Biology, Birth, and Resurrection

Palm fronds my sister used in worship on Palm Sunday.

While they disagree on details, my Christian, Jewish, and Muslim friends all speak of a miraculous resurrection.

On Palm Sunday, a week before Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ, I participated in the naming ceremony for an infant child. At the same time, I contemplated the recent death of my daughter and the promise of her resurrection.

In that context, while writing a paper on the continuation of human consciousness beyond physical death, I was struck by the skepticism my colleagues in medicine and science show regarding a resurrection.

Many scientists consider birth as biology, not miracle. They know we can sequence a genome and gestate an exact physical reproduction. It’s been done with animals. If not for ethicists and politicians, it might have been done with humans.

When a woman and man come together, they create a new genome. The woman then gathers several handfuls of earth elements through her diet and infuses them over a period of months with 2.5 liters of water. That new physical tabernacle is then inhabited by a human soul.

In the future, through a process we don’t fully understand, a genome identical or similar to yours—without sequencing errors like those that caused my daughter’s cancer—will be united with a few kilograms of pure elements and the appropriate amount of water to gestate into a new perfected habitation for your soul.

Birth and resurrection are equally miraculous, scientific, human, and divine. Is it biology? Yes. Is it a miracle? Yes. Definitely. If we accept the biology and/or miracle of one, we should be equally accepting of the biology and/or miracle of the other because they are the same thing.

Furthermore, when we contemplate death apart from our grief and sorrow, we’ll see it as a profound, beautiful, spiritual step enabling us to be born again through resurrection.

Biology is a miracle we often fail to recognize. Understanding biology doesn’t make it less miraculous.