Reflections on the principle of life, medical theory and ethics, and the limitations of science.

Abstract

The knowledge of modern science is based on and limited to data from the material world. It does not cover all levels of reality. Its achievements have been striking. It continues to amass at an ever increasing pace information about the physical basis of "life" in respect of its essential structures and their functions. Nonetheless there are questions which it cannot answer. The idea of the "vital spirit", according to Greek and Medieval philosophers and theologians the principle that imbues mortal flesh with life, transcends the limits of its empirical thinking, as do questions about traditional values and ethical issues, like the topical problems in medicine brought to the fore by recent and ongoing developments in molecular genetics. Their resolution will require vision wider than the empiric and knowledge broader than the exclusively scientific.