As thoughts turn to the vaccination program nations are offering to help assist with the management of the Covid-19 pandemic many people have wondered who should get priority vaccination? Governments have generated lists of the first few categories of people who may be invited to receive the vaccine. Often it has been the old and most vulnerable who have been the first in the queue. But some have asked why this should be the case. The lives of the old and vulnerable may have been fully lived and so is there a reason to prolong them? The question pivots around what is the value we place on the life of any one individual? This question is also at the heart of whether countries should admit any foreign nationals fleeing their own repressive governments or whether only such people who have a profession that will be benefit the nation who is receiving them. What is the value we place on one human life?
Calvin’s view of human worth focussed solely on the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ to any one individual as he says “salvation flows from the wellspring of God’s mercy” (Institutes 3:21:7) and this is “freely given mercy without regard to human worth” (Institutes 3:21:7). So does it matter whether a person is an eighty year old former casual labourer who has rarely worked sufficiently to pay any taxes or a high powered business executive, surely that should not matter in the queue for a vaccine or entry to a foreign country for sanctuary? Does age and whether the potential of a person has been already realised or if the life is almost complete? Calvin would say not, it just depends on their acceptance of God’s mercy in Christ.
Calvin cites other distractions that distort human worth over God’s grace as “monstrosities” set up “in place of God” (Institutes 1:11:7). The initial comment of Calvin at the start of the Institutes sums up human aspiration “All our wisdom in so far as it is held to be true and perfect consists of two things, namely a right knowledge of God and of ourselves” (Institutes 1:1:1). Without this knowledge human value of age or financial status or health is worth nothing. Should this be something we apply to the vaccine priority debate?
