Stem cell biologist Siddartha Mukherjee stands as perhaps the greatest physician-writer of our time. His three magisterial works — “The Emperor of All Maladies,” “The Gene” and “The Songs of the Cell” — strike me as particularly remarkable because each of them works on at least four levels simultaneously.
The books tell stories of individual scientists looking to uncover the answers to some of science’s thorniest questions. They introduce us to patients whose lives are sometimes saved or improved by the latest discoveries. They unfurl our understanding of elements of the molecular and medical worlds. And they examine the larger messages that scientific inquiry conveys regarding who we are and what matters to us.
Most meaningful of all is the degree to which Mukherjee reveals to the lay reader the intricacy, magnificence, logic and strangeness of the world too tiny for us to see. In “Songs of the Cell,” for example, Mukerjhee invites the reader to imagine herself an astronaut and then describes entering the cell as being like entering a spacrecraft:
“Look around and above: now the inner lamella of the cell membrane would hang above you like a fluid surface of the ocean as seen from below. You would also see the inner parts of the proteins dangling above you, like the underbellies of buoys.”
As an oncologist, I’m not really a lay reader (though I’m not nearly the scientist the author is), but I recognize the degree to which he uses analogy, vivid descriptions and lucid explanation to unlock the mysteries of a kingdom that most of us probably remember vaguely — if at all — from high school biology class.
Whether he is explaining the nature of DNA or the function of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, as cellular energy currency, Mukherjee is at his best when he is bringing into our vision that which would otherwise remain invisible. And that last ability is also the one that rouses in me the thorniest questions of faith.
For all the many questions the author answers in his books, one set of queries which he leaves mostly untouched is this: What does the functioning of the biological world say about the nature of the universe? What does the architecture of the cell or the coherence of our genetic code imply about the presence or absence of a divine source behind the seen and unseen worlds?
To me, these questions arrive as inevitable — even urgent — queries.
I believe in a personal, caring God, yet find that the very biology that Mukherjee outlines marshals evidence both in favor of and against my beliefs.
On the one hand, I treat patients with cancer. If ever nature has argued against the existence of a divine providence guiding our biology, cancer is that argument.
Cancer, after all, results not from some external organism competing for scarce resources and thus intent on our destruction. Instead, cancer is, quite literally, written into the very genetic language that makes life possible to begin with. Most cancers have little to do even with so-called “modifiable risk factors.” Alcohol consumption, obesity, tobacco use and other factors that increase our cancer risk are instead simply the inevitable result of a DNA replication process that, while defined by exceptionally high fidelity, is nonetheless not perfect.
Cancer and the worlds of suffering it entails would seem to leave little room for the notion of an invested, loving, aware deity.
And yet.
Two further observations — one from Mukherjee and one of my own — leave my doubts wanting, as well.
First, I simply cannot process the beauty of molecular biology, genetics, the cell and all the rest and not come away overwhelmed by beauty. Note, I am not arguing here that complexity proves God’s existence, as some in the intelligent design movement have claimed. Rather, I am making an observation about the overwhelming and spiritual nature of the beauty I observe in the molecular world.
The transcendent wonder of DNA replication, as one of very many examples, is this medical oncologist’s molecular sunrise.
Beyond even this, however, is the greatest lesson that has impressed itself upon me as I have cared for patients with cancer. One version of any individual cancer’s story, after all, is of DNA replication run amok — of rogue cells overpowering those that still seek to function well.
And this is a story of biology.
But another story lies behind every cancer journey — and that is a tale defined by words like compassion, kindness, mercy, forgiveness, hope, acceptance and love. The people I accompany — especially the ones who near the end of their lives — demonstrate qualities that strike me as constituting more than the sum of their biological parts.
The deepest beauty I see in my patients — and the most convincing argument I know that some divine spark lies behind us humans — is simply this: that the nobility of the greatest human virtues — ones that often become most strikingly visible as my patients pass through their crucibles of suffering — cannot be reduced to a story of how atoms came together, even over eons of time.
That nobility bespeaks divine handiwork.
So much so that, even amid manifest suffering and a litany of unanswered questions, it is enough for me to believe.
Dr. Tyler Johnson is a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine. His writing has appeared in BYU Studies, Wayfare, Dialogue, Religion News Service and The San Jose Mercury News. He is the co-host of the podcast “The Doctor’s Art.”