Dr. med. vet. Edith Breburda PhD
(Know My Handiwork/ Sci vias Domini/ conference). The Tree of Life is not only recognized by people with Christian-Jewish background but also by modern scientists. The latter fits into the description of self-appointed “new atheists”, because of their general suspicion against religion. Nevertheless, what unites us, is the belief in eternal life. Admittedly, it is more as a semantic distinction how we achieve our goals.
Christians view Paradise as the perfect place were Adam and Eve lived in utmost union with God. Isaiah defined paradise as were, “The wolf and lamb shall pasture together, and the lion shall eat hay like the ox, but the serpent’s food shall be dust” (ISAIAH Ch. 65).
The serpent certainly deserves this fate in light of her intervention that caused our expulsion from garden of Eden. Genesis, Chapter 3, tells us, “Now the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He asked the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden;
The woman answered the snake: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden: it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said,” You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die’”
But the snake said to the woman: “You certainly will not die!” God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, who knows good and evil. ‘
After Adam and Eve disobeyed Gods orders, the “Lord God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden that he could not reach out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life and eat of it and live forever (Gen 3,23).
“Adam and Eve did not die in a physical sense,” explained the famous Roman Catholic theology Professor Dr. Scott W. Hahn in the overfilled parish Church St. Thomas the Apostle at the Southwest Bible Conference in Phoenix, on 16th November 2019. “Physical life is vulnerable,” he added.
To recapitulate, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life.” (John. 1).
In every Tridentine Mass you hear the words: “In Principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum.”
St. Thomas Aquinas said God created out of nothing and still continues to create. Whereas, St. Hildegard of Bingen, added, God created not only out of nothing but out of Love.
Dr. Hahn examined in his talk The Covenant of Love. God created us in HIS image as male and female. God explicitly spoke of male and female humans. More precisely, the creation of humans is distinct from all the animals.
Of course, animal reproduction depends on male and females. As on the fourth day, He blessed them, saying: “be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas and let the birds multiply on the earth (Gen 1,22).” But only afterwards, on the fifth day, God said: “Let us make human beings in Our image, after Our likeness (Gen. 1 26) and let them have dominion over the fishes of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth. God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply, fill the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food and to all the wild animals, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the earth, I give all the green plants for food. And so, it happened.”
“On the sevens day God rested.” In Hebrew the word for seven is Sheva. Sheva means his promise, his oath. Another name is His Covenant,” stated Dr. Hahn. “A covenant is different from a contract. A contract is temporary, and you can walk away, when it is done.
Whereas, an oath is a sacramental swearing. It means, I am yours and you are mine. The base of the covenant was the lifegiving LOVE of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
He made us in HIS image. As male and female. And did breathe his breath into his creation. Not breath in the symbol of oxygen. Instead, by the breath of the Sprit, he gave us our supernatural life. The meaning of eating from the fruit of the forbidden tree is that Adam and Eve lost their supernatural eternal life. The original sin of Adam and Eve, who desired to be like God, was caused by disobedience. They did not die physically, as the serpent suggested. The supernatural life of our first parents has been destroyed by mortal sin.
Supernatural life can be restored by Baptism and through the words of absolution. Specifically, when we live the sacramental life.
Nevertheless, the first parents failed and disrupted the covenant of creation, ipso facto marriage. The covenant designed by God, when he said, be fruitful and multiply and when Adam acknowledged: ‘This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.’” (1)
His Eminence Cardinal Burke addressed a few weeks earlier as the Southwest Bible Study Arizona’s Physicians with the words that we, “redefine marriage and family life to include a liaison between two persons of the same sex, and of the proponents of the so-called “gender theory,” even among the educators of our children, which is justified as tolerance of so-called alternative forms of human sexuality, as if there were a true form of human sexuality other than that intended by God, our Creator and Redeemer, as He has unmistakably written it in our body and upon our heart.”
