One of the great ironies of being human is that the very thing that makes us so visibly different — our biology — is also what ultimately renders us equal.
When we think about human diversity, we often start with what we can see: skin colour, height, hair texture, the shape of our eyes, the tilt of our smile. Biology marks us with signs of particularity. It centres us in families, nations, histories. Our bodies tell stories before we even speak. And these differences matter; they are good. They speak of a Creator who delights in variety, who does not work in monochrome but in living colour.
But what we often miss is that biology is not just the canvas of our differences; it is also the clay of our sameness. Beneath the surface distinctions, every human being is composed of the same essential elements. Blood, breath, bone, skin — these are universal. The same organs pump, the same cells divide, the same vulnerability to sickness and injury touches us all. No amount of status, ability, or aesthetic beauty can shield a person from the frailty written into the body itself.
The theological tradition has always wrestled with this dual reality. In Genesis, humanity is created in the image and likeness of God (imago Dei) — each person carrying a unique reflection of the divine. Yet, at the same time, we are fashioned from the dust of the earth, the same dust shared by every living thing. We are both particular and universal, distinct and common.
You see this most clearly in moments of crisis. In a hospital emergency room, no one asks whether a patient is rich or poor, what race they belong to, how strong or intelligent they are. What matters is blood type. What matters is oxygen saturation. What matters is whether a heart can be restarted. The same blood that sustains the elite sustains the refugee. The same fragility that afflicts the vulnerable afflicts the powerful. Biology collapses the illusions we so often build around ourselves. It reminds us that at our core, we are inescapably equal — equal not because we are the same, but because we are similarly finite.
And in this shared finitude, a deeper theological truth emerges: grace is offered to us not in spite of our humanity, but through it. Christ did not become an idea; he became a body. He entered into the full risk of human biology — able to bleed, to thirst, to die. In doing so, he did not erase the diversity of human experience, but revealed that all human bodies, in their beauty and their brokenness, are capable of carrying the divine.
This is why Catholic theology insists on the dignity of every human life, regardless of appearance, ability, health, or strength. It is not because we pretend there are no differences. It is because we recognize that even with all our visible variety, every human being bears the same vulnerable biology, and in that biology, the same sacred imprint. It is precisely in our fragility that God meets us.
Biology teaches us a humility that our social structures often deny. It reminds us that no matter what differences we construct, we are — at the deepest level — creatures in need of one another. Blood for blood. Breath for breath. Dust to dust. Grace for grace.
To be human, then, is to be both a particular song and part of a shared symphony. Our visible differences are real and good. But our biology, in its beautiful fragility, reminds us that we are fundamentally bound together. Not by choice, not by achievement, but by the sheer, gift-like reality of being human.
The Female Theologian 