Cloning and the human soul

[Neithan]

As we all know, Catholic doctrine teaches that the human soul is “immediately created” at conception by God. Animals are purely seminally generated and have no intellectual/immortal spirit like we do (Summa I, 118).

Given this, I hypothesize that a “cloned” human, wholly artificially conceived, would be given no immortal soul by God, Who probably would not approve of such an abomination (?). This clone would most likely resemble an animal in sentience, and have human appearance only. In short, he would be a true Frankenstein.

Now, if we could perform such an experiment to test this hypothesis, and if it were true, think what an amazing support of the Catholic position this would be!! Would it be way too unethical to try this for the sake of conveying the Truth to the world? Would Catholic scientists find this idea too horrendous to realize?

If, say, the clone was exactly like the person he/she was cloning, possessing normal human intelligence, that might be seen as a strike against us; however, if we are confident of possessing the fullness of the Truth, this shouldn’t be too debilitating a fear. What do you think?

 

[Sir_Knight]

First off, you are equating a brain with a soul and they are not the same thing. The soul is a spiritual entity and can not be measured or observed by physical means. Therefore, there would be no way to measure if a clone had a soul or not.

Secondly, even if we could some how determine of a soul existed or not, we still know the act of human cloning is wrong. Therefore to do an experiment of something which we know is wrong just to prove that it is wrong would still be wrong.

Finally, people have the mistaken notion that cloning a human would produce an EXACT duplicate of that individual and nothing could be further from the truth. A clone may taken on our physical traits and characteristics, but it would not have our personality, our memory, our knowledge, our experiences, etc.; because all of that is shaped and developed by the events of our lives.

A clone of Hitler would not turn into a madman (unless there were physical reasons for his actions) if he was raised in a loving and nutured environment. Even if there were physical reaons for his insame behavior, if he was raised in a jewish culture, he would not turn into a jew-hater the way the original Hitler did.

Remember, a clone is just a physical copy of a person but there is so much more that goes into the make-up of an individual than just the physical.

I often have to scratch my head when parents who have lost a child, say that they would like to clone the child. Cloning a child will not bring the original one back. The clone will physically resemble the original child but the personality will have to be shaped all over again. In which case, it’s no different from just having another child the normal way instead of a clone.

 

[Tlaloc]

Sir Knight:

First off, you are equating a brain with a soul and they are not the same thing. The soul is a spiritual entity and can not be measured or observed by physical means. Therefore, there would be no way to measure if a clone had a soul or not.

I think his point was that as clones are created by human hands rather than by divine fiat it wouldn’t have a soul.

By the way some companies are now experimenting with human animal hybrid (chimeras). Mice with brain tissue that is human. Pigs that have human blood.

I imagine that has some prickly theological issues.

 

[Bill_A]

The reason why Clones are on the agenda, is so powerful and rich people like W. Can chop their skulls out, scoop out their brains and put their own brains in a new Young Body. If you watched the 7th day, this is a theme in the movie. That a person was cloned and an older person who was sick or injured could be put into the clones body to conitnue their life.

In Star Wars Episode it will be shown the Emperor witheld his balance of power for hundreds of years in a series of cloned bodies.

 

[1ke]

Neithan:

Given this, I hypothesize that a “cloned” human, wholly artificially conceived, would be given no immortal soul by God, Who probably would not approve of such an abomination (?). This clone would most likely resemble an animal in sentience, and have human appearance only. In short, he would be a true Frankenstein.

What do you think?

You are incorrect, and I’m not quite sure if you are serious or not. But, assuming you are…

God immediately creates each soul at conception, that part is right. However, the idea that God would withhold a soul from a person because they are “artificially” created is silly.

There are many things we do that God finds to be an abomination, but he does not “withhold” himself from us because of it.

It is our soul that gives us intellect and will, and all humans are descended from Adam-- related genetically and created to know and love the Creator and our destiny is eternal-- each will have a soul as we are all members of the human race, no matter how we originated.

 

[MamaGeek]

Neithan:

As we all know, Catholic doctrine teaches that the human soul is “immediately created” at conception by God. Animals are purely seminally generated and have no intellectual/immortal spirit like we do (Summa I, 118).

Given this, I hypothesize that a “cloned” human, wholly artificially conceived, would be given no immortal soul by God, Who probably would not approve of such an abomination (?). This clone would most likely resemble an animal in sentience, and have human appearance only. In short, he would be a true Frankenstein.

Your logic is flawed. If God did not impart souls after conception, then only one of a pair of identical twins would have a soul. God is not vindictive. Why would he withhold a soul from someone just because they came to be through non-conceptive means?