Furthermore, his Eminence pointed out, “the respect for human life is related essentially to the respect for the integrity of marriage and the family.” He likewise declared, the so-called “contraceptive mentality” as essentially anti-life. “Many forms of what is called contraception are, in fact, abortifacient, that is, they destroy a life which has already been conceived, has already begun.” (2)
Our time neglects God as our creator. Indeed, it is believed that modern Biotechnologies and their “creators” can do a better job in recreating plants, animals and humans or even animal-human mammals. Often our pride hinders us to recognize that God created us in the beginning and redeemed us after the sin of Adam and Eve. Instead we admire new techniques, and only a few question hybrids, stem cell research, cloning, genetic edited-, and genetic engineered organisms. We experiment and destroy our fellow humans at the beginning of their life and justify our actions by treating old people, and to find a therapy for deadly and crippling diseases. We are proud to provide a remedy for infertile man and women with in-vitro-fertilization (IVF). Whereas, a woman stays after an in-vitro-fertilization as infertile as she has been before. The only thing changed after IFV is, that new reproductive technique- adopted from animal breeding – mapped out the path to frozen-embryos, surrogate mothers, human embryonic-stem cell research, cloning, chimeras, genetic editing, genetic engineering, CRISPR-cas9 and whatever we used beforehand in animals or plants. IVF is the only way for same sex couples to have “children” who are genetically related to one of the partners. “All of this has resulted in the dehumanizing of woman- valued now only because they produce oocytes- to various maladies suffered by the children thus manufactured, and other tragic consequences,” wrote William E. May in the foreword of the book Promises of the New Biotechnologies. (3)
Pope Benedict XVI. addressed on Christmas 2010 the Sacred College of the Cardinals. He spoke of the great disorders of the moral state. He referred to sexual abuse of minors, the marketing of child pornography, sexual tourism, and the deadly abuse of drugs.
In addition, to mention “the plague of procured abortion and the wholesale murder of the unborn in the womb, justified as the exercise of the so-called right of the mother to choose.” Under grave evil is this so-called “mercy-killing” that is also justified by invoking respect for quality of life. (4)
To interfere in God’s creation and lack all insights, or only have partial knowledge, might do more harm than good to our holistic, optimally tuned system of our blue Planet. Progress might become regressive as we just begin to see the environmental impact of our actions.
The time in which science has had a redeeming character are long gone. Researchers are not seen as the “God’s in White” anymore. Contrary, science took on a threatening component with the discovery of Wernher von Braun’s nuclear power. Nevertheless, we dismiss the incalculable risks when experimenting with, and manipulating the sources of life, our genomes. For example, everybody can alter the reproduction of insects by a relatively cheap CRISPR cas-9 kit in the backyard. A self-pronounced scientist could destroy our whole insect population. Genetic manipulated products (i.e. our agriculture) are dependent on insects. Almost daily, we can read that their population is declining. So far, we speculate if the dying of bees and other pollinators can be contributed to insecticides and pesticides that help GMO products to grow. We could achieve the reduction in the insect population by one lunatic person, who just happened to buy a CRISPR kit. By his actions, he would knock out industrious agricultural enterprises, who harvest the idea to feed the world? There are no ethical or moral boundaries and no institution or law exists, that would stop the achievements of our backyard CRISP interested entrepreneur. Instead there is a huge gap between modern biotechnologies and bioethics.
We have a responsibility towards following generations and should better know what we are doing, and not be taken by surprise, when we encounter unintended side effects?
Scientists are under the impression to recreate nature after their own image. We already speak about an anatomic reaction in the test tube. After creating test tube babies, we move on to test tube burgers. We create our own “paradise” with artificial milk, sugar, meat, etc., from the chemical lab. Or shall I say, we are to build our own “Gentopia” (4) and praise it as the promised land?
Sometimes, researchers giving their work a redeeming character. They are the one, who are capable to erase pain, suffering, hunger, diseases, malformations… in order that we gain eternal life on earth.
At a human embryonic stem cell convention, Christian protesters have been condemned; accused of hindering the “good work” and intentions of scientists. The people who stood outside the meeting and held up signs to request the respect of human life, and not to create humane embryonic stem cell lines by destroying human beings at the beginning of their life, have been accused by the researchers inside the convention center. The protesters would lack the understanding and would not see the impact experiments have for the wellbeing of humanity. One famous scientist compared human embryonic stem cells to the fruits of the tree of life. Therefore, they would “only” need to gain the knowledge of how to differentiate human embryonic stem cells in order to create organs.
But did not St. Michael ask the question: “Who is like God”? Some scientist think they can compete with Creation. Therefore, “He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed a cherub with a flaming sword and turned to guard the way to the Tree of Life (Gen 3:24).”
1. Dr. Scott W. Hahn: Missionary Discipleship in Action. Presentation at the Southwest Biblical Conference, The Institute of Catholic Theology/ Phoenix, Nov. 16. 2019
2. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke: Call to Holiness and Mission in Christ of Healthcare Professionals, Annual White Mass Banquet, Phoenix Guild of Catholic Medical Association, October 19, 2019
3. William E. May: Foreword of the book, Promises of new Biotechnologies, by Edith Breburda. Scivias Publisher, ISBN-13: 978-0615548289, 2011
4. Edith Breburda: Kardinal Burke: Mediziner sind dazu berufen Zeugnis für das Leben zu geben. Christliches Forum 31, Oktober 2019
5. Edith Breburda: Gentopia das gelobte Land. Scivias Publisher, ISBN 096006950X, July 31, 2019
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