Social Justice Policy

Read: Monsma: Chapters 7

7: Life Issues

“Choose Life”

(Deuteronomy 30 : 19)

MARGARET GREW UP IN A CHRISTIAN HOME and so excelled in her home schooling that she started college when she was only fifteen.. The summer between her freshman and sophomore years, while only sixteen, she worked in a McDonald’s restaurant. A divorced man in his thirties—I’ll call him Tom—came in and struck up a friendship with her. She was not that interested in him, but he was persistent, and she was too young and inexperienced to know how to say no and make it stick. They dated a few times. Tom told her he was in love with her and that he had been praying God would send him someone just like her. Margaret was at a difficult period in her life. She was struggling with depression and eating disorders. She was not close to her parents.

One thing led to another, and Margaret left home to live with Tom. Her outraged parents said she was no longer a part of the family and was to have no contact with them or her brothers and sisters. Tom turned out to be abusive and controlling. He belittled her and controlled her life totally. And then Margaret discovered she was pregnant.

Tom insisted that she have an abortion, but Margaret resisted. Tom would scream at her for hours on end and threaten her. Margaret did not know where to turn. Her family had turned their backs on her, and she was living in a new city where she knew no one. She had no friends; she was young, alone, and confused. When Tom took her to an abortion clinic and demanded she have an abortion, she felt she had no recourse. Reluctantly, full of fear, and crying, she had an abortion.

Since then Margaret has experienced God’s healing grace. She is reconciled with her family, is counseling other young women contemplating abortion, and is happily married. She and her husband are joyfully expecting their first child.

Another event: In early 2005 the nation was transfixed by the legal, legislative, and media battles surrounding the case of Terri Schiavo. Fifteen years earlier Terri had collapsed in her home from unknown causes. Her heart had stopped. She received emergency treatment from an EMT crew and was rushed to the hospital. She was resuscitated, but she had suffered massive brain damage. Initially Terri’s husband Michael and her family hoped that she would respond to medical treatment and recover some or all of her brain functions. But after years of efforts, those hopes proved false. Her doctors declared her to be in a “persistent vegetative state,” though some other doctors questioned this conclusion. Terri was not on life support;she could breathe on her own and her heart continued to beat on its own. But she could not eat or drink; a feeding tube provided her nutrition and liquids.

Terri’s husband Michael wanted to remove the feeding tube, which would result in Terri’s death. He claimed that he had done all he could to bring Terri back and that she had expressed to him her desire not to be kept alive under such conditions. Terri’s parents and siblings wanted her to continue to be given food and drink. Even after fifteen years, they had hopes for her recovery. They felt that at times in some minimal ways she responded to them. And as Catholics they believed it was not morally right to cause someone’s death by withholding food and liquids.

A long legal struggle ensued. In the end the courts ruled that Michael could have the feeding tube removed. This was done, and thirteen days later Terri died from dehydration and a lack of nourishment.1

Both of these events can be considered human tragedies. The world indeed is not as it is supposed to be. Young women become pregnant under excruciating circumstances, without the God-intended support of a loving husband and a caring family. Diseases or accidents strike and leave people barely hanging on to life and incapable of interacting with their families. Modern medical technology sometimes keeps people from dying but fails to restore them to health.

What should be our response to these human tragedies? What public policies ought government to pursue? What should be left to individual choice? Where—and in what manner—ought government to intervene to outlaw, to mandate, or to regulate?

Let no one pretend these are easy questions with easy answers. If we are to act in solidarity with those in need, we cannot help but weep with those who face a pregnancy under awful circumstances. Or with those who face incredibly hard decisions about the medical treatment for a family member they love more than life itself. These are tough issues, and one should never approach them with a cavalier attitude that does not reach out in love and compassion to those facing enormously difficult situations.

But there are biblically based answers even to difficult questions. Our Lord has not left us without guidance. The biblical principles I discussed in the earlier chapters—creation, justice, solidarity, and civil society—can serve as guides as we think through and react to the personal and public-policy challenges posed by awesome dilemmas of life and death. In this chapter I consider how these principles apply in two areas: abortion and end-of-life decisions.

