The Value of Life

Across the UK people have been gathering to applaud NHS workers living in their neighbourhoods. In normal times it is easy enough to complain about perceived short-comings in health care but at such a time as this we recognise the risks that doctors, nurses, paramedics and other medical professionals must undertake. Some are making the decision to carry on caring even though they have not been provided with adequate personal protective equipment, knowing full well what could happen to them as a result. A growing number have lost their lives to the covid-19 virus, paying "the ultimate price" whilst trying to save the lives of strangers. When we describe a self-sacrificial death as a "price" or "cost" we recognise that the life laid down has value.

But why are medical heroes willing to do this? Is it not because they feel that every life is worth saving, if at all possible? Think of the terrible decisions that have to be made because there are insufficient resources to save everybody. These decisions can cause deep psychological wounds and leave traumatic scars. Why? Is it not because we cannot really weigh the relative value of two lives? Both are worth saving. A human body may be a complex sack of DNA, protein, and other organic chemicals, but this is not the sum total of a human life. We can rationalise the choice with life expectancy statistics and quality of life predictions. But these decisions are terrible and traumatic because we know instinctively that life cannot be reduced to numbers and probabilities.

The costly actions of medical personnel and the widespread sense that self-sacrifice is heroic both depend on the same 'logic'. They only makes sense if human life has an inherent and indiscriminate value. The doctor's and nurse's lives have value. The life of every anonymous patient has value. As the government slogan puts it: "Stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives". The social and economic costs are worth paying because there is widespread recognition that life itself is more valuable.

How do you explain that? What gives life its value? What do you believe motivates the kind of self-giving we are applauding? Many popular worldviews really offer no satisfactory answer. Take for example this quote from Richard Dawkins' book 'The Blind Watchmaker':

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication,

some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky,

and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should

expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good,

nothing but blind pitiless indifference".

Let’s apply that to our current predicament.

• The covid-19 virus has arisen by "blind physical forces and genetic replication" - the evolution and emergence of this new virus is no more good or bad than the evolution of an ape into a human being.
• Some will be hurt whilst others "get lucky" - whether you live or die is a game of Russian Roulette.
• Though your heart cries out "Why me?!" you should not try to make sense of it because "there is no rhyme or reason".
• Letting people die is ultimately not evil, saving life is ultimately not good. There is no plan or purpose in anything. The decisions of rational medical professionals would be truly heroic if they reflected the principles of the universe in which we live: "blind, pitiless indifference".

Perhaps this is a reasonable theory for the detached armchair theorist in a clinically and emotionally sterile ivory tower. But thank God that it is completely inadequate as a description or explanation of the way human beings actually respond in life and death crises. At a time like this I am sure Mr Dawkins will be shouting abuse at the God he claims not to believe in, holding Him responsible for all the suffering in the world. And I suspect he will stay very quiet about the harsh implications of his own frigid godless philosophy.

Dawkins' worldview is like the proverbial "house on the sand". It looks pretty attractive when the weather is fine. But when the tragedies of life flood in on us they bring people face to face with death and eternity and raise questions of meaning and morality. Then the materialistic atheist house has nothing of value to offer. It cannot stand because it has no strong foundation.

Tragedies raise challenges for Christians too. There are questions which we struggle to answer. To be completely honest, the Christian house sometimes looks like a ramshackle hut. But however the house appears, at times of crisis the foundations prove strong. There is a plan and a purpose even in events we cannot understand. There are principles of grace, mercy, kindness, and compassion built into the fabric of the universe. There is reason to hope that good will conquer evil. A Being of infinite love and power listens to the distressed cries of our hearts. Jesus, the person at the centre of our faith, is the preeminent example of self-sacrificing love. These famous words are His:

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."