Human Dignity and Bioethics

Defending Human Dignity | 329
of and attention to the divine. For it is only in recognizing our lowliness
that we human beings can also discover what is truly high. The
turn toward the divine is founded on our discovery of our own lack
of divinity, indeed, of our own insufficiency.
It is a delicate moment: having followed eyes to alluring temptations,
promising wisdom, human beings come to see, again through
their eyes, their own insufficiency. Still trusting appearances but seeking
next to beautify them, they set about adorning themselves, in
order to find favor in the sight of the beloved. Lustful eyes gave way,
speechlessly, to admiring ones, by means of intervening modesty and
art. Yet sight and love do not alone fully disclose the truth of our human
situation. Human beings must open their ears as well as their
eyes, they must hearken to a calling, for which sight and the beautiful
beloved do not sufficiently prepare them. The prototypical human
pair, opened by shamefaced love, is in fact able to hear the transcendent
voice.
Thus, awe is also born twin to shame, and it is soon elaborated
into a desire to close with and to have a relationship with the divine.
The dignity of being human, rooted in the dignity of life itself
and flourishing in a manner seemingly issuing only in human pride,
completes itself and stands tallest when we bow our heads and lift
our hearts in recognition of powers greater than our own. The fullest
dignity of the god-like animal is realized in its acknowledgement and
celebration of the divine.