Abortion

I first ran for public office in 1970. The abortion issue was new to me, as it was to most of the nation. Roe v. Wade —the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion—was still three years in the future. At first I tried—as would any good politician—to find a compromise position that would satisfy both sides. Maybe I could support legalizing abortion in the very early weeks of a pregnancy and outlawing it in later stages; or maybe I could support legalizing abortion only under certain limited, specified conditions.

But as I studied the basic facts of human conception and development, it became clear to me there is no logical, medically valid breaking point where one could say that on one side of the line a fetus is not human life and on the other side it is. From the time of conception—and surely from the time an embryo implants itself in the uterus of the mother—through the stages of fetal development to birth, there is a seamless progression. There is no clear breaking point, as it was once thought, when the mother first feels movement of the developing baby. With medical advances, a fetus can survive outside the womb at ever-earlier stages of pregnancy. Modern science has not been kind to present-day politicians seeking some way to satisfy both the pro-life and pro-choice sides in this debate!

The Basics

The basic physical facts of human conception and development, as we know them today, show that as soon as a sperm fertilizes an egg, all human chromosomes are present—a unique human life has begun. In about six days, if the process continues normally, the fertilized egg will implant itself in the mother’s uterus. There follows an amazing explosion of growth. In a little over twenty days, when the mother first suspects she is pregnant, the tiny embryo’s heart has started to beat and its blood to circulate. After six weeks brain waves can be detected. By the twelfth week, the pregnant mother is carrying in a physiological sense a very small, but complete, human being. All of the human organs are present. He or she now only has to grow, gain strength, and fully develop functioning organs.2

In a medical, physical sense, there is no doubt that when an abortion is performed a human life is ended. Or—more bluntly—a baby is killed. Our consideration of abortion must begin with that inconvenient fact. If the developing fetus were merely an extension of the mother’s body, as some pro-choice advocates have claimed, there would be one organism—the mother—with two different DNAs. This is a physical impossibility.

“In the first fifty days of pregnancy, that tiny ball of cells will change to a little person. . . . The heart, liver, brain, bones, and blood are packaged in arms, legs, head, and trunk. The heart beats and the limbs move. Signals zing along nerves and two eyes are set in a childlike face. These first fifty days hold the most incredible physical transformation of our lives. . . .”3

—CHRISTOPHER VAUGHAN, BIOMEDICAL

EDITOR AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Modern science tells us that the developing fetus is indeed a small human being; it does not tell us what importance we should attach to that human being. For that we need to turn to the Bible. And the Bible’s testimony is clear. “So God created man in his own image, // in the image of God he created him; // male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). As we have noted at many points in this book, human life is precious in God’s sight, and therefore it must be precious in our sight.

If justice means anything—if assuring that all people receive what is their due means anything—it means that their right to life itself is protected. Without life we are deprived of everything else that is due us as God’s image bearers—freedom to worship God, opportunities to develop our gifts and talents, freedom to marry and raise children, and on and on.

This means a woman’s decision whether or not to have an abortion ought never to be a purely personal, private decision. She is choosing not only for herself, but also for someone else. One side of this debate refers to a “woman’s right to choose” and labels itself as being pro-choice. Our society has rightly decided, however, that there are many things we as individuals do not have as a right of choice:whether or not to dispose of highly toxic chemicals in an unsafe manner, whether or not to take personal vengeance on someone who has stolen from us, even whether or not to play ear-splitting music at 1 a.m. in a quiet residential neighborhood. These actions are not simply matters of individual choice. Why? Because they affect others. They interfere with the health, safety, or convenience of others. The same principle applies to a woman contemplating ending a pregnancy by way of an abortion.

But this only begins our thinking about abortion and public policy;it does not end it. True, justice demands that the life of the unborn child be protected. But what about those women who face difficult pregnancies? Their lives and well-being are also precious in God’s sight. They too deserve justice. Recall Margaret, whose story I related at the start of this chapter. She faced pregnancy under incredibly difficult circumstances.

This leads directly to a question that must not be avoided by those—including myself—who insist that justice means that abortions should be allowed only under the most extreme circumstances: What ought public policies do to assist women and their unborn and born children? Surely we as a society have a responsibility, in various and meaningful ways, to assist women who are bearing children under enormously difficult circumstances. Our solidarity with them and their unborn children, as well as their already born children, demands this. But this still leaves many questions.

