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CHICAGO STUDIES
In his freedom he determines what he will be irrevocably for all eternity. And on this earth he should take hold of himself in his freedom and may, if he chooses, modify himself in the innermost depths of his biological, genetic, psychological and historical existence. Rahner's analysis is quite correct in theory, and that is why I say that reengineering man presents no inherent moral problems. But practically speaking man needs not only science, technology and the will to alter the species. He also needs the wisdom necessary to do it to the benefit and not the destruction of the species. I do not see evidence of this sort of wisdom in man at this moment in history. Charles Curran once remarked that "if we are going to do something like this to the species, someone is going to have to decide and plan what sort of men we ought to become, and if the genetic planners are anything like those who have been planning our domestic and foreign policies, God help us." Finally, on the question of chimeras and cyborgs, I simply do not know what to say, mainly because I do not understand what these creatures are. If they are superior animals and machines, created by the introduction of human genetic material into developing sub-human embryos, perhaps we should make them. But if they are inferior or sub-human men, created by the intdouction of non-human genetic material into developing human embryos, it would be wicked to make them. A final caution: in thinking about questions such as these we must be on guard against naivete and a one-sided optimism. There is another book than Teilhard's which tells us that there is a principle of evil abroad. H. Richard Niebuhr has wisely cautioned our generation against a liberalism that is naievely optimistic, that would have us believe that "a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." In our enthusiasm and hope for the future it would be unwise to forget that man has been, is and always will be sinful man. Of course he must play God. There is no other way. But he is not God, and given the role without surveilance and control he can become a devil.