Can human clones have spiritual souls?

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The Church teaching is that the soul is the principal animation of matter

Every living thing, by definition, has a soul. The presence of a soul is what distinguishes living matter from dead matter.

Plants, bacteria etc… have animative souls. The powers of their souls only include the basic functions of life.

Animals have Sensitive Souls, they can sense the material world and act upon it.

Humans have Spiritual Souls, immortal souls in the image and likeness of God

So if a human clone is alive, by definition, it has a soul.

The question then becomes if it is a Spiritual Soul. A hallmark of the Spirtual Soul is Reason. So if the human clone can Reason, then the Soul is a rational, spiritual soul made in the image and likeness of God.

In other words, they would be a human person.
 
A teaching from Judaism, everything physical has a soul. The Catholic Church does not address this as far as I know.
 
Brendan said:
The Church teaching is that the soul is the principal animation of matter.

Every living thing, by definition, has a soul. The presence of a soul is what distinguishes living matter from dead matter.

Plants, bacteria etc… have animative souls. The powers of their souls only include the basic functions of life.
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I agree with you, but have never seen that in Church teaching. What about a virus? It is dead unless it finds itself in a living cell.

I assume that you see these animative souls as something supernatural. If we created a synthetic virus, would that get some sort of supernatural appendix?
 
Hans_W said:
I agree with you, but have never seen that in Church teaching.
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See Aquinas above. St John Paul II referenced that teaching in a 1990 public audience, stating -
" animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren’"
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Here is a bit more, it’s not a Catholic site, but provides an adequate explanation of the role of the soul in animals.
all-creatures.org/ca/ark-210-1.html
What about a virus? It is dead unless it finds itself in a living cell.
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I will agree that a virus does not respirate, metabolize or replicate on it’s own, so it is somewhat of a gray area biologically. I personally lean towards inanimate matter.
I assume that you see these animative souls as something supernatural. If we created a synthetic virus, would that get some sort of supernatural appendix?
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Vegative souls and Sensitive Souls are natural, but non-physical.
 
Brendan said:
… Vegative souls and Sensitive Souls are natural, but non-physical.
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You are getting into deep philosophical waters here. If they are part of the natural world then they fall under the laws of nature and can be, at least in principle, studied by science.
 
The human soul is the soul of the human body.. It is also the life.

So, if cloning leads to a living human body, who can breathe, move, use his/her mind and limbs, etc, as any**body **can, we would assume a human soul is there, immoral means of gestation notwithstanding.

ICXC NIKA.
 
If they are human beings, no matter how they are produced, they have spiritual souls.
 
GEddie said:
if cloning leads to a living human body, who can breathe, move, use his/her mind and limbs, etc, as any**body **can, we would assume a human soul is there, immoral means of gestation notwithstanding.
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As far as my theological knowledge goes, I agree with this sentiment that we would “assume” a soul is present. And, the further we stray from conjugal reproduction, the greater uncertainty exists. I say this in light of these “3-parent” experiments where they are mixing and matching cells to create a living creature. If we start manufacturing “specialty” beings, like soldiers or whatever, there could be some sense of loss of humanity. As time goes on, it might become a science fiction scenario where we just aren’t sure what sort of creature was produced, even if he/she/it exhibits some properties of reason. You might see more “conditional” baptisms hundreds of years from now (barring the Second Coming :o)
 
MarcoPolo said:
As far as my theological knowledge goes, I agree with this sentiment that we would “assume” a soul is present. And, the further we stray from conjugal reproduction, the greater uncertainty exists. I say this in light of these “3-parent” experiments where they are mixing and matching cells to create a living creature. If we start manufacturing “specialty” beings, like soldiers or whatever, there could be some sense of loss of humanity. As time goes on, it might become a science fiction scenario where we just aren’t sure what sort of creature was produced, even if he/she/it exhibits some properties of reason. You might see more “conditional” baptisms hundreds of years from now (barring the Second Coming :o)
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3-parent embryos would still be human because all the genes would be human, therefore a human body.

The difference would begin once nonhuman DNA would be added to the mix.

The more nonhuman, the more uncertain. Having someone whose body could generate vitamin C, no big deal. Someone with a set of gills…potentially problematic.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
3-parent embryos would still be human because all the genes would be human, therefore a human body.

The difference would begin once nonhuman DNA would be added to the mix.

The more nonhuman, the more uncertain. Having someone whose body could generate vitamin C, no big deal. Someone with a set of gills…potentially problematic.

ICXC NIKA
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Some people are born with gills. They present as small holes on side of face above ear.
Am I posting on the correct thread/forum. Seems like strange but true facts. There are a few images on the web.
 
Beautiful said:
Some people are born with gills. They present as small holes on side of face above ear.
Am I posting on the correct thread/forum. Seems like strange but true facts. There are a few images on the web.
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If those gills were usable for water breathing, some might see a humanness issue…
 
GEddie said:
3-parent embryos would still be human because all the genes would be human, therefore a human body.
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They may likely be human, but I don’t think they would be human merely because human DNA was involved. We are cloning organs using human DNA also, but those are not in and of themselves “humans.” The 3-parent embryos are more likely part of the slippery slope.
 
MarcoPolo said:
They may likely be human, but I don’t think they would be human merely because human DNA was involved. We are cloning organs using human DNA also, but those are not in and of themselves “humans.” The 3-parent embryos are more likely part of the slippery slope.
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Organs are not human beings because they cannot in themselves hold life ( = soul).

Complete, live human bodies can.

ICXC NIKA.
 
Let us examine that question when we have a human clone.
Until then, we have speculation.
 
edwest2 said:
Humans have not been cloned. And it is unknown if they can be.
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Identical twins can be thought of as being close to clones. One act of conception results in two separate human beings.

It is potentially open to science to work out what causes the early zygote to split, and to artificially induce that process. Armadillos do it naturally, they always bear identical quads, so there is obviously some trigger which causes the zygote to split.

rossum
 
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