Public-Policy Issues

Ought all abortions under all circumstances be legally banned? Exactly how much and what type of assistance ought society to provide by way of government and its public policies? What assistance ought we as individual Christians, churches, and nonprofit agencies provide?Three public-policy issues especially demand consideration.

Should all abortions under all circumstances be illegal? One question that divides even many Christian groups is whether or not all abortions under all circumstances should be illegal. Some Christians answer this question with a resounding yes. They cite the medical facts, as I just did, to demonstrate that a developing fetus is indeed a separate, distinct human being. He or she is a person God has created in his image. Killing that person is unjustifiable. Government, in its justice-promoting role and out of solidarity with the most vulnerable of all human beings—unborn children—has a duty always to protect the child.

Others argue that although “no abortions” is the general rule, public policy should allow for a few, limited exceptions. The one most frequently cited is to save the life of the mother. These people argue that if the choice is between the unborn child’s life or the mother’s life, it is permissible to choose the mother’s life. Surely, they argue, this awesome decision is one the family should make with the help of competent medical personnel. Government ought not to impose a uniform policy on all.

Some who would allow abortion under very limited, extreme circumstances also cite pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Those who take this position usually emphasize that almost nothing illustrates more clearly the broken, sinful nature of this world than a child who has come into existence by a brutal rape or an incestuous relationship. If anything is not as it is supposed to be, it is that of a woman pregnant due to the brutal violence of a rape or of a twelve-year- old impregnated by her own stepfather. Under such horrific circumstances, so the argument goes, there is no good answer. At such times we may need to recognize that in a sinful world, public policies must take into account the depths of the depravity to which human actions sometimes sink. One can conclude that under those circumstances it is not just to demand that the young girl or the rape victim give birth to the child. Solidarity with the unborn child and solidarity with the victim of rape or incest clash. Ought public policies insist that what is due the developing child always outweighs what is due the victim of rape or incest?

Here we need to make an important distinction—between what we as Christians believe should guide our own behavior and what we believe our government’s public policies ought to prohibit or legalize for everyone. I know an evangelical Christian who believes that if his own daughter or someone else close to him became pregnant due to rape, he would counsel her against an abortion. He would offer all the support—physical and emotional—that he could give and for which he could arrange. He is sure his whole church would give what help it could. But he is still opposed to public policies that would forbid all abortions under such circumstances. He would counsel a “choose life” decision, but he also believes that, under a situation as wrenching as this, justice does not require public policy to demand this decision—as he feels it should in almost all other instances of abortion. One can agree or disagree with this person, but the distinction between what one personally is convinced is morally right and what public policy should impose on all of society is an appropriate distinction. Some Christians also argue that there may be a few other, very limited, circumstances when public policies ought not to forbid abortions—as in the case of severe deformities in an unborn child that make survival very unlikely.

Other Christians, however, are convinced that public policies should never allow abortion. In the case of allowing abortions to save the life of the mother, they argue that rarely, if ever, is there a certain, stark choice between the mother’s life or the unborn child’s life. Thanks to modern medical practices, there is usually a chance—perhaps even a good chance—that the lives of both can be preserved. This exception, they believe, too easily serves as a loophole that will allow abortions even when the risk to the mother is minimal.

Others would make saving the life of the mother the only exception. They insist that even in cases of rape or incest there is a purely innocent party involved—the unborn child. As brutal as rape is and as repulsive as incest is, one ought never to take the life of the innocent party. If justice means anything, these people argue, it means the most innocent of all the people involved in these tragedies is not the one who should pay with his or her life. Because ending the life of the unborn child is at stake, solidarity with him or her must trump solidarity with the rape or incest victim, whose life may be repaired through loving support and counseling. And killing a severely deformed unborn child whose chance of survival is almost nil is no different from killing a person suffering from a terminal illness. Only God gives life, and only God may take it. Public policy must never allow the purposeful, deliberate taking of another’s life.

To what extent and in what forms should public policies provide help to women experiencing crisis pregnancies? A second public-policy issue is how we as Christians and as a society ought to provide help to the Margaret's of this world. Margaret “chose” abortion, because she could see no other viable solution, given the extreme pressures she was under. We can blame Margaret for succumbing to these pressures, but perhaps we Christians share some of the blame for not providing the support that she desperately needed. I suspect that many women who now opt for abortions would choose to bear their children, if they knew about viable alternatives and assistance that are available.

