Toward a theology of limits

Health Progress, Sep/Oct 1999 by Smith, Patricia

Seen in the Ri,ht Way, Limits Can Enlarge The Range of Human Possibility

In healthcare these days we continually hear about and experience limits. Budgets, patient autonomy, Church teachings, reproductive technology, life-prolonging interventions-each of these involves limits. When dealing with such issues, we quickly come face to face with restrictions on what we can and cannot do.

As a result, we tend to think of limits in a negative manner. But when we go to the dictionary, we find the word defined rather interestingly. On one hand, a limit is "something that bounds, restrains, or confines." On the other hand, a limit is "the utmost extent."' These two meanings are distinct but also inseparable. The first meaning seems to look in, the second to look out. There are several avenues one can take in moving toward a fuller understanding of what limits are and how they enhance-as well as constrict-human possibilities.

A Theology of Creation

In the second and third chapters of Genesis, God gives Adam and Eve the Garden of Eden. It is a gift with a purpose: They are to cultivate and care for the garden, which is not of their making. They are to be the garden's stewards. But God's gift has a catch. Adam and Eve are told to enjoy life ("You may freely eat of every tree of the garden. . ."), as long as they agree to observe a single restriction (" . . . except the tree of knowledge of good and evil"). Here, in the first book of Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, is an introduction to the limits inherent in the created order. We humans cannot "have it all." We are not God.

On the other hand, Genesis says we are made in the image and likeness of God. And Eve was in fact satisfied with her limits until she was told, "You will be like God." We humans are always tempted by things that correspond to our natural desires and capabilities. Deep within Eve was a relentless thirst for more, a yearning to go beyond her situation, a desire to push the limits of capacity and control.

When the desire to take life into our hands absolutely possesses us, we call this "original sin"-a violation of the First Commandmentbecause we forget that God is the creator and that we are God's creatures. But there are also times when the urge to do more and be more does not violate human limits. We call the results of this urge "a breakthrough" and "progress." Life is not either/or when it comes to limits. Humans are both situated and free, both "not God" and "godlike." The enduring questions are: How far should we push the limits in responding to the call of stewardship? What is proper human activity? Which human projects enhance, rather than mock, God's purpose? Which of our worldly, secular achievements are good and holy? Which slide into idolatry and arrogance? There is no guarantee that all our choices will be the right ones. As creatures, we experience the ambiguity of life: We are free (and therefore responsible) within limits.

Karl Rahner describes human beings as "spirit in the world."2 As beings "in the world," we are finite, contingent, and transient. But we are-unlike rocks, leaves, and squirrels-spirit in the world. We are finite beings with an infinite thirst that can only be quenched by the infinite God, self-transcending beings who can only be satisfied by the transcendent God. As St. Augustine put it, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."3

David Tracy develops this double dimension of limits in Blessed Rage for Order.4 Tracy's concept of "limits-to" describes what you and I ordinarily mean by the term. We reach a boundary. We hit a wall. "Limits-of," on the other hand, signifies a dimension beyond the immediate and the daily. We fall in love. We hold a newborn child. We sit at the bedside of a dying friend. Ellen Uzelac describes a "limits-of" experience in her memoir of her husband's terminal illness: "Time developed a sharpness. Moments somehow loomed larger. We were weighted in the present in a landscape that, while unfamiliar and disquieting, had a depth that was extraordinarily vivid and illuminative. As we searched our hearts for understanding, we discovered a simple sweetness to life, a holiness almost."5

Some call such experiences "signals of transcendence" or "amazing grace." Whatever we call them, we usually realize that these are religious experiences and do not try to domesticate them. For the same reason, we might take care in using phrases such as "managing pain" or "strategies for healing." If we were to pay more attention to the "limits-of" concept, Tracy says, it might free us from modern society's tendency to deny the spiritual dimension of life. "The sometimes desperate thinness of much of our contemporary technological assistance," he writes, is in large part the result of "our seeming inability to allow that other dimension in our lives."6

Wendy Farley has developed a theology of limits around the theme of tragedy. In her book Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion, she notes life's paradox: that every good contains a shadow side, that love must make a tacit agreement to lose what it most delights in. "Creation is ephemeral," she writes, "and its beauty arises in conjunction with the poignancy of its constant perishing."7