Jamaica, Queens, New York 11439

Secrets now veiled to bring to light

That I the force may recognize,

Which binds creation’s inmost energies

Her vital powers, her embryo seeds survey,

To fling the trade in words away.

Faust

 

EVOLUTION AND THE EMBRYO

 

The Felicitous Collaboration of Philosophy and Science

 

The creative principle and the teleological principle ground the architecture of live. They form a unity, an arc of convergence in the service of new live. Gametogenesis is in the service of embryogenesis and individuation. Nothing in this is discontinuous, it is an integral whole. The goal is life; the biological elements all together present a vector of aspiration continuously homogeneous with itself, going back to Genesis. While we may mark our certain functions there can be only one telos. The gametes can not enclose a separate telos since they can never work of themselves outside the plan enclosed within the natural body at the appointed time, kairos. Telos cannot simply be the sum of the parts since any harm to a part harms the whole, the mechanism. Embryogenesis and the teleological question refute this.

 

The creative principle and the teleological principle form the basis for a true philosophy of biology which announces both the transcendent power of creation and the mystery of the life force in the contemplation of the infinitesimal causes. All of the above principles are in the service of new life and shape a genuine ethic of life:

 

It is for the sake of our own lives that He made us…

Life is not enkindled for a brief time to be snuffed out. He

did not create man for the sake of any other work.

                        St. Athenagoras of Athens