Thus an important question to ask is whether the needs of women experiencing crisis pregnancies in one’s community are being met—and whether information on alternatives to abortion is readily available. If counseling and help are available from one or more crisis pregnancy centers, from churches, and perhaps from government agencies such as local welfare offices, then the only need may be to support and encourage them in what they are already doing.

If such services are not available in one’s community, one needs to ask how best to correct this situation. Perhaps a crisis pregnancy center is needed, if none is now present. Perhaps existing agencies need more money from individuals and churches—or from the government.

But what role should government play in meeting the needs of women experiencing crisis pregnancies? Here the civil-society organizations and the principle of subsidiarity discussed in chapter 5 are helpful. They suggest we should first look not to government, but to civil society and its many organizations to provide the help needed. In the case of crisis pregnancies, emotional support usually needs to accompany material, financial help. And government agencies are not where one would normally look for emotional support. But government is often needed as well. It can offer financial assistance to women’s resource centers to help them as they provide alternatives-to-abortion information and assist women experiencing crisis pregnancies.

“Recently, I made the choice to terminate an unplanned pregnancy thought it was my only option. Afterwards, I found myself unable to cope with what I had done.”4

—JACQUI, A WOMAN HELPED

BY THE LOS ANGELES WESTSIDE

PREGNANCY RESOURCE CENTER

Today many childless couples long to complete their families by adopting children. And many pregnant women who feel they cannot raise a child are seeking abortions, because they see no other viable alternative. This sad situation can be alleviated by public policies making adoption an easier and quicker process. This should include public policies that allow interracial adoptions—something some states now discourage or even forbid. We are all God’s children. Race should not matter.

To what extent and in what forms should public policies provide help to needy mothers who choose birth over abortion? A third public-policy question deals with help for mothers who have chosen life over abortion but are mired in poverty or face other struggles as they care for one or more children. Solidarity with such families and a basic sense of justice requires Christian citizens to support efforts to help these women and their children. Of this we can be confident. But exactly what form that help should take and how best to provide it are prudential questions to be considered thoughtfully and prayerfully. I can offer no neat formula that will supply automatic answers.

Two observations, however, may help. First, government help and assistance sometimes have to play a role. Providing cash assistance, help with housing, and job training and preparation are expensive. Private, nonprofit groups can rarely totally provide such programs, so government-sponsored programs, such as WIC (Women, Infants, and Children), which provides good, nutritious food for needy pregnant women and their children, and TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), are needed. To oppose abortion and to fail to support public policies that provide programs such as these is not an option for a Christian citizen seeking to be truly and consistently pro life.

It seems to me that both conservatives and liberals are often highly inconsistent. Most conservatives work to protect the lives of unborn children, but then they turn around and work to cut assistance programs for low-income families in need of financial and medical assistance for those very same children after they are born. Meanwhile, most liberals are equally inconsistent. They are unwilling even to protect the lives of unborn children, but once babies are born they are ready to support a range of assistance programs. A Christian approach seeks to defend and protect human life both before and after birth.

A second observation invokes the principle of subsidiarity and holds that often the best assistance government can give is not by programs directly run by government agencies themselves. Instead, government should help finance existing nonprofit agencies—many but not all of which are Christian in character—that are already helping families in need. Then government programs, instead of undercutting existing programs, will strengthen and reinforce the work they are already doing. Local civil-society agencies are often more people-friendly than governmental agencies.

Exactly how these observations translate into concrete public policies is open to question. Much depends on specific circumstances. What I believe is not open to question is the duty of Christian citizens to seek out and support both governmental and private, nonprofit programs of help to mothers in severe need who have not resorted to abortion.

End-of-Life Decisions

As medical technology advances, end-of-life quandaries become more, not less, frequent. People who earlier would have died from disease or injuries are now kept alive. The case of Terri Schiavo, cited at the beginning of this chapter, would not have arisen prior to modern medical technology.

As with abortion, Christian principles such as creation, justice, solidarity, and civil society all speak to end-of-life questions. Creation says human life is of immense importance. Justice says governments have the God-given duty to protect and honor human life. And we Christians are called to act in solidarity with those suffering from illnesses and disabilities that strip people of human dignity and cause untold suffering. Civil society and its agencies can play a role in meeting needs associated with end-of-life situations.

