How could a human individual not be a human person?

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Every human being is by nature a human person. Personhood is not defined by abilities, but by the fact of being an individual of the human species.

Every human individual has his or her beginning as a unique human individual at conception.
 
If you posit a vegetative soul, that would suggest evolution of the soul. A changing of its type. But looking at the evolution question in regards to human souls, we know it would be contradictory to Truth to say human souls came from non-human as opposed to being created fully human by God.

Another point to ponder is that to abort a human child is intrinsically evil. But abortions of animals are permissible when done in stewardship. So let’s imagine a hypothetical where a woman gets pregnant and we’re at the point immediately after conception. At the same time that the child is conceived, they implant inside the fallopian tube and an ectopic pregnancy will happen with no intervention. If this was the case of an animal embryo, a chemical abortion would be within moral bounds in stewardship of the mother animal. But in the human case, to directly do so would be an intrinsically evil abortion. (Of course double effect does allow for a moral solution, but the purpose of this hypothetical is to discuss direct abortion.) The position of protecting life from conception to natural death comes to mind. If the embryo in this example were indeed just a vegetative soul with no personhood, a direct abortion would not be in contradiction to morality.

If I have misunderstood your points, please do clarify. But from what I know, the humanity of a person is there from conception.
 
mVitus said:
If you posit a vegetative soul, that would suggest evolution of the soul. A changing of its type. But looking at the evolution question in regards to human souls, we know it would be contradictory to Truth to say human souls came from non-human as opposed to being created fully human by God.
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I am afraid I didn’t get past this sentence. Its not me positing this its the Church, and for the last 1800 years or so.

So there is likely something not right in your understanding of body and soul above.
Perhaps a read up on the theology of delayed hominization will assist:
http://www.faith.org.uk/article/march-april-2014-st-thomas-aquinas-and-abortion
 
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BlackFriar said:
What sort of unique person can split into twins by teasing the first two cells apart…and then later go back to being one person again if the two sticky cells are pushed back together?

If you try and posit the existence of human souls (persons) at this stage you quickly run into some very difficult theological questions about death, life, same souls, different souls.
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If only the vegetative power of the human soul is operating then making twins poses a difficulty. If is a vegetative soul that isn’t human, that poses a difficulty.
But when it comes to a human that is alive, human life is a continuum. In that respect there is no difficulty. What science can do with the vegetative state of human life doesn’t conflict with the human person because human life is a continuum that begins at conception.

I think the theological solution is the omniscience of God. God knows if a single material conception is going to be unnaturally divided and be two persons. The vegetative powers of two human souls would be animating the one material conception.imho
 
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Thanks everybody for the suggestions. So far, we have a few ideas about what the physical characteristic of personhood could be, something the body DOES (ie. moves), something the body IS (ie. not dead) and something the cell IS (ie. developed). Perhaps, it is something the cell DOES? Is there something each cell stops DOING when we die?
 
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Even a mere novice in biology can answer. I’m
Not sure whether to humour it or not.

To make the answer more theologically consistent and albeit indirect, you might say Cells are God ‘breathed’. That’s what they all have going for them. Respiration ceases, so too then does cellular function in short order.

I take the stance that you exist when your own unique DNA strand is fused. You are alive from the moment you exist as a separate entity from the person carrying you. Which is almost immediate.

I don’t debate Abortion and anything surrounding it anymore however. It’s murder, either pre, or after any elements of development - since it is still deprivation of life, bereft of imput from the person being killed. How tiring the subject gets (yes I know, why comment :roll_eyes:)
 
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It’s rhetorical.

The fertilized ovum is a unique, genetically complete human being.

It needs nothing more to become “more human”.

Development doesn’t drive individualization.

Instead: Individualization drives all development.
 
We are not human because we move.

We are human because we have a complete, living, and unique set of genetic instructions.

All development is driven from this conceptus.

It’s not like the baby develops…and then it becomes unique, complete, living.
 
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"This Congregation is aware of the current debates concerning the beginning of human life, concerning the individuality of the human being and concerning the identity of the human person. The Congregation recalls the teachings found in the Declaration on Procured Abortion: ‘From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a new life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of 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. To this perpetual evidence… modern genetic science brings valuable confirmation…’ This teaching remains valid and is further confirmed, if confirmation were needed, by recent findings of human biological science which recognize that in the zygote resulting from fertilization the biological identity of a new human individual is already constituted. Certainly no experimental datum can be in itself sufficient to bring us to the recognition of a spiritual soul; nevertheless, the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo provide a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of this first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person? The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature, but it constantly reaffirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion. This teaching has not been changed and is unchangeable.

