Ensoulment

[krokal]

Reading Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center answering a question on whether or not embryos have souls, I came across this argument towards the end.

Human embryos are already beings that are human (not zebra or plant), and are, in fact, the newest and most recent additions to the human family. They are integral beings structured for matu * ration along their proper time line. Any destructive action against them as they move along the continuum of their development disrupts the entire future time line of that person. In other words, the embryo exists a whole, living member of the human species, and when destroyed, that particular individual has perished. Every human embryo, thus, is unique and sacrosanct, and should not be cannibalized for stem cell extraction.

What a human embryo actually is, even at its earliest and most undeveloped stage, already makes it the only kind of entity capable of receiving the gift of an immortal soul from the hand of God. No other animal or plant embryo can receive this gift; indeed, no other entity in the universe can receive this gift. Hence, the early human embryo is never merely biological tissue, like a group of liver cells in a petri dish; at a minimum, such an embryo, with all its internal structure and directionality, represents the privileged sanctuary of one meant to develop as a human person.

Some scientists and philosophers will attempt to argue that if an early embryo might not yet have received its immortal soul from God, it must be OK to destroy that embryo for research since he or she would not yet be a person. But it would actually be the reverse; that is to say, it would be more immoral to destroy an embryo that had not yet received an immortal soul than to destroy an ensouled embryo. Why? Because the immortal soul is the principle by which that person could come to an eternal destiny with God in heaven, so the one who destroyed the embryo, in this scenario, would preclude that young human from ever receiving an immortal soul (or becoming a person) and making his or her way to God. This would be the gravest of evils, as the stem cell researcher would forcibly derail the entire eternal design of God over that unique and unrepeatable person, via an action that would be, in some sense, worse than murder. The human person, then, even in his or her most incipient form as an embryonic human being, must always be safeguarded in an absolute and unconditional way, and speculation about the timing of personhood cannot alter this fundamental truth.

His argument doesn’t seem to be put together well, but perhaps I’m reading him wrong.

At the end of the day, we cannot say for sure that embryos are in fact human persons, and if that’s the case, how can embryos be a part of the human species as Fr. Pacholczyk states? To be human is to have a body and soul (although not necessarily a body outside the womb I suppose).

Secondly, why is it immoral for a human person to interrupt the “destiny” of an embryo when nature or perhaps even God ends the “destiny” of an embryo in 15-25% of pregnancies through miscarriages.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m pro-life, but I’m just looking for better arguments than this.

 

[JimG]

At the end of the day, we cannot say for sure that embryos are in fact human persons, and if that’s the case, how can embryos be a part of the human species as Fr. Pacholczyk states?

Actually, I would disagree with the statement that we cannot say that embryos are human persons. Still, the term “person” has a philosophical meaning, a legal meaning, a moral meaning, not a biological meaning, since it cannot be discerned through biology.

What we can say is that embryos are human beings. That is, they are new and distinct individuals of the human species. We know how new human beings begin: they begin at conception through the union of sperm and ovum into a single, genetically distinct individual of the human species.

If we use the term “person” to apply to human beings, then it ought to be applied to all human beings, not just some.

 

[Orogeny]

Reading Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center answering a question on whether or not embryos have souls, I came across this argument towards the end.

His argument doesn’t seem to be put together well, but perhaps I’m reading him wrong.

At the end of the day, we cannot say for sure that embryos are in fact human persons, and if that’s the case, how can embryos be a part of the human species as Fr. Pacholczyk states? To be human is to have a body and soul (although not necessarily a body outside the womb I suppose).

I would change Fr. Pacholczyk’s arguement to because we cannot say for sure when ensoulment takes place, we must err on the side of the idea that ensoulment takes place at the time of conception and is therefore the embryo is a human.

Secondly, why is it immoral for a human person to interrupt the “destiny” of an embryo when nature or perhaps even God ends the “destiny” of an embryo in 15-25% of pregnancies through miscarriages.

