How could a human individual not be a human person?

[Ghosty1981]

In fact the Church has traditionally assumed that the immortal human soul is a truth of reason and not of faith. It was considered a “scientific fact” by the ancients.

In fact secular “science” of the day was pro soul. It was considered simply a fact of reason, of science. That is why the Church built on it. Nothing really to do with faith at all - but obviously supporting Christian religion.

That is why I mentioned philosophy specifically. I am a firm believer in the use of reason to infer the existence of the immaterial soul, particularly when it comes to the unique operations of the human mind. Informed reason and philosophy are not the same as hard science, however, and when it comes to the life of the zygote we do not have the ability to assess the immaterial operations of a mind.

My point is that the distinction you are making between the human individual at conception, and the human individual at 14 days after conception, is not well founded. Whether the conceptus is a person is a mystery, but whether it is a human individual is not. Your attempts define person based on the traits of the zygote are seriously flawed and at odds with the actual science. If there is indeed evidence of a change in the manner of ensoulment at that stage it is not evident in anything you have described.

What we have at 14 days is observably the same type of life that we have at conception, and after birth, but observably quite different from the life of a gamete; it is possible that a change in the soul occurs at some time between conception and birth, but we don’t have grounds to base this conclusion on.

When the ancients made their observations about the soul in the womb they based them on the best evidence they had at the time. As our understanding has progressed we have found that defining moments such as the “quickening” are far less significant than previously assumed, and don’t represent a change in the nature of the being in the womb.

I am open to arguments that a change in the soul, or kind of soul, occurs between conception and birth, but such arguments should be well-founded and reasonable. To say, for example, that the change occurs at 14 days and is evidenced by the fact that twinning does not occur after this point is to ignore the nature of twinning and the function of the genome, as I explained in my previous post.

Personally I tend with John Paul II when he rhetorically asks how a human individual could not be a human person; the thrust is that a human individual is very much present at conception, not merely 14 days later, and we have no reason to presume that a human individual has something other than an immaterial soul. It may indeed have a vegetable or animal soul, as the ancients concluded and theologians followed, but we no longer have solid reason to believe this.

 

[BlackFriar]

My small point was that you appear mistaken to say:

That immaterial souls exist is a question of Faith

It is not really a question of faith, the Church holds it to be an ancient established fact of reason…as it also holds re proving the bare existence of God.

Your attempts define person based on the traits of the zygote …

I don’t believe I have done so.

What I have done is observed that a human organism certainly cannot be true to Thomistic/Aristotelian “person” principles without being permanently and irreversibly individuated. Embryology suggests that is by no means certain before the 16 cell stage as far as I am aware.

If you are saying the original single zygote can still twin after two weeks then obviously, if we think like Aquinas did with these new embryological insights, we have to move that timeline. I personally have no investment in any particular time - only the philosophic issue of permanent individuation being a necessary condition of personhood…(it still may not be a sufficient one.)

If we do not accept that irreversible individuation is necessary to be called a person then that’s fine, but it means we must throw away the Church’s traditional understanding of the soul.

That’s fine with me, afterall we did the same for the same “ancient science” that also reckoned the planets were eternal and immutable and moved by angels, that hell was literally beneath the earth and God’s heaven literally at the outer limits of outer space (beyond the sphere of the last planet). Maybe it is time we did away with the notion of an Aristotelian soul as well. The notion did not come from religion but from the same “ancient science” which has been largely discredited by modern science…so we are told.

 

[JimG]

I would note that the Church considers the human soul to be wholly immaterial—a spiritual entity. It does not occupy space, yet is intimately united to the body. If twinning occurs then obviously a new human soul is created. One cannot observe the creation of a new soul but it can be inferred from the twinning. I do not see this is a problem.

 

[BlackFriar]

The problem is:
(a) Twinning can apparently be done with a lancet simply teasing any of the 16 cells off from a loosely “gelatinised” zygote bundle.
(b) Twinning can be reversed by pushing that cell back into the gooey zygote bundle (before the bundle goes from the omnipotent stage to the pluripotent stage). That former “twin” then goes on to forming the single embryo just as it would have before it twinned in the first place.

Is the man operating the lancet making truly human spiritual souls then reuniting those souls (the single cell and the 15 cell zygote) with the flick of a lancet and a microscope? When it is merged back into the bundle is that single soul now gone to heaven/limbo? And if he pulls it out again 5 mins later does God have to create a new soul for that cell or is the immortal soul that went to limbo reactualised back in that cell again? And if he pulls out a different cell second time around is it a new soul God creates…or is the soul from the now remerged other cell that went to limbo reactualised?

