Years ago, an atheist friend of mine was arguing with me over the existence of God. Our discussion covered many branches of the topic. At one point, she stated that human beings are nothing more than a collection of cells and chemical reactions.
“We love only because of dopamine hormones.”
“We do things only to ensure our survival.”
Now, it is factually true that humans are made up of collections of cells and we are influenced by chemical reactions. However, this limits humans to mere material matter. I doubt she would deny that each of her children are different and unique in their own way. She’d argue the nature vs. nurture debate, but I’d even go so far as to wager that she could tell differences in her children even when they were in the womb before the influence of external surroundings. I know I could and most mothers would agree. The difference is the soul of each child, a spiritual reality for every one of us.
In essence, she denies that we are creatures of God made in His image and likeness. To her, we are nothing more than material beasts.
Bishop Fulton Sheen once wrote:
“It makes little difference in the moral character of a person whether we believe golf is better exercise than tennis, but it makes all the difference in the world whether we believe that a human being is a creature of God or a beast.”
My friend’s denial of God and her belief that human beings are just collections of cells, left us, in her mind, as nothing more than instinctual beasts. We are just merely animals that eat, drink, mate, and sleep all because chemical reactions in our body work to ensure our survival.
The danger with this thinking is that “it may take a few years for this wrong philosophy to work itself out in action, but eventually it does.”
If we are reduced down to nothing more than masses of cells, at some point we will be denied our dignity and worth. How does this wrong philosophy work itself out in action?
EUTHANASIA: Are you suffering in anyway? We can put you down like a dog.
ABORTION: If you aren’t wanted by your mother while you are in the womb, you can be killed. If you are deemed a burden or a potential burden, you have no right to life while residing in the womb. As pro-abortionists are found of saying of the unborn baby: “It’s just a clump of cells.”
GENOCIDE: If someone doesn’t like your beliefs, religion, race, or sex and perceive you as a threat, they can feel justified in ridding the planet of your kind.
SLAVERY: If someone deems themselves as a more superior clump of cells to another clump of cells than they will subjugate them. The inferior group can be used and oppressed for what can be wrenched out of them. Once they are of no use anymore, they are discarded and left to pick up the pieces of a broken life.
But, if we recognize the truth of God and our relationship to Him as His beloved creatures, well…that changes everything. Our likeness to God gives us dignity; our lives have worth. We were made for a reason and we were loved into existence. We are imbued with a unique soul that animates our cells and brain chemicals.
Deep down, we recognize that we can love even when it doesn’t feel good or it’s hard. That is contrary to my friend’s depressing notion that we only love because of chemicals. A mother never says, “Mommy only loves you, Honey, because of chemical reactions in my brain.” No, there is definitely something deeper going on.
We recognize that, as humans, we have the ability to deny our own wants and needs for the good of others. We are not compelled to act a certain way like the animals, but instead have the free will to choose a more sacrificial option even if it means denying the self. We can override our senses and our chemicals in acts of discipline and heroism.
And the beauty of accepting the truth of God is that we recognize:
“That being a creature of the Power that made us, we will seek with the help of that Power to be all that we can be–a human being worthy of the name–aye, more than a human being, a child of God!”
And if we recognize that within ourselves, we will see this dignity and worth in others thereby desiring what is right, just, and good for them. This grows our moral character, Catholic Pilgrims, and sets us down paths not of destruction but goodness.
So, live the faith boldly and travel well.
Listen to this week’s podcast where I read from Bishop Sheen’s Book Way to Inner Peace.
