When Lt. Governor Dan Patrick of Texas spoke boldly in support of Texas relaxing its rules to open the state to free mobility in spite of the corona virus, warnings, his reasons sounded philosophical and quasi – religious. He sounded like a very deep religious thinker in saying’’ some things are more important than living.’’ He said that the coronavirus would erase our economic future if we failed to allow people to go back to work. If people returned to work and some of them died it would be primarily older persons. Let the older people die to save the future for their grand-children and great grand- children. The older people have lived a full and rich life and their sacrifice to save the younger people is an altruistic act for a higher economic good.
Dan Patrick did not use scripture to support his thinking. It seems to me that he could have been influenced by those followers of Charles Darwin who gave us the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. This belief is different from a religious doctrine of giving up one’s life in order to follow the example of Jesus. To the contrary this belief is in keeping with natural law as it appears in nature where weaker life forms in the animal world provide food for higher life forms. It is only normal for the big fish to eat the little fish and the strong to devour the weaker.
The things that are more important than living in the thinking of the governor is concerned about the ends of saving both the economy and the globe for the unborn who will occupy the future. The means used justify the ends. The question to reflect on is: Does an unapproved means give us an improved end? Another way to reflect on the proposition of t Lt. Governor Patrick is the question is does the state have the moral authority to decide who will live and who will die. If the answer is yes, then the state can decide that along with the elderly and the weak. the disabled and handicapped, the mentally deficient, who cannot support the economy is a candidate for extermination. What will be public policy when first responders become helpless and disabled with the veterans of the nation’s wars? What is the value of human life?
Is it more valuable than bone, blood, cells nerves, tissue? Is life defined by what we do and what we have or by who we are as a creation of our Creator. ‘’What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor “Psalms 8:4 NRSV.
Pastor Emeritus J. Alfred Smith, Sr.,Allen Temple Baptist Church