How could a human individual not be a human person?

[DanielJohn2300]

The brain serves a vital function for the body, and for centralizing sensory information for the soul, but is still just an organ of the body, an organ that doesn’t exist until well after implantation.

I agree, but the primitive streak forms only about a week after implantation, at a time called gastrulation. So, it’s a moot point; because by the time the mother finds out she is pregnant, the implanted embryo already has brain cells.

Oxygen exists in the environment of the Fallopian tubes and uterus, and the embryo absorbs it through diffusion. As the embryo grows and requires more oxygen it requires a connection to the blood supply, but it certainly respires before then.

Any oxygen that’s absorbed by the embryo before implantation is extremely negligent. The oxygen absorbed by our skin cells is extremely negligent too. Cellular respiration requires red blood cells to deliver oxygen & food to each cell and to collect carbon dioxide & waste from each cell. The oxygen comes from the inhaled air and the carbon dioxide goes to the exhaled air. A pregnant woman not only eats for two, but she also breathes for two.

 

[hope]

Excuse you. I read the entire thread before I posted and found none of the answers that I asked. I knew however before I posted that there are no Church documents that support your claims. There is a difference between what the Church teaches and what Theologians hypothesis. The classic claim is to state that the question has been answered of course that is just subterfuge to avoid answering when there is no answer.

 

[BlackFriar]

There is a difference between what the Church teaches and what Theologians hypothesis

Ah the old Church never taught geocentrism type denial of reality. Lets called it a “dissemination” then if “teaching” is too radioactive then. It makes little difference to the real world historical facts from what I can see.

 

[Ghosty1981]

I agree, but the primitive streak forms only about a week after implantation, at a time called gastrulation. So, it’s a moot point; because by the time the mother finds out she is pregnant, the implanted embryo already has brain cells.

It isn’t really a moot point when discussing the relation of the soul to the body, as it would be an error to say that the brain is the seat of the soul regardless of which stage of development it first appears in. The brain, no matter how central to our personality and actions, remains a bodily organ, and the soul is the vital principle of the entire body at once and not merely through the operation of a single organ.

Any oxygen that’s absorbed by the embryo before implantation is extremely negligent. The oxygen absorbed by our skin cells is extremely negligent too.

They are small cells, which is why little oxygen is needed. It is still cellular respiration, and the environment is sufficient to supply the needs of these cells. Even in tissues each individual cell is not supplied directly with blood from the circulatory system, but rather the oxygen and carbon dioxide diffuse through the bodily environment.

Cellular respiration requires red blood cells to deliver oxygen & food to each cell and to collect carbon dioxide & waste from each cell. The oxygen comes from the inhaled air and the carbon dioxide goes to the exhaled air.

This is quite simply not true. Cellular respiration occurs between cells and their environment; single cell eukaryotes also live by cellular respiration, after all. In a larger organism the circulatory system supplies oxygen and removes waste from the environment, but this is not an absolute requirement for cellular respiration as such. Embryos are small enough that they are able to respire within their environment; the amount of respiration is small because the requirements of so few cells is small, not because cellular respiration is absent.

A pregnant woman not only eats for two, but she also breathes for two.

Yes, and where does the oxygen in the Fallopian fluids come from? The mother is supplying the oxygen either way.

In short, if cellular respiration is the key sign of living human being then you must admit that the pre-implanted embryo is a human being. The blood supply is merely the vehicle for oxygen and carbon dioxide in the larger body, it is not a direct component of cellular respiration.

Peace and God bless!

 

[DanielJohn2300]

It isn’t really a moot point when discussing the relation of the soul to the body, as it would be an error to say that the brain is the seat of the soul regardless of which stage of development it first appears in. The brain, no matter how central to our personality and actions, remains a bodily organ, and the soul is the vital principle of the entire body at once and not merely through the operation of a single organ.

To be honest, I’m not interested in whether the soul has left a brain dead body, because that’s not a natural death. What I’m interested in is natural death; because if we want to correlate the beginning of the soul’s time in the body to the end of the soul’s time in the body, then we need to examine the natural end of the soul’s time in the body, since the beginning of the soul’s time in the body is natural. I’ll make two points and ask if you agree.

