Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
they are useless in this sense, and for that reason they are beautiful.
Beauty is a factor that is not necessitated by lower needs, but is some-
thing that supposes the liberty of artistic creation.”
85
Considerations such
as these regarding the chemical composition of life expressed in the won-
derously complex DNA molecule cannot help but also push us in the
direction of a radical reconsideration of the nature of matter from both
a religious and a scientific perspective. For example, the theologian
Zachary Hayes expresses it this way: “The biblical tradition is a religious
tradition that is convinced of the deep religious significance of the mate-
rial world and of its profound potential for radical transformation into
a form so different from its present form in space and time (that is, the
idea of the incarnation and the metaphor of resurrection as the final con-
dition of 'becoming flesh').”
86
This is an echo of the medieval Franciscan theologian Saint Bonaven-
ture who said: “Again, the tendency that exists in matter is ordained
toward rational principles, and there would be no perfect generation
without the union of the rational soul with the material body.”
87
Although expressed in what we would consider dualistic language,
Bonaventure suggests that matter has within it the potential to transcend
itself. John Paul II also articulates this in an address on evolution when
he speaks of an ontological leap in which something profoundly differ-
ent appears within the material reality out of which humans evolve.
88
Such discussions of necessity force us into a more critical dialogue with
contemporary physics, particularly quantum mechanics, with its take on
the nature of matter. While such a discussion is beyond the scope of this
chapter, I recognize the necessity for such dialogue as captured in this
question by Hayes: “Do we have a spiritual substance such as a 'soul,'
or are soul functions such as consciousness, etc., really symptoms of
chemical complexification of matter that is still in the process of moving
to its final, fulfilling form?”
89
Whatever the outcome of such a debate, the view of matter and evo-
lution suggested here is in the tradition of Augustine and his follower
Bonaventure, who saw history as a most beautiful song, or as Philotheus
Boehner put it, a
“pulcherrimum carmen
which has been played by the
divine Wisdom since the first organisms were called into existence, and
of which our present forms are but one scene.”
90
Or as the
Book of
Proverbs
(8.30) says of wisdom: “I was by his side, a master craftsman,