Or are there actually 16 brother souls actuating each cell in the zygote and only after these cells start differentiating into different parts of a single individual embryo (after the 16 cell stage) do we say there is now only one soul. But which of the 16 souls is that one soul? The one that goes on to form the brain perhaps?

So these are the difficulties we face if we say a single spiritual intellective soul (ie a “human person”) is present at the moment of conception. If we want to keep soul theory that is.

So it appears less than credible to say personal, spiritual, intellective and immortal human souls are being created, destroyed, created again. It seems more credible to say we are dealing with a material (vegetative) soul and not a spiritual (intellective) soul.

That is, not an individual human spiritual soul at all but rather a human vegetative (material) soul (e.g. like a fungal colony) as the DH (delayed hominization) guys have always contended. The concept of “individual” is pretty fluid in vegetative organisms … but not so much in the concept of “human person”.

 

[o_mlly]

So it appears less than credible to say personal, spiritual, intellective and immortal human souls are being created, destroyed, created again. It seems more credible to say we are dealing with a material (vegetative) soul and not a spiritual (intellective) soul.

I think it possible to wrap the developing science of human re-generation into our existing understanding that God ensouls at conception.

The man with the lancet cannot create or destroy a soul. He can, like all parents in the procreative act, manipulate materials and their proximity to one another to cause conditions under which God participates in the creation of human life, ensoulment.

God also participates in the creation of any other human person that may generate from the conceptus. If the conceptus, a human person, can be manipulated to become two or more human persons naturally or unnaturally, then the conceptus possesses this potential for only the period of time when twinning is possible. (A parallel example is the woman whose potential for mothering is limited to the time of her menstruation.) That is to say, the conceptus is a human person capable of solitary regeneration for a time ~ 16 days (?). Parthenogenesis is known to occur in the animal world.

If the twinning occurs naturally or unnaturally and only one person is born then a human person has died. The immortal soul of that person, as all other souls, cannot be destroyed.

Granted the above is merely a mental gymnastic to force the new science into an existing metaphysical understanding but I think it holds.

 

[BlackFriar]

Yet you have not tackled the difficult questions raised at all for soul talk if you accept an immortal soul (as opposed to a material soul) is given at conception.

 

[Ghosty1981]

It is not really a question of faith, the Church holds it to be an ancient established fact of reason…as it also holds re proving the bare existence of God.

Which is why I included philosophy in both of my responses. Please.

What I have done is observed that a human organism certainly cannot be true to Thomistic/Aristotelian “person” principles without being permanently and irreversibly individuated. Embryology suggests that is by no means certain before the 16 cell stage as far as I am aware.

If you are saying the original single zygote can still twin after two weeks then obviously, if we think like Aquinas did with these new embryological insights, we have to move that timeline.

Then you must conclude that you are not a person now. Your genome can “twin” now, in the proper environment. It is called cloning, and it is the propensity of every somatic genome with the right environment.

If we do not accept that irreversible individuation is necessary to be called a person then that’s fine, but it means we must throw away the Church’s traditional understanding of the soul.

Show me where the Church teaches that personhood is defined by “irreversible individuation” in the manner that you speak.

The fact of the matter is that your notion of “individuation” is poorly defined if it requires that a new person can’t develop from an already existing individual’s whole genome. Whether this new person is a called a twin or a clone is purely a matter of timing.

You are right now just as much a potential twin as an 8 day old zygote is, so you are not a person according to your definition. You are also a potential bonemarrow donor or recipient, meaning your body could be built from the cells of another person, making you not a person according to your definition. No human being has ever been a person, in your definition, except accidentally by virtue of their environment; personhood is the result of the lack of exposure to cloning technology, not because of an inherent property of nature.

The problem lies not in the definition of an individual, nor in the Church’s definition of personhood, but in your failure to appreciate the facts that we now know about biology and adjust your philosophy to match. Defining personhood by the irreversible individuation of the body has always been a failed definition, unless you propose that conjoined twins are a single person, or that personhood is an accidental property. You propose that the ability of the zygote to become two people is indicative of a vegetative soul, despite the fact that beings that you readily claim to have a rational soul possess the same capacity.

 

[Ghosty1981]

(a) Twinning can apparently be done with a lancet simply teasing any of the 16 cells off from a loosely “gelatinised” zygote bundle.