A Christian perspective on end-of-life issues also insists that, especially for the Christian, death is not the end, but the beginning. There are worse things than death. Our Savior has removed the sting of death. For the Christian it is a translation into a far better, far more real existence than we can ever know on earth. The apostle Paul expressed well the dilemma many Christians down through the centuries have felt: “I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body” (Phil. 1: 23–24). We are not to hasten or bring on our own deaths, nor are we to fight against death as though we have no hope of a future life.

All this does not yet give us answers to specific situations. To apply these basic principles it is helpful to note that there are three separate end-of-life issues that raise public-policy questions.

Assisted Suicide

One public-policy issue is assisted suicide or euthanasia. In 1994 Oregon voters enacted a physician-assisted suicide law that allows doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs. Between 1998 and 2005, 246 persons died under the terms of this law. Compassion and Choices, formerly called End-of-Life Choices and before that the Hemlock Society, is an organization actively pushing assisted-suicide legislation in additional states.

A biblical understanding of human life insists that assisted suicide is never right and should be strictly illegal. We do not love our neighbor as ourselves by wishing or causing his or her death. It is unjust for the government to allow health professionals to take active steps to hasten another human being’s death. I cannot think of an argument based on biblical principles that would justify the government’s allowing a physician or anyone else to cause another person’s death—or more frankly, but equally accurately, to kill another person—even in the face of difficult, debilitating injury or illness.

But this is different from saying that public policies must insist that all active steps must always be taken to prolong a person’s life. Just as euthanasia goes against God’s will by causing the death of a person whose life is not yet over, so also employing all the latest medical technology to prolong the life of a person who is clearly dying can be seen as going against God’s will. This leads to a second public-policy question.

What Level of Care Ought to Be Given to Individuals Who Are Severely Ill or Injured? On the morning of January 18, 1989, Don Piper was a robust, healthy, thirty-eight-year-old husband, father, and pastor. Life was good. Then just before noon he suffered a shattering auto accident. He was pronounced dead at the scene and experienced heaven in a glorious encounter. But his work on earth was not yet done. In answer to the fervent prayer of a pastor who happened upon the accident, a pulse returned, and Don was rushed off to a Houston hospital. With multiple traumas and fractures, Don began a long, excruciatingly painful process of recovery. In his book 90 Minutes in Heaven, Don relates how at many times in this process he did not want the medical torture to continue. He wanted to die and experience the joys of heaven. Many people, facing debilitating illnesses or accidents, have felt exactly as Don Piper felt. Death is seen as a welcome friend.

Piper’s true story sets the stage for a second key issue or question:What level of care should severely ill or injured people receive?And the follow-up question: What role ought public policies play in legally requiring or assuring the level of care that is in keeping with biblical principles?

As I think about these questions, I find two basic distinctions helpful:

(1) between “extraordinary, heroic” measures to prolong a person’s life and what is considered normal, standard medical care and treatment;and (2) between medical care—whether heroic or standard—that holds promise of restoring a person to a reasonable measure of health and medical care that is doing no more than dragging out the dying process, with no realistic hope of the patient ever experiencing a basic level of good health and living a productive life.

Even though these two distinctions do not lead to clearly recognizable positions I can out-line,they help distinguish individuals who lean in one of two different directions. Some have a high standard of extraordinary, heroic measures and hold out hope for recovery even when evidence suggests there is very little hope. Those who lean in this direction argue that only God gives life and only God should take it.

“I believe, however, that because I faced an unknown outcome and the pain never let up, I kept feeling I had little future to look forward to. Most of the time I didn’t want to live.. . . I wanted to be free from my miserable existence and die.”5

—DON PIPER,

PASTOR, AUTHOR, AND LECTURER

Others have a lower standard of extraordinary, heroic measures and conclude more quickly that there is no hope for recovery. Christians who lean in this direction argue that the preservation of human life is not something to be hung onto at all costs. They believe there comes a time when we need to submit simply and prayerfully to God’s will and accept what we wish were not the case. We need to let go of a loved one and commend him or her to God’s loving care.

