Biological or Spiritual Beings?

Let me ask you a simple question with a complex answer: Are human beings only biological machines? Or is there something more to us, something that transcends mere flesh and blood?

Questions like that have challenged humanity for centuries, partly because we like to explain our world in clear-cut terms. We like things to be either all black or all white. No gray. But human life can’t be defined so easily. Each of us has a physical body, but we have a spiritual side as well. We can’t see it or touch it, but it’s there, and it’s very real.

To visualize the complexity of human nature, consider one of those optical illusion drawings, like M.C. Escher – a staircase or a river that ends in the same place as it begins, or a pair of hands that draw each other into existence. That’s the mind-bending character of human nature. Human life is biological, but it transcends mere biology.

Although your spiritual side can’t be seen or touched, it can be experienced. Even if you resist spiritual thoughts, they bubble up from somewhere deep inside anyway. When you least expect it, you’ll find yourself hoping that there’s something more than living and dying – something that carries on even after the biological machine stops running.

And there is. We are more than a mixture of chemicals that create the illusion of something real. We are spiritual beings as well, in touch with the transcendent, and capable of love, faith and worship.