Twinning can also be done to an adult by teasing the nucleus out of a mammary cell.

(b) Twinning can be reversed by pushing that cell back into the gooey zygote bundle (before the bundle goes from the omnipotent stage to the pluripotent stage). That former “twin” then goes on to forming the single embryo just as it would have before it twinned in the first place.

Individuation of an adult can be reversed by transplanting bonemarrow from a donor to a recipient. The recipient will now produce the donor’s blood cells, complete with the donors DNA. If you were to make a clone from the nucleus of a blood cell from the recipient’s body, this “twin” might be the identical twin to either the donor or the recipient!

So is the recipient of a bonemarrow transplant a new individual, or are they simply materially augmented by the DNA of the donor? If you answer that they are merely augmented by the DNA of the donor, then there is absolutely no problem in admitting that the zygote that absorbs another is merely materially augmented in the same way. If the donor of bonemarrow does not cease being an individual just because another person will be producing the donor’s cells, then there is no reason to suppose that the zygote that loses some cells, those cells then growing on their own into a separate individual, has lost its individuality in the process.

If individuality does not fall into doubt due to bonemarrow transplants or cloning, then there is no reason to suppose that individuality is lost in the process of twinning a zygote.

If we can accept that I have a personal, spiritual, intellective, and immortal human soul now, and we can accept that a subsequent clone of me, or transplantation of my bonemarrow, does not contradict this reality, then we should reasonably conclude that the same holds true for the zygote. It is, after all, just as individuated as I am now in its nature, but like me it can produce a genetic copy given the proper environment; that it is more susceptible to such cloning is a matter of accidental factors, just as the fact that I am more susceptible to being a bone marrow transplant today than my ancient ancestors were is a matter of accidental factors.

 

[TheOldColonel]

Upon seperation of the soul from the body at death, the body-soul composit no longer exists and the prerequisite for exercise of personhood is absent. The body alone is not prosopon. Neither is the soul alone prosopon. Apart from some extraordinary intervention my God, there is only a soul unable to express personhood. St. Thomas Aquinas found this a bit troubling. I do as well.

 

[BlackFriar]

Then you must conclude that you are not a person now. Your genome can “twin” now, in the proper environment. It is called cloning, and it is the propensity of every somatic genome with the right environment.

Well when the dandruff under my bed mixes with a little leaking rain water and a spark from my extension cord to form a Harry Potter Valdemort hallcrux clone emryo as under a white bench I’ll be sure to remember you and take such an argument more seriously. Me, I think a lancet teasing apart a zygote a little more indicative of a true intrinsic material possibility.

That immaterial souls exist is a question of Faith

Sorry you are mistaken here. Its a question of reason. So I have no real idea what you mean by this.

Twinning can also be done to an adult by teasing the nucleus out of a mammary cell.

OK, but so what??

As for the rest I dont undsrstand what you are on about.
You seem to think any cell with full dna is somehow just as potential as a zygote to gain full rational humanity. Thats silly. Feed them both appropriate nutrients and come back to us re which of the two becomes a human baby. Cleary both are not yet fully human, but in very different ways. One has an intrinsic potential to be so…the other seems inherently limited in that regard.
You seem to be oversold on dna here.

 

[BlackFriar]

The issue is not personhood as such. Its the existence of a determinate rational soul. Even disembodied souls, while not strictly “persons”, are still rational, immortal and individual.

 

[o_mlly]

Yet you have not tackled the difficult questions raised at all for soul talk if you accept an immortal soul (as opposed to a material soul) is given at conception.

A theory that new scientific observations demonstrate that a progression of souls from vegetative at conception to human (sometime before birth) relies on a false premise that actuation precedes potentiality. Leave alone, the bizarre notion that two humans procreate to conceive a vegetable, such a falsehood opens the door to allow aborting unwanted fruits and vegetables.

The difficulty you imagine stems from your putting the “chicken before the egg” mentality; putting the observable expressions of an organism before its soul.

In the hierarchy of living things, rational souls possess all the life defining potentials of lesser living things. A person can express all the life defining properties of a vegetable or an irrational animal. The process does not work in reverse. No vegetable will ever locomote, no irrational animal will debate the nature of its soul.

The collection of cells does not determine its soul. Rather the soul determines its collection of cells. The soul is not animated by its cells. The cells are animated by its soul. The potential of the cells to function resides in their soul. When the cells are no longer able to express the animations prompted by its soul, the cells die. Or, equivocally, the soul departs the cells.

