ABSTRACT
The essays in this collection have discussed whether anything is sacred,
but the word ‘sacred’ tends to be used quite loosely. Sometimes it
appears to mean little more than ‘very valuable’. Thus when people ask
whether art or liberty are sacred, often they are really asking whether
these things should be highly valued, never to be compromised for the
sake of something else. At other times the word is used with religious
overtones, invoking that before which we should stand in fear and
trembling, or alternatively things that are absolutely inviolable and
must be protected at all costs, perhaps because they are created
and loved by God. This is the idea behind the sanctity of human life; we
are not gods, but our lives are held to be sacred because we are made in
God’s image. Indeed, the ‘sanctity’ of human life, even if such an idea is
misconceived, has a moral resonance that is lacking in lame and woolly
talk of the ‘value’ of human life.
