The aim of this study was to determine whether adventure training could be utilised to enhance the self-concepts and self-efficacy of young career officers in the South African National Defence Force. A quasi-experimental design with a pre-test, post-test and post-post-test was used. Two measuring instruments were administered, namely the Self-description Questionnaire III and the General Self-efficacy Scale. No statistically significant improvement was measured in the various dimensions of the self-concepts and self-efficacy of members of the experimental group, but some encouraging indications of change in the experimental group were observed after the intervention. The implications of the findings are discussed further. OPSOMMINGDie doel van hierdie studie was om te bepaal of avontuurgerigte opleiding gebruik kan word om die selfkonsep en selfdoeltreffendheid van jong beroepsoffisiere in die Suid-Afrikaanse Nasionale Weermag te bevorder. 'n Kwasieksperimentele ontwerp met 'n voortoets, na-toets en na-na-toets is gebruik. Twee meetinstrumente is aangewend, naamlik die "Self-description Questionnaire III" en die "General Self-efficacy Scale". Hoewel geen statisties beduidende verbetering in die verskillende dimensies van die selfkonsep en selfdoeltreffendheid van lede van die eksperimentele groep gemeet is nie, is bemoedigende aanduidings van verandering in die eksperimentele groep na die intervensie waargeneem. Die implikasies van die bevindinge word verder bespreek.

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The recent advances made by biotechnology have been swift and sundry. Technological developments seem to happen sooner than they can be ethically reflected upon. One such trend is the endeavours launched to try and enhance human beings and what it means to be human with movements such as transhumanism, advocating strongly that we should overcome our natural limitations by any means available. With both critics and advocates utilising the expression ‘playing God’, the question of human enhancement is one in which the interplay between church and society comes compellingly to the fore. In this contribution, I wish to examine the bioethical challenges that technologies such as genetic engineering, robotics and nanotechnology raise, specifically from a theological perspective on human enhancement and indicating some paths that future research might take. Christian anthropological views on what it means to be human, especially to be created imago Dei [to the image of God] will provide the doctrinal and theological support to this contemplation.

The realities of social injustice in the present South African context, with its great and growing gap between rich and poor and unequal distribution of wealth and resources, are also acutely visible in the health-care sector. Genetic engineering would lead to some children having the cards stacked overwhelmingly in their favour, raising the concern for the justice or fairness of this type of biotechnology. In this contribution, I argue that the notion of justice as fairness, put forward by Rawls, and the focus on human dignity in Moltmann's theology can help address the bioethical challenges of genetic engineering in the context of inequality, specifically in South Africa.

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