Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is many things to many people – a study project to an atheist student, a dream (or nightmare) assignment to a photographer, an illustrated Bible to the believer. It is also a kind of evolutionary marker in the Grand Quest, as depicted in the reach between Creator and Creature-the chasm of knowledge and wisdom between them-and in the mysterious vibration of predestiny that moves in sync with our every discovery and prayer.

“Let there be light.” Then there is fire. Then there is the wheel. Then there is a canoe, then there is a coach. Then their are great buildings, monuments and designs as humanity dreams and tinkers. Leonardo studies birds and flight, fish and underwater travel; Benjamin Franklin creates primitive flippers and flies kites in the rain, and before and after them humans direct the Divine Spark within toward things as mundane as wire hangers and as fantastic as a laser. In failure or success, they evolve; enigmata unfold before them, and with them, toward…what, exactly?

From the mind of Michelangelo comes staggering vision applied one paint stroke at a time, and as he dabs at the stone, even he cannot dream that 600 years later, in a world where mankind considers walking on the moon to be “old stuff,” a scientist will ponder this work and discover within it another clue – another way of applying all we do know to that which we do not understand – thus angling Adam’s outstretched, tentative hand just the tiniest bit nearer to God’s. 

— Elizabeth Scalia, brilliant as ever. Read it all.