How much does a life weigh?
February 19th, 2009 by David Entwistle Posted in Film
Precisely twenty-one grams, we are told by Dr MacDougall of Massachusetts, who in 1907 put several dying patients on a scale and reportedly noticed a sudden drop in their weight at the moment of death. The results were soon discredited, but the unusual experiment still resonates.
Almost a hundred years later, Alejandro González Iñárritu referred to the experiment in the title of his film 21 Grams. A man and his two daughters are run down and killed crossing the street, and the film follows the repercussions of the deaths for those left behind. The man driving the car is crazed with guilt and attempts suicide. The distraught widow finds solace in cocaine and revenge. A third character, who receives a heart from the dead father, finds the widow, and together they plan to kill the driver. The film ends in a mess of blood and broken relationships. “How much does a life weigh?” asks a narrator at the end of the film. A great deal, we conclude, when we imagine the pain and destruction a death causes to those around it.
But what about the old man without a family, who dies in his home and isn’t discovered until the neighbours smell something strange? Does his life weigh less? 21 Grams would say so. In some respects the film is right – the old man’s life will leave little pain behind it. But the Bible gives us a different picture. God doesn’t value a life by its relationships to other people, but by its relationship to himself.
God values a life more than anything else, because God created the life and owns the life. Life is afforded the honour and dignity due to God, because it bears the image of the one who created it. We see God’s value of life most clearly when we consider what he did through Christ: God gave up his Son to death so that we could have life.
How much does a life weigh? Iñárritu was on the right track when he said it was hefty, but he drastically underestimated. Death is tragic because it breaks relationships and causes pain. But more than that, death desecrates God’s image, robs him of his most valued possession and destroys everything good. To God, life is the heaviest thing there is.
Photo by glowingstar via Flickr
One Response to “How much does a life weigh?”
By Jon Rumble on Feb 19, 2009
Huge dilemma in the realm of medical ethics.
If every life is of infinite (or equal) value you would treat all people the same, no expense would be spared.
Yet with limited resources there’s only so much you can do – value judgements are made based on ‘quality of life’ all the time. Age, mental and functional capacity, comorbid medical conditions. On the individual level it seems heartless – all people are of equal value. On the other hand it would be irresponsible not to use what we have for those who will most benefit from it.
Is the bible’s understanding of life and death more nuanced than that? Cf Gen 3:19, Gen 3:22, Gen 6:3, Heb 9:27. What you’re describing I’d call murder, not death.
Just thinking out loud…