MATERCARE CONFERENCE, SEPT 14th, Rome
Some thoughts on beauty in biology and medecine
Vincent Kemme, founder-president of Biofides, assisting the presidency of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC)
Thank you Prof. Chazan, for inviting me to speak at this MaterCare conference on ‘Womanhood of Mothers’. Who am I to speak about such a delicate topic that relates to human sexuality and procreation, a field of so much confusion in our days. As a teacher in biology, I was supposed to inform young people about the working of our reproductive system, but also how to avoid pregnancy: through contraceptive means. Today, young people in school are taught to question their ‘sexual orientation’ and even their ‘gender. Since the widespread introduction of hormonal contraception, a separation between sexuality and fertility has been installed, not only by physical and ‘medical’ means, but – even worse – in the minds of young men and women, who – when they desire a child – first have to stop using ‘the pill’. And who are the family doctors and gynecologists who dear to resist to this contraceptive culture, helping couples to live their marital life in a loving and responsible manner? All this is rather ‘technical’ and raises ethical questions, that will not be my topic today. I will introduce beauty as a rational argument in order to come to a ‘healthy’ understanding of the human, male and female, body. I speak to you as a husband, father and grandfather, and as one of the translators of “the theology of the body” in dutch, my native language.
Beauty is one of those three ‘transcendentals’ that in the philosophical tradition is recognized as a basic property of reality (or being). When we study reality, we first have to recognize its very truth, its existence and the logos, according to which reality is shaped. We try to understand the logos of the bios, the biology of – amongst other biological objects – the human body, male and female. We know that even these truths are questioned today: one’s femininity or masculinity is questioned, as sell as one’s sexual ‘identity’ or ‘orientation’.
The goodness of our physical being is also not that obvious for many. Where ancient beliefs declared the physical nature to be evil, focussing one-sidedly on our spiritual nature, today, our body is considered to be the most important ‘thing’ in our life: health is considered the most important value in life, until life hurts so much that we throw our body away and put an end to our biological existence without wondering what happens to our spirit. Christian philosophical tradition teaches us that everything that exists is ‘good’, for the simple reason that it is ‘allowed to’ exist. Even a weapon in itself is good, although it may not always be used in a ‘good’ way. Natural and moral evil, like sickness or theft, are a lack of goodness in a human body and existence. Our calling as physicians is to restore, where possible, this goodness of our bodily existence, respecting our human nature. The congress that follows this one will deepen that understanding. From a theological standpoint, we know that God judges his creation as being ‘good’ (or even ‘very good’), and all sorts of ‘evil’ introduced themselves in our existence only ‘later’ (ontologically), after the fall. So the existence of natural and moral evil, like sickness, death and sin, is relative to the goodness of our existence and our body.
I remember well when I started my studies in biology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, my deception during the first year: beauty was not part of the curriculum. Naively, one starts a study full of wonder and admiration for the phenomena of biological life, hoping to learn to understand what life is, how it works, what its ‘secrets’ are, and ‘mysteries’. But a materialistic, reductionistic mindset amongst scholars has taken the lead in our universities and transcendentals’ are no longer considered to be ‘scientific’. Today, I want to try to restore the importance of one transcendental in particular, here, gathered as scientists and physicians: beauty. Looking to reality ‘from above’, allows us to use those transcendental notions to understand nature, without becoming ‘irrational’ or ‘unscientific’.
