Reflections on Chance and Free Will

Cross-Generational Retribution and Genetic Engineering

Reflections on Chance and Free Will Lawrence Tröster

It was n o t o f your will that formed you, nor was it your will that gave you birth; it is n ot your will that makes you live, and it is not your will that brings you death; nor is it your will that some day in the future you will have to give an accounting and a reckoning before the Ruler o f Rulers, the Holy Exalted O ne.1 The truth revealed in this teaching is obvious yet profound. I t was not your will that formed you. We are born having had no choice about whom our parents are or about what our genetic makeup is. The color o f our skin, our height, our looks, our propensity for future diseases, much o f our intellectual and mental capacity, has been determined for us long before we become aware o f own identity. So much o f who we are and how we live is determined for us in a chance occurrence o f egg and sperm in a set o f envi ronmental and historical conditions that could not ever be predicted. This is how we are engendered. Nor was it your will that gave you birth. We cannot determine the time and the place in which we were born. So much o f our lives is determ ined by country, town and year in which we entered the world. The language that we first spoke and the culture that we absorbed before we even could perceive it was determined for us. I t is not your will that makes you live. A great deal o f how we function as human beings on a day to day, m om ent by m om ent basis is completely invol untary. O ur lungs breathe, our heart pumps, the blood flows through our veins without any conscious volition. Even the acts o f eating and excreting are actions which we cannot stop, only delay. I t is not your will that brings you death. N o one can truly know the day o f their death. Despite all o f our medical science, the m om ent o f our deaths is 33 Conservative Judaism, Vol. 54 No. 3 Copyright © 2002 by the Rabbinical Assembly.

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one o f the great mysteries o f our lives. Even if we choose to commit suicide, we never could have predicted that our lives would end this way. Nor is it your will that some day in the fu tu re you will have to give an accounting and a reckoning before the R u ler o f Rulers, the Holy Exalted. Despite everything that determines our lives, our tradition still believes that we have free will in how we live and that we will be called to account by God. Until recendy in human history, those aspects o f our lives that were deter mined for us were considered as being in the hands o f God. Many other events, including disease, were also attributed to direct divine action in the world. And these constraints continued with our children. With whom we decided to mate and the particular circumstances o f our childrens’ births were beyond our control. Their lives were also in the hands o f God. In secular terms, these are the aspects o f life that are formed by a combi nation o f deterministic natural law and contingency. What was once given to God or to law and chance are now coming under human control and choice. Through the use o f fertility technology we can control when we have chil dren and how many we choose to have. If we are infertile, we can use the sperm or eggs o f others to give us children. We can choose from what kind o f person these cells come and thus, in a certain way, choose the kind o f child we want. We can even choose the genders o f the children we wish to have. Because o f advances in public health and medical science, we are m ore assured that our children will survive childhood and we ourselves can be assured o f a longer life than might be extended through drugs, body replace m ent parts, or machines that will substitute for some vital organs. Yet the area o f medical advances which promises to have the most profound effects on hum anity’s ability to control the nature o f their descendants is genetic engineering. Genetic engineering may add a large number o f diseases to those which we can presently cure. This is called “genetic healing.” But beyond healing, genetic engineering promises to allow us to choose the genetic characteristics o f our children far beyond what present fertility technology can. In some circles, this new power, referred to as “genetic enhancem ent,” is praised and exalted as a major advance in human evolution and power.2 Counter to such enthusiasm for this power, many critiques have been lev eled against genetic engineering. These criticisms have been based on scien tific, philosophical, and theological positions that challenge many o f the assumptions prom oted by those in favor o f genetic engineering. Even the efficacy o f genetic healing has been challenged on these grounds.3 The broadest challenge is the critique o f scientific reductionism. Molecular biologist Richard Strohm an, for example, speaks o f how the dom inant paradigm o f genetic determinism is scientifically inaccurate and may even be dangerous to public health. While genetic science has been very successful in producing a great deal o f information about the workings o f genes, it has failed to understand the dynamic processes with which genes interact with other genes and the environment.4 Paul Root Wolpe analyzes the cultural concept o f the “genetic self’ which has emerged with the growth o f genetic science. H e points out that the idea

