un ulteriore approccio storico nei confronti della tecnicizzazione della natura:
nell’antica Grecia, del 5/4 secolo avanti Cristo, oltre alla tradizionale personificazione della natura nelle divinità c’è l’interpretazione filosofica della natura come una somma di oggetti naturali. La totalità dell’indefinibile ″madre natura″ si trasforma ora in una quantità di oggetti singoli, identificabili all’interno della legittima misura del loro cambiamento e della loro applicazione tecnica.
Nella storia europea questo addomesticamento attraverso la razionalizzazione inizia coi Greci: una prima esplicita demitizzazione. Sull’accademia platonica c’era una, provocatoria, frase blasfema
contro l’immagine dell’antico mondo mitico: ″entri solo chi è competente in geometria″. Solo chi è nella posizione di misurare la sino ad allora Madre Gaia, ossia la Terra, ha colto la legge fondamentale del pensiero, che è misurare, calcolare e contare.
Nel nuovo atteggiamento viene richiesto il coraggio di scomporre la physis in elementi, per analizzarne la causalità, e da lì sottoporla al servizio umano.
Non più potenze numinose/divine, bensì come ′deus secundus′ di una ′creatio secunda′
Da questa duplice fonte, ossia il mandato della creazione ebraica e la razionalizzazione greca, segue storicamente una duplice possibilità: da un lato, lo straordinario impulso alla forza creativa degli esseri umani, che diviene trasformatore, miglioratore, neo-pianificatore di ciò che è dato – quel pensiero che sin dal Rinascimento considera il senso dell‘esistenza degli esseri umani in costante eccitazione.
Pico della Mirandola, a cui siamo debitori per l’espressione dignitas hominis nel 1486, secolo chiave dell’età moderna, designa intrepidamente Adamo come deus secundus in una concezione della creazione pensata come incompiuta. Sul fondamento dell’ordine della creazione viene intrapresa, quindi, un‘indeterminata ″seconda creazione del mondo″. Al contempo viene coinvolta l’obiettività greca: il sentimento di potenza della
Pico della Mirandola, a cui siamo debitori per l’espressione dignitas hominis nel 1486, secolo chiave dell’età moderna, designa intrepidamente Adamo come deus secundus in una concezione della creazione pensata come incompiuta. Sul fondamento dell’ordine della creazione viene intrapresa, quindi, un‘indeterminata ″seconda creazione del mondo″. Al contempo viene coinvolta l’obiettività greca: il sentimento di potenza della