Here we have to make a distinction. I do not want do denigrate in any way the scientific achievements that are at the basis of our medical knowledge. I distinguish methodological reductionism (materialism or naturalism) form philosophical reductionism (materialism or naturalism). The scientific method requires methodological reductionisme, where it tries to answer to questions on -for instance, human fertility. The scientific method has no tools to include metaphysical questions on purpose, goodness, intelligibility of beauty. These are philosophical questions which do not make them les important: on the contrary. Even more for theological consideration, like ‘man and women being made in the image of God’. Biological, natural and medical sciences have no access to the divine and it’s reasoning, it’s auto-revelation in the natural order. But that does not make these considerations les importent. They may even be the most important considerations, because if our bodies are created by a perfect intelligent, loving and personal divinity, this gives us the most ‘solid’ reason and motivation to research, to heal and to care. So we have to distinguish between biological, philosophical and theological considerations, without separating or confusing them. Beauty as a transcend characteristic of the human body, in particular but not exclusively the female body, can motivate us in our care for “mothers that are women too”. So let us focus a bit more on the beauty of the body the female body in particular.
Saint John Paul II, known for his ‘Theology of the Body’ takes feminine beauty very seriously. He writes: “The whole exterior of the woman’s body, its particular look, the qualities that stand with the power of perennial attraction, at the beginning of the ‘knowledge’ about which Genesis speaks (‘Adam united himself with Eve’, Gen 4:1-2) are in strict accordance with motherhood.” This means that the beauty of the female body finds its fulfilment in the mutual gift of a man and a woman to each other and the motherhood that can be the result of it, resulting in the family. “The human body oriented from within by the ‘sincere gift of the person [Gaudium et Spes, 24:3), reveals not only its masculinity and femininity on the physical level, but reveals such a value and such a beauty that it goes beyond the simply physical level of ‘sexuality’” (TOB 15:4). So it is the interior dimension of the gift of self that somehow determines the exterior beauty of the body. John Paul II invites us to deepen our understanding of what he calls ‘the spousal meaning of the body, which encompasses the whole person, in an interpersonal relationship to the other, with its “supra personal” consequence: the creation of new human life.
But as a result of the loss of self-mastery brought about by the Fall, ‘the beauty [that] the human body possesses in its male and female appearance as an expression of the spirit, is obscured’ (TOB 32:6). Our culture isolates feminine bodily beauty as a thing in itself, using it to sell products or titillate the senses. Sexual attraction, in itself good but in need of the notion of ‘personhood’ but is often a commodity used to engage in a physical relationship which may or may not end in marriage. Children may or may not be intrinsic to this relationship. So the challenge for our culture is the elevation of the beauty of the female body to the truth and goodness of human nature, as man and women as persons and not as objects, capable of father and motherhood, the supra-personal dimension if the family.
Allow me to reflect on what this could mean for physicians, in particular: gynaecologists. First of all, we are man and women too! So our first challenge is to integrate our masculinity of femininity into the whole of the person that we represent. The beauty of the spousal mening of the body will help us to live a fulfilled life as man or women, even if we live a celibate life. Secondly, we can recognise the beauty of the female and the male body, in the context of the mutual gift of self in marriage, with its “supra personal” consequence: the creation of new human life. This could mean a shift in our attitude towards female patients who are to be considered being part of this beautiful plan of God: potentially being part of a life-giving community of love, after the image of the Trinity who is itself a life-giving community of love. The family, where the beauty of the female and male body find its fulfilment, reflects the Church, in itself female in nature, for which Christ gave his life through is incarnation and suffering on the cross. Therefore the beauty of the family finds its source in the total gift of oneself, in a bond of love, reflecting Christs love for his Church.
If beauty – as a transcendental – has a rational basis in philosophy and anthropology, and in theology, as John Paul II shows, we can allow ourselves, scientists and physicians, again to wonder, to contemplate the beauty of the human body, male and female, in the light of truth and goodness, that reflect the God we believe in and Whom we know through revelation. So let us renew the way we look at man and women, especially the ‘less fortunate’ in physical appearance, be purified from philosophically too materialistic, reductionist view on our patients, through the “redemption” of our thoughts and views, a “healing” that we receive from Christ through prayer and sacramental life. In that way we can become even better doctors, because we look and see not only with our eyes, our technical equipment, our reductionist mindset, but also with our hearts filled with faith, hope and love.
Vincent Kemme