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o f the “genetic self’ makes the assumption that human beings are the sum total o f their genes and nothing more. This belief has become the modern equivalent o f the traditional concept o f the soul. Wolpe presents the moral and social dangers in such a view that could easily produce a new form o f eugenics. H e also points out past examples o f the hazards o f deeming some human traits undesirable. Wolpe asks, “What are the values that we [sic] will choose to engineer into our offspring, values that later generations will see as misguided, parochial or even evil?” From a Jewish perspective, this could be particularly dangerous given our historical experience with eugenics.5 Bioethicist Leon Kass has also been prom inent in attacking the underlying moral assumptions o f cloning and genetic engineering.6 H e has criticized w hat he considers to be the three rationalizations given for cloning and genetic engineering: the technological, the liberal, and the meliorist. The technological rationalization asserts that genetic manipulation is morally neu tral and the morality o f its use depends on the motives and intentions o f those who use it. The liberal rationalization sees cloning and genetic engi neering to be an extension o f hum an rights, freedom, and choice. Moral problems will only arise from the issues o f informed consent and possible bodily harm. The meliorist rationale sees genetic engineering as a means to create healthier and more intelligent humans. In this case the means justifies the end. There are no other moral restraints. Against these rationalizations, Kass asserts that our natural repugnance at cloning and genetic enhancem ent represents a genuine hum an m oral response, “Repugnance . . . revolts against the excesses o f human willfulness, warning us n o t to transgress w hat is unspeakably profound.”7 The three rationalizations for cloning and genetic engineering are defective and pro voke our repugnance because there is a violation o f our “given nature as embodied, gendered and engendering beings.”8 Kass claims that this tech nology is not morally neutral and will further the process o f considering chil dren to be artifacts and the product o f human production. To Kass, cloning and genetic enhancement represents a kind o f despotism o f the creators over the created. It is a “violation o f what it means to have a child . . . to say yes to our own demise and 4replacement.’”9 Serious issues o f identity and individu ality will also be created, turning procreation into manufacture. H um an beings would then become just another human-made and industrially-produced object. Cloning and genetic enhancement would continue humanity’s technological project o f turning “all nature into raw materials at human dis posal to be homogenized by our rationalized technique according to the sub jective prejudices o f the day.”10 Kass says that human reproduction has, up until now been the assent to the “emergence o f a new life in all its novelty.” When people agree to have a child, they are also agreeing to accept the child no matter how the child turns out. Having children in this way is a confession o f the limits o f our control and the understanding that our children are not our property and must even tually live their lives for themselves. Cloning and genetic enhancement are the despotisms o f making children in our own image.11