If all clones were, as you say, Frankensteins, I think it would be a terrible discovery, as I’m sure many would use it to justify cloning as a production line for organs, blood, and stem cells. It is a horrifying and disgusting idea.

 

[atsheeran]

Neithan:

As we all know, Catholic doctrine teaches that the human soul is “immediately created” at conception by God. Animals are purely seminally generated and have no intellectual/immortal spirit like we do (Summa I, 118).

Given this, I hypothesize that a “cloned” human, wholly artificially conceived, would be given no immortal soul by God, Who probably would not approve of such an abomination (?). This clone would most likely resemble an animal in sentience, and have human appearance only. In short, he would be a true Frankenstein.

Now, if we could perform such an experiment to test this hypothesis, and if it were true, think what an amazing support of the Catholic position this would be!! Would it be way too unethical to try this for the sake of conveying the Truth to the world? Would Catholic scientists find this idea too horrendous to realize?

If, say, the clone was exactly like the person he/she was cloning, possessing normal human intelligence, that might be seen as a strike against us; however, if we are confident of possessing the fullness of the Truth, this shouldn’t be too debilitating a fear. What do you think?

What about those conceptions brought about by IVF? While certainly different from cloning, these too are “artificially conceived” are you implying that God withholds a soul from these as well?

In my mind, a soul is a necessary component of a human being. If God deems to allow for a human being to come into existence through unnatural/immoral means, then I believe that they would have a soul.

I think this line of reasoning will lead down a dangerous path. If these are not human beings then why is there a prohibition on cloning in the first place? This argument could be used to justify cloning for “harvesting” purposes.

 

[Faithful_2_Rome]

God forbid human cloning occurs, but the minute Catholics start questioning whether a Human Clone may not have a Soul, they have lost their argument with those who state the Fetus is not really a person.

 

[serendipity]

This topic scares me to death. really does. I hope that I never live to see that day when humans are cloned…or at least when people admit that it is being done and start doing it one a regular basis. Part of me can’t help but wonder if there is not a cloned human or two walking around already. :bigyikes:

 

[Viki59]

By the way some companies are now experimenting with human animal hybrid (chimeras). Mice with brain tissue that is human. Pigs that have human blood.

I imagine that has some prickly theological issues.

I know this has been absolutely forbidden by the church, though I can’t recall where I read it. Seems so obvious that I can’t recall the source.

I think we could rely on the dictum, borrowing from Fr. Robert Spitzer: if it’s of human origin, it has a human soul.

He says: “Perhaps the greatest harm done to persons in human history has been to assume that a being of human origin was not a person(not possessing an unconditional dignity.) We can see this with respect to slavery . . .genocide, and totalitarian political persecution of every kind.” (Healing the Culture)

 

[Neithan]

Originally Posted by Sir Knight:
First off, you are equating a brain with a soul and they are not the same thing. The soul is a spiritual entity and can not be measured or observed by physical means. Therefore, there would be no way to measure if a clone had a soul or not.

My answer to this is echoed in the first sentence of 1ke’s quote below, which is supported by Catholic doctrine (Summa I, 77-83): our souls can be witnessed in our heightened awareness–of ourselves and God. Unique to human beings. This manifests itself in our transcendent intelligence, which animals, being wholly corporeal, do not possess. Animals do not have a self-identity nor a personal relationship with their Creator. Our highly-developed human brains are effected by our souls, and are necessary for the powers of our souls to properly operate in our bodies; however, they are not the cause of these powers (Ibid).

Originally Posted by 1ke:
It is our soul that gives us intellect and will, and all humans are descended from Adam-- related genetically and created to know and love the Creator and our destiny is eternal-- each will have a soul as we are all members of the human race, no matter how we originated.

The basis of my argument is that a clone is not really a person as defined by Catholic dogma (elaborated below).

Originally Posted by Tlaloc:
By the way some companies are now experimenting with human animal hybrid (chimeras). Mice with brain tissue that is human. Pigs that have human blood.

I imagine that has some prickly theological issues.

Theological issues? Not really. Ethical? Definitely, but that’s another post.
Whatever unholy experimentation occurs, and may occur, mixing human and animal bodies, the human soul is not manipulatable by our material science. If you could somehow take out a human brain and put it into a monkey, that might be one damn smart monkey. It will not, however, possess the specially transcendent intelligence of a normal human being, indicating the lack of an immortal spirit.

(Continued)

 

[Neithan]

(Continued)

Originally Posted by atsheeran:
What about those conceptions brought about by IVF? While certainly different from cloning, these too are “artificially conceived” are you implying that God withholds a soul from these as well?