“Thus the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life. This doctrinal reminder provides the fundamental criterion for the solution of the various problems posed by the development of the biomedical sciences in this field: since the embryo must be treated as a person, it must also be defended in its integrity, tended and cared for, to the extent possible, in the same way as any other human being as far as medical assistance is concerned…”
-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect
February 22, 1987
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…which was eight years before Evangelium Vitae came out in 1995.

Was John Paul II quoting Ratzinger? Or did Ratzinger help write Evangelium Vitae? 🙂
 
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BlackFriar said:
There is no answer because nobody knows when the foetus definitively gains a human soul…so nobody knows exactly when a human life form becomes a human person.
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As Maximilian75 said, it was a rhetorical question. The answer was already given: “It would never be made human if it were not human already.” A human life is a human person from the moment of conception. “…modern genetic science offers clear confirmation… Right from fertilization the adventure of a human life begins.”
The DH theory has never been rescinded by the Church.
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It isn’t clear that the church taught that a “pre-quickened” fetus wasn’t human, only that she didn’t teach that it was. That is, she could say with assurance that after a certain point a fetus was a person, but she didn’t say what it was before that point because she didn’t know. Not saying it is a person is not the same as saying it is not a person.
The Pope is clearly saying that the foetus’s right to life derives from its human origin…not by any scientific theories re the presence of a human soul.
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There can never be any scientific evidence for the existence of a soul. What science can tell us (and has unambiguously done so) is that a human life exists from the moment of conception. Any distinction between a human life and a human person or a human being is entirely arbitrary.
 
Right, just like the Church never officially taught geocentrism for 1500 years?
 
I think you really mean all human life means a human person exists?

Well, as is well known to historians, like geocentrism, the Church in fact largely assumed otherwise for 1700 years.

It is still debated in Catholic scholarly/philosophic circles.
The old delayed hominisation view has never been denied by the Church, though its certainly on the back burner like limbo.

So you are certainly entitled to this view, but do realise the delated hominisation view is still acceptably held.

The problem may be a clear understanding of what “person” means in the DH teaching. Its the same word as when we say there are 3 Persons in the Trinity.
Very different from what it means in modern english.
 
Ender said:
There can never be any scientific evidence for the existence of a soul.
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That in itself is an interesting side topic.

How did Greek philosophy come to the conclusion that humans must have spiritual souls?

It seems because the science of the day, and reason, logically necessitated this conclusion.

It doesnt come from Judaism which was undecided on the matter…and indeed had no word of its own that really matched the Greek meaning of soul. As the books of the Bible get closer to Jesus’s time the soul talk there begins…but it is clearly borrowing from Greek meanings and mixing them up with Hebrew understanding of mortal spirits.

Christianity has a confused understanding of soul until medieval times when the Greek philosophy of soul was rediscovered. It is what the Church has used ever since. Almost pure Aristotle, and therefore based on the science of his day and deductive reasoning.
 
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Benadam said:
If only the vegetative power of the human soul is operating then making twins poses a difficulty
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What is the difficulty?
Or are you agreeing with the difficulty I observe with IH (immediate hominisation).
 
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Ender said:
It isn’t clear that the church taught that a “pre-quickened” fetus wasn’t human
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Not sure this is really the teaching.
The teaching as I understand it was that it the soul was always generically human but not intellectively human. First a vegetative human soul, then an animal human soul then an immortal intellective human soul which is spiritual not material.
 
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A human being without a human soul is a contradiction.

Aquinas, of course, had no idea of genetics or embryology. Now, we do. Science can never see a human soul. It can see when a new individual o the human species has its beginning. It begins at conception. The new individual is genetically distinct from mother and father, and will have distinct characteristics. It’s not half human, part human, or less than human. It is a new member of the human species.

It’s a new human being, and it’s directing its own development. Mom is not directing it’s development, nor are external forces. It is on a journey of development, which will be complete by at least age 24 or so.
 
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JimG said:
A human being without a human soul is a contradiction.

Aquinas, of course, had no idea of genetics or embryology.
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Yet the Church assumed exactly this for 1700 yrs for very well thought out reasons.

Is a living sperm still human?
Is a cultured cell still human?
These are difficult issues.

Why do you think genetics/embryology has better clarified that full ensoulment occurs at conception?

BTW noone is really saying the DH soul is that of a mandrake or a chimpanzee. Its human in some way (it is a human embryo afterall) but not a fully complete human soul being only vegetative or animal in its potentials. As such that soul is material not spiritual.
 
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