25
The Sufficiency of Human Development
Certainly , seeing another person as nothing more than atoms and cells belittles the dignity inherent to that person , yet our bodies are composed of atoms and cells . Our bodies belong to ourselves insomuch as my particular body is a whole and a part of me . Together , these atoms and cells work as a whole by the vibrancy of the teleological principles inherent to my body . Alexander Pruss articulates well this “ lived ” sense of teleology when he says that “ Teleological properties …. are properties just as basic as mass and electric charge .” 92 And these properties inscribe the whole human being with a meaningful design , at least as meaningful as an intrinsic plan of bodily development . From the moment of conception , a human being will grow from a fetal human being , to a child , to an adult . Human development consistently progresses along this path – embryo to child to adult – unless frustrated by an opposing force , an agent or defect .
A human being , without developmental impediment , will mature in two important and significant ways : bodily , the human being differentiates sexually as male or female , and cognitively the brain develops in such a way as to support reasoning skills . Somehow these peculiarities of the fully developed human body give rise to personhood . These features of human nature somehow gain a voice all its own . Fr . Norris Clarke , S . J ., in Person and Being , describes the human person as a human nature in ownership of itself , a privileged being of substance-in-relation to itself and others . 93 All human beings share the basic attributes of human nature , but all “ live ” these attributes uniquely . Personhood first reveals itself through the physical body by common human experience of growth and development as both an intellectual being and a sexually differentiated being .
92 Ibid . 93 W . Norris Clarke , S . J ., Person and Being ( Milwaukee , WI : Marquette University Press , 2008 ), 19 .