We cannot equate our activities with those of God. God has the right to determine the fate of every part of His creation. His decisions cannot be immoral. We, on the other hand, make immoral decisions when we put ourselves in the place of God.

Just my thoughts.

Peace

Tim

 

[KBarn]

Reading Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center answering a question on whether or not embryos have souls, I came across this argument towards the end.

His argument doesn’t seem to be put together well, but perhaps I’m reading him wrong.

At the end of the day, we cannot say for sure that embryos are in fact human persons, and if that’s the case, how can embryos be a part of the human species as Fr. Pacholczyk states? To be human is to have a body and soul (although not necessarily a body outside the womb I suppose).

Secondly, why is it immoral for a human person to interrupt the “destiny” of an embryo when nature or perhaps even God ends the “destiny” of an embryo in 15-25% of pregnancies through miscarriages.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m pro-life, but I’m just looking for better arguments than this.

I agree with you. It seems like Father is trying to formulate a position that is robust enough to handle any philosophy, from one that affirms the existence of the soul to one that doesn’t. I am not sure if he does a good job or not. That which establishes a being in its species is its form - in the case of a human, a rational soul. In the absence of the rational soul, it is not in the species rational animal. YET, St. Thomas Aquinas believed ensoulment happened 40 days or so after conception and was firmly against both abortion and artificial contraception. So to hold that even in the absence of a rational soul the embryo cannot be destroyed must not involve an internal contradiction. I just don’t know how.

I am interested to see other responses to this question. Great question.

 

[tobbias88]

I believe an embryo formed in the normal way definitely has a soul. Technically that’s what life is - without a soul = death. There are animal and vegetative souls as well as the rational human kind.

The intrguing question is whether embryos formed artifically will have souls. It would seem impossible that a cloned human being ( which will inevitably happen) could have a soul.

I believe the Church says that IVF babies do have souls since the male & female principles are involved. But if only one sex is used, would the resultant creature have a soul. And if it has no soul, can it be termed a ‘human’?

Spooky times we live in.

 

[Swan]

I have trouble believing that the soul enters the body at conception – for one thing, there is no “body” to enter. Further, I find it illogical that a soul would be placed into a fetus that was not sentient - not yet aware of its own existence – as is seems to be something of a contradiction. As for the second part about destroying the soul’s chance for eternal life, my belief system finds this to be illogical as well as I believe the soul exists as a “knowing” entity before birth (the “soul”/awareness being eternal) – it will simply be placed into another “body”. Also, in keeping with the Father’s argument, it would seem that if the “soul” were in the “body” before birth yet that pregnancy ended in miscarriage or stillbirth, would that not also end the soul’s chance for eternal life?

 

[mangy_dog]

Reading Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center answering a question on whether or not embryos have souls, I came across this argument towards the end.

His argument doesn’t seem to be put together well, but perhaps I’m reading him wrong.

At the end of the day, we cannot say for sure that embryos are in fact human persons, and if that’s the case, how can embryos be a part of the human species as Fr. Pacholczyk states? To be human is to have a body and soul (although not necessarily a body outside the womb I suppose).

Secondly, why is it immoral for a human person to interrupt the “destiny” of an embryo when nature or perhaps even God ends the “destiny” of an embryo in 15-25% of pregnancies through miscarriages.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m pro-life, but I’m just looking for better arguments than this.

“At the end of the day, we cannot say for sure that embryos are in fact human persons, and if that’s the case,…”

The premise, you see, needs to be correct. Embryos are in fact human persons…That is the case!

Involuntary abortions or miscarriages are acts of God. However, for a human person to cause or bring about that miscarriage, voluntarily - that is immoral.

Correct the premise and no one will “get you wrong”.

The better, simple argument is, " life begins at conception". God knows us before we come into being, that is, before our conception - He knows us.

 

[krokal]

The premise, you see, needs to be correct. Embryos are in fact human persons…That is the case!