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While Jewish bioethicists are united in their acceptance o f genetic healing, they are divided on genetic enhancement. They often reflect a technological optimism about genetic engineering even while they acknowledge the need to set limits to its use. These limits, however, are not usually well defined and while there is great concern for the healing o f the individual, there is usually not as much understanding o f the broader concerns that have been raised by scientific and philosophical critics o f the technology. The issue is often dis cussed in narrow halakhic terms and the broader theological issues are often not sufficiendy considered.12 Given even the theoretical possibility o f genetic choice requires us, I believe, to reexamine a theological concept, long forgotten in our tradition: cross-generational retribution or the sins o f the parents being visited on the children. This should be considered within the context o f G od’s providence and hum an free will in modern Jewish theology. Cross-generational retribution is Jeffrey Tigay’s term for the biblical con cept o f the sins o f the parents being visited on their children and subsequent generations by God. Tigay sees this belief arising from the social construct o f family solidarity in the ancient world. In that the basic unit o f society was the family and not the individual, the individual is “inextricably bound up with their kin, including past and future generations.” 13 While in other ancient Near Eastern societies, cross-generation retribution was a common mode o f punishment for a host o f crimes, in biblical law, it was restricted to divine punishments and expressly forbidden to human courts.14 As human experi ence sometimes does see later generations suffering for the sins o f their ancestors, in biblical law, cross-generational retribution was recognized as an expression o f G od’s control o f human affairs. Yet, the moral problem o f innocent people being punished by God for other’s behavior was raised as a theological problem even in biblical times. Jeremiah restricted such punishment and asserted that, in the future, it would no longer be an active principle. Ezekiel denied that God acted in this way even in the present. In the Torah itself, this kind o f punishment is qualified in some sources and limited to those later generations who carry on the sins o f their ancestors.15 In another source, Deuteronom y 7:9-10, only reward is cross-generational, not punishment. The Talmud went so far as to assert that Ezra had annulled cross-generational retribution, even though it was expressly written in the Torah.16 Nonetheless, this idea continues to exist in the Jewish tradition even after biblical times.17 Medieval Jewish philosophy did not gen erally concern itself with cross-generational retribution.18 The more important issue was reconciling God’s providence with human freewill.19 For modern Jewish thought the conflict between G od’s providence and human free will has been resolved in favor o f human free will. The concept o f the God o f history who directly controls both natural and human events has lost much o f its force in the last 500 years for two main reasons.20 First o f all, the general tendency in m odern thought has been to remove God from active participation in everyday events that can now be understood through science’s understanding o f the laws o f the natural world. Ian Barbour has

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traced this development from the scientific revolution o f the sixteenth cen tury through the last century. At first the new astronomy and the physics o f Galileo and Newton removed the necessity for God to be involved with the movement o f the universe outside o f its initial creation. The new astronomy and physics also removed the earth from the center o f the universe, and, thus, from its special status. Then Darwinism in the nineteenth century showed how even humanity was created from the same forces that produced all life. It was no longer necessary to see humanity as a special creation o f God. Deterministic natural laws could explain all phenomena and God became an initial creator who did not interfere with the world at all.21 Scientific determinism became the dominant paradigm o f the natural world from the late eighteenth century onward, and the dom inant model o f the world was the machine. In response to this model, the Romantic reaction saw human imagination and intuition to be as important as reason and also asserted that personal religious experience had the power to transform human lives. Existentialism can also be seen as a reaction to the deterministic paradigm. While it accepted scientific claims in objective knowledge, it also posited a sec ond but equally valid realm of knowledge that is subjective and relational22 Some Christian theologians have recently sought to close this divide between science and religion, especially in the area o f G od’s action in the world. They have sought to see God as still active and connected to the world while n o t violating the laws o f physics and chemistry. John Polkinghorne and Arthur Peacocke have sought to find a new definition o f G od’s activity in quantum mechanics, information theory, and chaos theory.23 John H aught has created a theology o f God within the context o f Darwinian evo lution that evokes both divine limitation and divine presence.24 Ian Barbour and others have looked to Process Theology to show how God is not active in the world in the traditional sense. God is the creator o f both the ground o f order and the ground o f novelty. God is also the “leader o f a cosmic com m u nity” who guides the universe and humanity like a teacher or parent who does not direcdy intervene. “G od’s role is creative participation and persua sion in inspiring the com m unity o f beings towards new possibilities o f a richer life together.”25 In modern Jewish thought, the réévaluation o f G od’s activity in the world has certainly also been influenced by the rise o f modern science.26 But the trauma o f the Holocaust has been the major impetus to such a reassessment in the last fifty years. Richard L. Rubinstein was probably the first theologian to reject the God o f history on moral grounds because o f the Holocaust.27 Elliot Dorff, on the other hand, has maintained the Rabbinic theology o f the power and goodness o f God by accepting the idea that G od’s action may be present even in horrendous evil. “We must . . . note and appreciate G od’s presence in the good as much as we cry out and protest to God for the bad. God is manifest in both sorts o f divine actions.”28 Abraham Joshua Heschel denied divine involvement in the Holocaust. It was solely the result o f human free will.29 But this still leaves the problem of what God was doing during that period in hum an history.30 Harold Kushner

