At the messy, irritating ends of the human span, our society has put life under threat. Progressives in Britain are desperately trying to follow our Canadian cousins in killing the disabled, the old, the poor and the lonely under the title of euthanasia. Already, we kill myriad unborn babies when they get in the way of our modern lives.
In both defence and criticism of such policies, life is assigned value. Proponents of euthanasia and abortion measure the quality of life while their opponents point to its unchanging, immeasurable sanctity. I of course lie in the latter camp, but surrounded by believers to the contrary, I at times worry that I am being either pig-headed or cold-hearted. Against this, the phrase ‘sanctity of life’ can seem wooden and simplistic. Though there are depths of serious thought behind the words, I wonder how well they are understood among modern Christians. How many believers are pro-life merely as an article of faith, as has easily become the case for myself? We must all of us consider carefully how we value life.
I have been helped in this regard by Hilaire Belloc’s short essay, The Portrait of a Child. It is a compelling piece of writing, whose six and a half pages have twice brought me to the verge of tears in as many days. If you can, read it rather than this article. I can add nothing to it, and only hope to make explicit what Belloc describes implicitly. His words have wide consequences but I think it worthwhile to bring them to the fore in this issue especially.
Belloc writes to a young girl, less than three years old and clearly very dear to him. Before him is a photo of her running through a valley, and a trick of the camera has cast a ring of light around her. He sees in this light three qualities of the life of the little girl. I would suggest that these provide the solidity missing from the progressive view of life, while adding emotional and rational force to the concept of sanctity.
First, Belloc sees that the little girl is blessed. That is, she is happy, and it is a happiness which is given by God. It is a happiness which makes one run and dance and feel as if one ‘rather belonged to the air and to the growing things about you and above you than to the earth over which you passed’. And well might you feel this way in such blessed moments. For this happiness comes from above, and there lies its character – it is supernatural. This is not to say that it is ethereal or vague. Belloc says that though blessedness is removed, it is removed to a stronger world, where it is native and secure. In our world, it flickers and dwindles, so that by the age when we can write of it, we rarely know it. But where it exists it is the interruption of something divine, whose supernatural solidity can linger amongst earthly sorrows.
To destroy such blessedness is akin to scorning a visitor from a strange land or rejecting the word of a prophet: there is a peculiar close-minded evil to it. Perhaps the happiness exists only as a future possibility, as for the unborn baby, or perhaps as a clouded memory. But it is by nature eternal, and so its value transcends time. Remember, too, that true happiness is from God. The prophet Isaiah pronounces woe on those who call evil what God has called good. That is a matter of speech; how much worse to destroy something which God has made good.
It is this which progressives term ‘the quality of life’ – or rather, a version of what I have described, but with no reference to God. As I have conceded, happiness is far from constant, so this is indeed the weakest argument in defence of life, though it is still important. But Belloc’s other two qualities do not fade, though one may be marred and the other scorned.
For next, Belloc sees that the little girl is holy. He does not use this word as we often do. By describing something as holy, he means that through it God may be seen. The girl’s face ‘is inspired, as though the light had filled it from within; so that looking thus, I look not on, but through’. As we do often say, man is made in God’s image, so that in our capacities and virtues God’s nature and character are apparent. The purer our heart and mind and soul, the clearer the picture. Conversely, the picture is marred by our sin, but unlike our happiness our holiness – in the sense of image-bearing – does not fade. It is still there underneath the murk, so that all human life has the potential to show something of God.
The significance of this holiness is two-fold. Firstly, we honour God by honouring the way in which he expresses himself through his image-bearers, and so to destroy life is to offend against him. It is to say that we do not value him. Secondly, Belloc writes that ‘secretly all this world is sustained by holiness’. For any good thing to exist is for it to express God’s creative power, and therefore to be endowed with holiness (as we are defining it). Human life does so especially, so to take life is to remove an expression of the Divine. It must immediately make the world a darker place, as a window on to Goodness itself is blotted out.
Lastly, in the ring of bright light, Belloc sees that the little girl is sacred. Here is where I must waver, both for the tears in my own eyes, but more so for the tears of mankind which I have never shed. Sacred things, Belloc tells us, are those which are devoted to a sacrificial purpose. All men and women and children are made to be devoted to one another and to God. In this cursed world that devotion is frustrated so that it can only be offered through pain. Thus whether we work or love or worship, we suffer; and indeed in the mere act of living – for every breath glorifies God – there is always sorrow. When Belloc considers the grief which shall one day line the little girl’s face, he nearly wishes that he had never seen her picture. And it is at this point, contemplating the weight of past, present and future sadness, that we may think death the kindest option.
But this sacredness is what it means to be human. We were made for one another and for God, and hence to suffer in this world. And in love, God sent his Son as the greatest sacrifice, to be fastened to our cursed existence, so that with him and redeemed mankind we may rise to everlasting glory. There is no other way – if we do not suffer, we are joined to neither man nor God, and we become nothing. If we suffer in Christ, we have all things.
It is thus in submitting to the sacredness of life that blessedness is guaranteed, and we ourselves begin to become opaque with the holiness of God, as he dwells in his beloved children. C. S. Lewis envisages resurrected humans as great, solid, bright beings; this is the end to which God has devoted the little child, the lonely, the poor, the sick and the old. Whether this end will be realised for all people is for God to judge. For us, it is sufficient to know that he has set human beings apart for glory; to recognise that this requires the daily sacrifice of living in a cursed world; and to ask: how dare we destroy such sacred life?
The Second Discourseman
The Four Discoursemen 