But that’s not the case, necessarily. To be a human person, that being needs to have a body and a soul. It is possible, obviously, that embryos have both and are therefore persons, but it is also feasible that they do not have a soul when they’re created.

 

[mangy_dog]

But that’s not the case, necessarily. To be a human person, that being needs to have a body and a soul. It is possible, obviously, that embryos have both and are therefore persons, but it is also feasible that they do not have a soul when they’re created.

Your insistence on life not beginning at conception is necessarily the case.

Embryos have both. It is not feasible that they do not.

Remember the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.

 

[Brendan]

But that’s not the case, necessarily. To be a human person, that being needs to have a body and a soul. It is possible, obviously, that embryos have both and are therefore persons, but it is also feasible that they do not have a soul when they’re created.

The way to determine if there is a soul present is if there is

1. A body
2. It is living.

In which way does an embryo lack in either?

For a body to be alive, it requires a soul to animate it, that is the chief power of the soul.

 

[krokal]

The way to determine if there is a soul present is if there is

1. A body
2. It is living.

In which way does an embryo lack in either?

For a body to be alive, it requires a soul to animate it, that is the chief power of the soul.

From the article:

Interestingly, ensoulment has been discussed for centuries, and so-called delayed ensoulment was probably the norm for most of Christian history, with immediate ensoulment gaining some serious momentum of its own beginning in the 1600s (and representing the position most widely held today). Augustine seemed to shift his opinion back and forth during his lifetime between immediate and delayed ensoulment. In the 1200s, Thomas Aquinas held that human ensoulment occurred not right at the first instant, but at a time-point removed from the beginning. This, he argued, would enable the matter of the embryo to undergo development and become “apt” for the reception of an immortal soul from God (by passing through simpler initial stages involving “vegetative” and “animative” souls). Even today in various quarters, the discussions continue, with new embryological details like twinning and chimerization impinging upon the debate, and new conceptual questions arising from the intricate biology surrounding totipotency and pluripotency.

You guys are assuming that ensoulment begins at conception when that is not something that can be assumed, as both Fr. Pacholczyk talks about and Aquinas alludes to.

And Brendan, what about brain dead folks? Fr. Pacholczyk would seem to suggest in another article that people whose brains are dead are in fact “corpses, not patients”.
Fr. Pacholczyk:

All machines can be turned off at any time after the declaration of brain death, because brain-dead individuals are corpses, not patients. This is the harsh reality. One can choose to keep the life-support machines running a little while longer so as to sustain organs for transplantation, but such a decision is optional, not obligatory.

which leads me to conclude that their soul has left the body, however they’re still is a body present and they’re still living albeit through machines.

 

[JimG]

A soul is the life-principle of the body. As Brendan pointed out, if there is a human body which is alive, it de facto must have a soul. The human body begins at conception and ends at death. That’s been the consistent Catholic view.

But it still seems pointless to me to argue about ensoulment from a bioethics point of view, since many people do not even believe that such an entity exists. And a human soul, being immaterial, cannot be demonstrated biologically. But we know without doubt when a new human being begins–at conception. And human beings ought to be given equal protection as to their unalienable right to life.

 

[RachelsAlumni]

A human embryo is a human person at the beginning stages of his or her life.

Fr. Pacholczyk is a molecular biologist so he understands better than I do about when life begins, but I’ll give it a shot:

My lay understanding is that once an egg is fertilized it contains all the DNA, all the code for that unique individual person within those few cells. So that from the very beginning they contain who they are. Who they are develops from this stage to maturation, which I think is what is considered adulthood. We don’t exit the womb fully mature as adults. We are born helpless infants and continue our maturation outside the womb. It shouldn’t matter what stage we are in our development, we’re still a human person.