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sought to answer this problem in the idea o f an inherently limited God who remains wholly good.31 The most prevalent idea tries to preserve the principle o f divine power by positing G od’s self-limitation in order for human freedom to exist, even at the cost o f great evil. For H ans Jonas, this limitation took place at the m om ent o f creation and the universe has since been evolving on its own w ithout divine intervention.32 For Irving Greenberg, G od’s limitation was a gradual process o f withdrawal from the control o f hum an affairs.33 The m etaphor most often used in this model o f divine action is that o f a parent and child. Christian thinkers call it the “kenotic m odel.” Just as a parent must relinquish control as the child grows and develops, so must God leave more and more o f human affairs to humanity to govern, even while remain ing the ground o f being, order, and novelty. G od’s role is to be sustainer and guide, not an authoritarian ruler. God must suffer at hum an cruelty and folly even as parents are agonized by their children’s mistakes and pain. In the Jewish community, this kenotic model has been expressed in the rabbinic image o f humans as partners with God in the work o f creation. Since the Holocaust, this idea has been given new prominence. Partnership with God has been used as the rationale for human healing and the right to employ the latest science and technology, including genetic engineering, to cure dis ease.34 The concept o f tikkun o h m has also been reinterpreted in the recent past to represent the idea o f human responsibility for the perfection and main tenance o f the world. This idea, based on a minor rabbinic concept o f amend ing laws for the betterment o f the world, was altered by Lurianic Kabbalah into a mystical doctrine o f salvation, the human repair o f the breach in the universe left over by the process o f Creation itself. This tikkun was to be achieved primarily by meditation and prayer.35 Since the Holocaust, this doc trine has co-opted as the rationale for the social action agenda o f many Jews.36 The theological implication o f both partnership with God and tikkun ohm is that God has retreated from direct action in human history and humanity has been given primary responsibility for the maintenance and perfection o f the world. But scientific determinism is usually not even considered when these concepts are discussed, and the role that God still plays in the world is rarely mentioned. And unlike many Christian theologians, the full implica tions o f evolution for our models o f God are not even considered in most recent Jewish theology.37 The new paradigm of the natural world that has been revealed by modern science is one in which both order and chance play a role. Reductionism does not adequately reflect the complexities o f the nat ural world or o f the human being. Jewish theology, however, has not gener ally absorbed the implications o f this new view.38 The exaltation o f human freedom in the concepts o f tikkun ohm and part nership with God can lead to giving religious sanction to human arrogance in our relations with the natural world and to a glorification o f human power. It can also create too much optimism about the role o f technology in solving human problems.39 These concerns are particularly cogent when we look at the possible dangers of genetic engineering. Genetic healing and the use of geneti

