Introduction

Modern medicine has produced many wonderful technological breakthroughs that have extended the limits of the frail human body. However, as Jeffrey Bishop points out in his book The Anticipatory Corpse, much of the focus of this medical research has been on the physical, often reducing the human being to a biological machine to be examined, understood, and controlled. This raises the questions of whether the modern medical milieu has overly objectified the body, unwittingly or not, and whether current studies in bioethics are up to the task of restoring a fuller understanding of the human person. In response, various authors from different disciplines have suggested that a more theological/religious approach would be helpful, or perhaps even necessary. This chapter summarizes the insights of these authors on the topics of “Understanding the Body,” “Respecting the Body,” and “The Body at the End of Life.”