Here’s how Fr. Pacholczyk explains it:

Human embryos are already beings that are human (not zebra or plant), and are, in fact, the newest and most recent additions to the human family. They are integral beings structured for maturation along their proper time line. Any destructive action against them as they move along the continuum of their development disrupts the entire future time line of that person. In other words, the embryo exists a whole, living member of the human species, and when destroyed, that particular individual has perished. Every human embryo, thus, is unique and sacrosanct, and should not be cannibalized for stem cell extraction.

Fr. Pacholczyk gives this analogy:

…it is not necessary to know exactly when God ensouls the embryo, because, as I sometimes point out in half-jest, even if it were true that an embryo did not receive her soul until she graduated from law school, that would not make it OK to kill her by forcibly extracting tissues or organs prior to graduation.

A person’s a person no matter how small.

 

[RachelsAlumni]

I have trouble believing that the soul enters the body at conception – for one thing, there is no “body” to enter.

How big is your soul? or how big does a person have to be for the soul to fit? Where “in the body” does the soul fit? Is soul matter? What kind of matter and how much? If soul is not matter, then what would it matter how many cells a person has to in order for it to enter?

As for the second part about destroying the soul’s chance for eternal life, my belief system finds this to be illogical as well as I believe the soul exists as a “knowing” entity before birth (the “soul”/awareness being eternal) – it will simply be placed into another “body”.

"The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God."There’s a thread on CA about it here. and there’s another really good instruction on it here and he/she makes a very interesting proposition, I quote:

No Catholic can hold that the soul is not spiritual at the moment of conception and be a Catholic at the same time for it would be impossible to assent to the above dogma [Immaculate Conception] according to the sense in which the Church has defined it if one did so.

Also, in keeping with the Father’s argument, it would seem that if the “soul” were in the “body” before birth yet that pregnancy ended in miscarriage or stillbirth, would that not also end the soul’s chance for eternal life?

No.

“The immortal soul is the principle by which that person could come to an eternal destiny with God in heaven… and making his or her way to God.”

 

[cpayne]

I have trouble believing that the soul enters the body at conception – for one thing, there is no “body” to enter.

A human at conception does not have a fully mature body, of course. A human at conception has the sort of body a newly conceived human has. The fact that it is living and is directed toward its mature end as an adult human is enough to confirm it as a human.

 

[Brendan]

A human at conception does not have a fully mature body, of course. A human at conception has the sort of body a newly conceived human has. The fact that it is living and is directed toward its mature end as an adult human is enough to confirm it as a human.

Exactly.

A mustard seed ( to use the Lord’s own example), has a soul. It is a living entity.

It has the same soul that it has as a fully grown tree.

What the seed has is potentiality, as it matures, it moves towards actuality. But it still has a soul, and it is the same soul.

The same is true for the embryo. It has a body. The body has the potentitality to fully develop, but it is still a body. And if it living, it has a soul.

 

[Benadam]

how could a species be defined by one of it’s developmental stages? I’m assuming that is what would define the life animating the tissue? Embrionic parasite? or is it parasitic embreo?

 

[JimG]

how could a species be defined by one of it’s developmental stages? I’m assuming that is what would define the life animating the tissue? Embrionic parasite? or is it parasitic embreo?

Species are defined by biological characteristics, including, I presume, genetic makeup, which does not change during development. An individual of any given species remains an individual of that species during its entire lifespan from conception to death.

 

[Benadam]

Species are defined by biological characteristics, including, I presume, genetic makeup, which does not change during development. An individual of any given species remains an individual of that species during its entire lifespan from conception to death.

I think the ability to mate and produce young could be a boundary marker of species.

A pro-abortion argument is that the ‘tissue’ is a parasite and not yet a human.

 

[JimG]

I think the ability to mate and produce young could be a boundary marker of species.

A pro-abortion argument is that the ‘tissue’ is a parasite and not yet a human.

If the ability to mate and produce is a boundary marker for an individual of a species, then I guess we would have to say that no one is a human being until adolescence. And indeed, up to that time, (and beyond) they may be “parasites!” That’s a long time to go without the benefit of being human.