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cally modified foods are often praised in Jewish sources with litde qualification or consideration o f the many scientific, ethical, or environmental caveats.40 W hen it comes to genetic enhancem ent, the greatest danger may be a modern version o f cross-generational retribution. While originally only God was given this power, in this world o f human freedom, it is we who may be both committing the sin and visiting the punishment on our descendants. In the arrogance o f our assuming to be partners in Creation with godlike free doms and powers, our sin will be the attem pt to create a kind o f genetic utopia for our children and descendants. The punishments that they will suf fer will be the consequences o f a new form o f eugenics. Another sin will be our lack o f considering the unintended consequences o f our actions, and the punishment to our descendants could be new genetic illnesses, super viruses, and a degraded environment. W hen we assume that genetic replacement is like changing a defective part in a machine, we are ignoring the possible genetic consequences that may not be felt for genera tions. Sometimes a so-called defective gene, which is the source o f one ill ness, may have other uses as well. For example, the same gene that causes sickle cell anemia in people o f African descent has also been found to cause a resistence to malaria. While there are genetic illnesses that no one would argue should be cured if possible, once we move beyond clearly defined defects, we raise the possibility o f creating many more genetic problems. We are also in danger o f crossing the boundaries o f creation, which in a modern sense, means not trusting in the slow process o f evolution and substituting human manipulation for natural selection. A nother sin is the sin o f our despotism over our descendants, and the punishment we will visit upon our offspring is that we will reduce them to artifacts. We will now see children, more than ever, as products o f human manufacture and control, not as free and unique creations o f God. And we will turn over the power o f reproduction to commercial enterprises that will further objectify and commodify human life. Another sin is the sin o f complacency. M ost people assume that once a technology is developed nothing will stop its development and application. This attitude is not historically correct, but is a reflection o f a philosophy of technological determinism which is not inevitable. As Ian Barbour has said, “If we are convinced that nothing can be done to improve the system [of technological development], we will indeed do nothing to try to improve it.”41 The punishment that we will visit upon our offspring is hopelessness. Another sin is the sin o f idolatry. Seymour Siegel, 1?”I, used to say that Judaism teaches that we are to imitate God but not impersonate God. The former is the foundation o f our ethics. The latter is idolatry. O ur radically altering the boundaries o f Creation, our arrogance of assuming how to per fect the human genome, our use o f this dangerous technology for frivolous and selfish reasons, and our turning life into an artifact and a commodity will prove that we have committed idolatry of the worst sort: self-deification. And the punishment that we will visit upon our descendants will be that we will replace the likeness o f God in the face o f humanity with the mark o f Cain.42

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In order to counteract this kind o f idolatry, we must cultivate the values o f humility, modesty, and equity. Then will we be able to exercise our freedom within the boundaries o f Creation in true partnership with God. NOTES 1. Pirkei Avot 4:29. Translation from Siddur Sim Shalom for Shabbat and Festivals (New York: The Rabbinical Assembly, 1998), p. 271. 2. For example, see Leon R. Kass and James Q. Wilson, The Ethics of Human Cloning (Washington, DC: The AEI Press, 1998), pp. 21-2, for a description of this attitude and see also Jonathan R Cohen, “In God’s Garden: Creation and Cloning in Jewish Thought,” The Hastings Center Report, 29:4 (July/August 1999), pp. 7-12, for a Jewish version of this posi tion. 3. The claims for the value o f genetic engineering have been touted for over twenty years and yet there has been no reliable genetic healing. Even in the area of genetically modified foods (GMO’s) serious criticisms have been voiced of the claims made for its advantages for agriculture. See Casey Walker, ed., Made Not Born: The Troubled World of Biotechnology (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2000). 4. Made Not Born, pp. 108-118. Cf. Also Mark S. Frankel and Audrey R. Chapman, Human Inheritable Genetic Modifications (Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2000). 5. Paul Root Wolpe, “If I Am Only My Gene, What Am I? Genetic Essentialism and a Jew ish Response,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 7:3 (1997), pp. 213-230. 6. Kass and Wilson, pp. 3-59. Although ostensibly about cloning, Kass’s essay constantly asserts that genetic enhancement should be judged under the same rubrics. 7. Kass and Wilson, p. 19. On the “yuk” factor in ethics, see Mary Midgley, “Biotechnol ogy and Monstrosity: Why We Should Pay Attention to the ‘Yuk Factor’,” Hastings Center Report, 30:5 (September-October, 2000), pp. 7-15. 8. Ibid., p. 23. 9. Ibid., p. 27. 10. Ibid., p. 38. 11. Ibid., p. 40-2. 12. See Elliot Dorff, Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998), pp. 161-163, 369. See also David Golinkin, “Responsa: Does Jewish Law Permit Genetic Engineering on Humans?” Moment (August 1994), pp. 28-7, 67, as an example of how it is possible to move beyond a narrow halakhic per spective to a wider understanding of the issue. 13. Jeffrey Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), pp. 436-7. See also Jacob Milgrom, The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990) pp. 392-6. Milgrom calls it “vertical retribution.” 14. Exodus 34:6-7, Numbers 14:18. Cf. Deuteronomy 24:16 for the prohibition o f human application of cross-generational retribution. 15. Exodus 20:5-6 and Deuteronomy 5:9-10. 16. B. Makkot 24a. 17. B. Berakhot 10a “If it goes ill with the righteous man, his father was wicked.” Cf. B. Sanhendrin 27b. 18. Cf. for example, Ramban to Exodus 20:5, where he quotes Ezekiel 18:20 to show that only where the children are also sinners is cross-generational punishment active. He also alludes to the kabbalistic concept o f the migrations of souls as an explanation of the text. 19. Cf. Louis Jacobs, A Jewish Theology (New York: Behrman House, Inc., 1973), pp. 77-99, 114-124. 20. While Judaism has recognized that God does not generally interfere with the lawful workings of the natural world, it nonetheless allowed for God’s superceding natural law for God’s own purposes.