In my mind, a soul is a necessary component of a human being. If God deems to allow for a human being to come into existence through unnatural/immoral means, then I believe that they would have a soul.

You can see briefly here that IVF (in-vitro fertilization) still requires human sperm to create a true human being. Cloning requires no human sperm. This is unique. If a clone is a human regardless of whether he/she is seminally generated, innumerable problems arise with Catholic dogma. For one, Original Sin is taught to pass through the sperm to the offspring, a physical stain on that person at birth. If a clone is produced, is this “person” immaculately conceived? They have no truly human origination.

*Originally Posted by * Viki59:
I think we could rely on the dictum, borrowing from Fr. Robert Spitzer: if it’s of human origin, it has a human soul.

See italicised sentence above

Originally Posted by MamaGeek:
Your logic is flawed. If God did not impart souls after conception, then only one of a pair of identical twins would have a soul. God is not vindictive. Why would he withhold a soul from someone just because they came to be through non-conceptive means?

But both of those identical twins were fertilized by a sperm, something that is absent in human cloning. So, could both souls not be present, even before the twin egg “splits off”? All of this happens naturally. In cloning, no seminal generation takes place, it is entirely artifical. Would God approve of this? Wouldn’t moral and natural law be so violated, that a true human being could not possibly be created this way? The problem of Original Sin is easily explained in the case of identical twins, but not with a clone.

Originally Posted by Faithful 2 Rome:
God forbid human cloning occurs, but the minute Catholics start questioning whether a Human Clone may not have a Soul, they have lost their argument with those who state the Fetus is not really a person.

I don’t think this jeopardizes the argument against abortion. The Fetus is totally naturally generated. We have absolutely no reason to believe that a soul is not present until a certain amount of time has past. It is present at conception. Natural human conception, that is.

Most of you say that the grave moral discretion involved with actually performing this experiment outweigh the scientific (and possibly, dogmatic) benefits which would result. So that answers that, I guess. I know this presents some pretty scary red flags, but it’s interesting to speculate, anyway. I tend to believe that a human clone is not even possible. Might be interesting to find out, though.

 

[ThornGenX]

I would rather err on the side of treating any clones that happen to be created (and I am sure some rogue scientists are going to try to create clones of humans no matter how many laws get passed forbidding the practice) as humans with souls.

 

[BibleReader]

This is a troubling area for me.

The following is NOT an urban legend. The following is quite real…

I had a client, years ago, who had a shocking medical condition: He has about 50 human twins buried in his flesh, in various parts of his body. About once a year he has to go to the hospital, to have one of the twins ripped out of his flesh, because it begins to develop. He refers to the twins as “tumors.”

Apparently, the twinning process chemicals in his mother’s womb ran completely amuck, creating all of these fetal clones in his flesh.

Question: Are all of these clones in his flesh “human”? Is he authorizing his doctor to kill a non-viable human with a soul every time he has his “fetal-ectomy”?

Now, the following is a hypothetical I read to a theologian speaking on Catholic talk radio last year, to hearing what his answer is.

Let’s say Britney Spears and Arnold Schwarzenegger are having lunch in Hollywoood. They get up and leave. A waitress steals the spoon of each, and takes them to a lab, and manages to recover live Britney and Arnold skin cells which are then cloned into, say, 10 million Britney babies and 10 million Arnold babies, which sell for $10,000 dollars each, so that the waitress becomes a multi-billionaire, because everybody wants their baby to be as beautiful as Britney or as handsome and strong as Arnold.

Question: Will God cooperate with that human outrage, and give those 20 million identical twins of Britney and Arnold, who are children of the mouth skin cells of each, souls?

Ye-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ch! I don’t know!

What do you think the Catholic talk show theologian said?

 

[Sir_Knight]

Bill_A:

The reason why Clones are on the agenda, is so powerful and rich people like W. Can chop their skulls out, scoop out their brains and put their own brains in a new Young Body. If you watched the 7th day, this is a theme in the movie. That a person was cloned and an older person who was sick or injured could be put into the clones body to conitnue their life.

In Star Wars Episode it will be shown the Emperor witheld his balance of power for hundreds of years in a series of cloned bodies.

But you have to keep in mind that even if a person gets a new, younger body, their brain cells are still going to be old. Their thinking, reasoning, etc.; is going to slow down as their brain ages no matter what kind of body they have.

 

[Neithan]

If you remove the brain from a person’s body, that will kill him/her. You can’t “transfer” a person’s brain, that’s science fiction. Plus, it raises another hairy issue: Is our soul “housed” in our brains only? Could you transfer a person’s soul between bodies!?