The comatose person in a vegetative state is still a person. So too is the zygote that expresses only vegetative actions.

 

[TheOldColonel]

But that’s just it. How can a disembodied soil be rational? It has not brain for such activity. That’s precisely the problem that concerned St. Thomas Aqinas.

 

[BlackFriar]

… a false premise that actuation precedes potentiality. Leave alone, the bizarre notion that two humans procreate to conceive a vegetable, such a falsehood opens the door to allow aborting unwanted fruits and vegetables.

Well the traditional ensoulment view must also suffer from the same flaw then (no intellective human soul because the embryo does not yet have a brain organ).

And given it is still acceptable today I don’t think I need to defend the alleged “flaw”.

such a falsehood opens the door to allow aborting unwanted fruits and vegetables.

Well that seems to contradict tradition when condemns all abortions from the moment of conception, whether quickened or unquickened.

You may call the unquickened “vegetables”, though I think that is disrespectful of such human life.
We are to accord such human life the same respect as a human person even if it may not yet be so.

 

[o_mlly]

Well the traditional ensoulment view must also suffer from the same flaw then (no intellective human soul because the embryo does not yet have a brain organ).

How so? Does not EV p 58. state the traditional view?

But no word has the power to change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth.

And expanded in p 60 to incorporate modern science as corroborating what has always been held:

60. Some people try to justify abortion by claiming that the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life. But in fact, “from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and … modern genetic science offers clear confirmation. It has demonstrated that from the first instant there is established the programme of what this living being will be: a person, this individual person with his characteristic aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization the adventure of a human life begins, and each of its capacities requires time-a rather lengthy time-to find its place and to be in a position to act”.57 Even if the presence of a spiritual soul cannot be ascertained by empirical data, the results themselves of scientific research on the human embryo provide “a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?”.

Well that seems to contradict tradition when condemns all abortions from the moment of conception, whether quickened or unquickened.

What do you mean by “quicken”? If you mean “comes to life” then it is merely a qualification with no distinction. If you mean “movement” then the conceptus displays quickening with its first cell division.

You may call the unquickened “vegetables”, though I think that is disrespectful of such human life.

We are to accord such human life the same respect as a human person even if it may not yet be so.

To respect a thing is to see it as it really is. As I believe the terms human being, human life and human person are identities, I do not disrespect. Rather, I think one who see human lives as different than human persons disrespects the latter.

 

[TheOldColonel]

I think we see many examples of this in Congress.

 

[BlackFriar]

You are the one who spoke of conceiving vegetables.
Nor do you seem to understand what quickening means, nor the delayed hominisation theological teaching of old.

If you did you would not make the scholarly and philosophical error of conflating human life, human person, human individual and human being as all meaning the same thing in Magisterial texts.

No wonder you cannot make consistent rational sense of such documents. Until you accept there are traditional distinctions that must be made converse with you is not only fruitless but impossible.

Rather, I think one who see human lives as different than human persons disrespects the latter.

Well you just condemned the mainstream view of tbe Church commonly held until around 100 to 200 years ago.

 

[o_mlly]

You are the one who spoke of conceiving vegetables.

No. It was you who ascribed a vegetative soul to the conceptus. Please do not put your error onto St. Thomas as he did not have the empirical data that you and St. JP II had to correct St. Thomas’ error.

If you did you would not make the scholarly and philosophical error of conflating human life, human person, human individual and human being as all meaning the same thing in Magisterial texts.

The error is all yours, friend. Cite the magisterial texts that support your position.

No wonder you cannot make consistent rational sense of such documents. Until you accept there are traditional distinctions that must be made converse with you is not only fruitless but impossible.

Such distinctions are all in your mind, friend, not in Magisterial texts.

Well you just condemned the mainstream view of tbe Church commonly held until around 100 to 200 years ago.

The Church’s view is evidenced not in the speculative theologians viewpoints but in Magisterial texts. Do you have any? I think not.

 

[JimG]

But that’s just it. How can a disembodied soil be rational? It has not brain for such activity. That’s precisely the problem that concerned St. Thomas Aqinas.

Rationality is in the soul. It is the soul which has the faculties of intellect and will—that is what makes us rational persons. The brain and sensory system are merely data integration organs used by the intellect which resides in the soul.

 

[TheOldColonel]

Once again, without a body, how may it be expressed?