QUOTE : Matter can transcend itself at any moment in bringing forth life and ever new forms of species. This idea, Rahner suggests, is the secret of life. It offers one more intellectual explanation that supports belief in God as Creator while appreciating science’s finding that matter has evolved in the direction of life and then consciousness under its own steam. Nature’s capacity for active self-transcendence is the key. In the realm of biological evolution, natural selection’s work on spontaneously arising variations gets that key turning to throw open the door to ever-new forms of life. Novelty comes about by the self-organizing dynamism inherent in creatures themselves. Evolution over deep time is so creative because the material of the world itself has the God-given inner ability to become ever more.