"Begotten, Not Made": Further Reflections on the Laboratory Generation of Human Life by William E. May (1986)

"Begotten, Not Made": Further Reflections on the Laboratory Generation of Human Life by William E. May in International Review of Natural Family Planning, Volume X, Number 1, Spring 1986

The title of this paper-"Begotten, Not Made"-is familiar to all Christians. These words were chosen by the Fathers of the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 to express unequivocally their belief that the eternal and uncreated Word of God the Father was indeed, like the Father, Himself, true God. This Word, who personally became true man in Jesus Christ while remaining true God, was not inferior to the Father; He was not a product of the Father's will, a being made by the Father and subordinate in dignity to Him. Rather, the Word was one in being with the Father and was hence, like the Father, true God. The Word, the Father's Son, was not made; rather He was begotten eternally of the Father by an im­manent act of personal love. Thus the teaching of the Council of Nicea.

I believe (because of my Christian faith) that a human being can properly be said to be a "created word" of the Father. We human beings are the "created words" that the Uncreated Word became and is, precisely so that we can truly be, like Him, chil­dren of the Father and members of the divine family. My claim is that a human being, a created word of the Father, ought to be begotten in an act of personal love, just as was the Uncreated Word. My further claim is that a human being ought not to be made, that is, ought not to be the product of human will and the end result of a series of transitive human actions. Although ulti­mately, as the foregoing indicates, these claims are made on the basis of my religious faith, I will argue that they are required by good moral reasoning. 

William E. May, Ph.D., is professor of moral theology at The Catholic Univer­sity of America, Washington, O.C., and the author of numerous books on Cath­olic moral teaching, including Catholic Sexual Ethics: A Summary, Explanation, and Defense (1985; Our Sunday Visitor, Huntington, Indiana 46750) which he co-authored. Dr. May presented the above paper at a conference on ethical issues of reproductive technologies, University of San Francisco, October 1985.

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