But what does all this have to do with government and public policy? After all, end-of-life decisions are usually made outside the realm of public policy, as family members, health-care professionals, and sometimes a trusted pastor together decide on the appropriate level of care. One way government becomes involved is when family members disagree on the appropriate level of care. Then the courts are often called upon. Some family members wish to withdraw forms of care they consider to be excessive and offering no hope of recovery; others insist that care be continued. This was the case in the Terri Schiavo case, where Terri’s husband disagreed with other family members on whether to continue providing her with food and liquids by way of a feeding tube.

When cases relating to end-of-life decisions end up in the courts, Christians who define extraordinary, heroic care by a high standard and who are slow to give up on seeing hope of recovery tend to urge the courts to support highly aggressive medical care. They understandably are convinced that, as God’s instrument for justice in society, government should err on the side of protecting life. But Christian principles can also be cited to support less than highly aggressive care of severely ill individuals. Justice is not always on the side of prolonging life. Solidarity with suffering, dying people and their families who are being put through wrenching experiences can be cited as a reason for the courts to favor those urging less than highly aggressive treatments.

This entire topic of the level of care that should be given individuals who are severely ill or injured is one in which equally sincere Christians may disagree as they apply biblical principles. Some will hold to higher standards for extraordinary, heroic care than do others;some will more quickly conclude that there is no hope of restored health. As a result, some will more quickly conclude that the courts should intervene to order continued care than will other Christians. Such disagreements are OK. The important thing is that we rest our arguments on biblical principles, which we sincerely and prayerfully apply to concrete situations.

Providing Support and Help to the Ill and Disabled and Their Families

Diane Coleman is the president of Not Dead Yet, an organization of people with disabilities that opposes assisted-suicide laws. She once stated before a congressional committee: “I’m also sick and tired of our allies on this issue . . . who see assisted suicide and euthanasia as violating their principles, but see no contradiction as they slash budgets for the health care we need to survive.”6 She went on to cite two conservative governors who opposed assisted suicide but also attempted to cut Medicaid funding, which includes funding for items such as ventilators and feeding tubes.

Just as with abortion, when we Christians oppose assisted suicide and seek in other ways to protect human life even when severely disabled or in its final stages, we need to be consistent. That means we must favor support for people with severe illness and disabilities, as well as their families. It is easy to stand up for the rights of people with disabilities and illness to receive medical care; it is harder to pony up when the bill to pay for these services comes due.

This is where government and its public policies come into play. Care for people who are severely ill and life-prolonging procedures are usually extremely expensive. They can involve around-the-clock nursing care, high-tech machines, and enormously expensive drugs. Most individuals and families and most nonprofit organizations cannot afford the ongoing care such people need. And for the family caregivers, there is a physical and emotional burden that is more than most of us can bear alone.

Government, with its ability to obtain large sums of money through its taxing powers, is often the only way these huge medical costs can be met. This is one instance where we evangelicals may need to defy the stereotypes and support more, not less, government spending.

As with abortion, civil society and the principle of subsidiarity come into play here. The care and support for people with disabilities and severe illnesses should come, if at all possible, from local, nongovernmental agencies. Public policies usually can best support families and local, nonprofit agencies, not take over for them. A family may be able to care for a member who is disabled, if it receives some in-home nursing assistance or other help. Many communities have nonprofit hospice programs that offer help and support to those with terminal illnesses. They provide support to the family and care for the dying that emphasizes comfort and relief of pain, not heroic efforts to extend life. Financial help from government is sometimes needed to expand and strengthen the work they are doing. There are others ways that local, state, and even the federal government can help families and local agencies—religious and secular—that provide assistance for people with severe illnesses and disabilities. Christians ought to support the government in these efforts.

Conclusion

As I warned at the end of chapter 1, even Christians who agree on basic biblical principles will sometimes reach different conclusions as they apply those principles to specific, concrete public policy questions. Many of us (and I include myself) will at times be uncertain exactly where we should come down on some questions. That has been the case in this chapter as we have reflected on the issues of abortion and end-of-life decisions. I have tried to avoid insisting on one “Christian” position for every public policy question I have examined. There is room for disagreement among us. The important thing is that we base our concrete positions on biblical principles and conscientiously, thoughtfully apply them while seeking wisdom and guidance from our fellow believers—and most importantly, from God.