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21. Ian Barbour, Religion und Science (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1997). 22. Cf. for example Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), p. 5If. 23. John Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 48-75; Arthur Peacock, Paths From Science Towards God (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001), pp. 91-115. 24. John Haught, God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000). See especially p. 114. 25. Barbour, p. 322. 26. This can certainly be seen in Mordecai Kaplan’s thought. 27. Richard Rubenstein, After Auschwitz, Second Edition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni versity Press, 1992). 28. Elliot N. Dorff, Knowing God: Jewish Journeys to the Unknowable (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1992), p. 148. 29. Heschel never wrote a specific work devoted to Holocaust theology, but his response can be found in a number of his writings. Cf. for example: “The Meaning of This Hour,” a speech originally given to a group of Quakers in Germany in 1938 and revised twice after that. The final version is found in Man’s Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954), pp. 147-151. 30. For an excellent analysis of many responses to the Holocaust and the problems they still leave unanswered see Pinchas H. Peli, “In Search of Religious Language for the Holocaust,” Conservative Judaism, 32:2 (Winter 1979), pp. 3-24. 31. Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (New York: Schocken Books, 1981). 32. Hans Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (Chicago: Univer sity of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 262-281; Mortality and Morality: A Search for the Good after Auschwitz (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1996), pp. 131-143. 33. Irving Greenberg, Voluntary Covenant (New York: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, 1982. Cf. also Richard Elliot Friedman, The Disappearance of God: A Divine Mystery (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995). 34. Dorff, Matters of Life and Death, pp. 26-29. 35. Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1954), pp. 273-278. 36. For a critique of its recent use see Arnold Jacob Wolf, “Repairing Tikkun Olam Judaism, #200, 50:4 (Fall 2001), pp. 479-482. 37. Exceptions to this are: Art Green, Seek My Face, Speak My Name: A Contemporary Jew ish Theology (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1992), pp. 54-55, 71-74, 183, and Hans Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life. When Darwin published the Origin of Species there was a significant debate among American Reform rabbis about evolution and its impact on religion. See, Naomi Cohen, “The Challenges of Darwinism and Biblical Criticism to American Judaism,” Modern Judaism, 4:2 (May, 1984), pp. 121-157. 38. Exceptions to this lack are the work of Hans Jonas and William Kaufmann. Cf. his The Evolving God in Jewish Process Theology (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997). 39. Ian Barbour has also examined the role of technology and its ethical implications in Ethics in an Age of Technology (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993). 40. I have dealt with this issue in brief in my online article on genetically modified foods and the precautionary principle: “What are the Boundaries of Creation?: A Jewish Response to Genetically Modified Foods,” SocialAction.com, 2000. 41. Barbour, p. 15. 42. Heschel, “The Meaning of This Hour,” p. 147.

Lawrence Tröster is the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel of Northern Valley in Bergenfield, New Jersey. He is also on the executive board of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) and a member of the editorial board ^/Conservative Judaism.