1. The natural end of the soul’s time in the body is when the body stops taking in oxygen and stops giving out carbon dioxide. Would you agree?
2. The natural end of the soul’s time in the body is also when every cell of the body stops taking in oxygen & food from the blood and stops giving out carbon dioxide & waste to the blood. Would you agree?

Thanks for challenging me. God bless.

 

[Ghosty1981]

To be honest, I’m not interested in whether the soul has left a brain dead body, because that’s not a natural death.

Fair enough. That is more of a secondary discussion that branched off of your original topic anyway.

The natural end of the soul’s time in the body is when the body stops taking in oxygen and stops giving out carbon dioxide. Would you agree?

I’m honestly not certain that the moment of true death can be p(name removed by moderator)ointed with such physiological certainty. I see where you’re going with this, and I would agree that this is a fair marker of death, but I wouldn’t put my name to saying that it is certainly death. Cardio-pulmonary death would seem to fit this definition, but I do not consider it true death; I’ve seen too many people routinely revived from such a state to consider it death. I would say that the surest marker of death is cell destruction, or necrosis, and this can occur on a small scale or on an organism-wide scale.

Death likely comes before necrosis, but I can’t say where exactly. I am more comfortable marking “moral certainty” when it comes to death rather than philosophical certainty.

The natural end of the soul’s time in the body is also when every cell of the body stops taking in oxygen & food from the blood and stops giving out carbon dioxide & waste to the blood. Would you agree?

I would say that this could also fit states of suspended animation, when a cell slows its metabolism to such a degree that respiration is not immediately required. I don’t know enough about human physiology to say whether or not this can occur organism-wide in a fully developed human body, and I don’t know if medical science has progressed far enough to even provide such an answer. This may be a case where something that is certainly death now may not be death tomorrow, as was the case with cardio-pulmonary death not long ago.

I would say that cellular respiration is a sure sign of life, but its absence isn’t a sure sign of death (to use o_mlly’s distinction from earlier). The sure sign of death would be the cessation of all vital activities without the possibility of revival, but this is one of those unsatisfying answers that is subject to moving goalposts as we develop better techniques for revival. At one time this definition covered cardio-pulmonary death, and now it doesn’t.

continued…

 

[Ghosty1981]

So, to bring this back to an earlier point your post:

What I’m interested in is natural death; because if we want to correlate the beginning of the soul’s time in the body to the end of the soul’s time in the body, then we need to examine the natural end of the soul’s time in the body, since the beginning of the soul’s time in the body is natural.

I would say that the beginning of human life is the beginning of vital activity in the human body. Since we no longer have the luxury of viewing the pre-implantation embryo as somehow inhuman, and it certainly has vital activity, it is a human being. Where there is a human body with life there is a human person, no matter the stage of development, and there is no single marker than can be held up as a vital sign above all others, because life is a complex series of activities.

Thanks for challenging me. God bless.

And thank you for pushing the subject forward and raising such questions for consideration. Let’s keep puzzling this out as we can. God bless!

 

[BlackFriar]

It isn’t really a moot point when discussing the relation of the soul to the body, as it would be an error to say that the brain is the seat of the soul regardless of which stage of development it first appears in. The brain, no matter how central to our personality and actions, remains a bodily organ, and the soul is the vital principle of the entire body at once and not merely through the operation of a single organ.

Its an interesting question. The brain is the one organ which gets treated differently from all the others. If it were possible to put just a head on life support and the person was capable of consciousness then we would readily say a human soul was present.
If the remainder of the body was successfully kept on life support we would not readily judge a human soul to be present.

Throwing the off switch would be morally wrought in one case only.

 

[DanielJohn2300]

Cardio-pulmonary death would seem to fit this definition, but I do not consider it true death; I’ve seen too many people routinely revived from such a state to consider it death.

Ah! I left out the adverb permanently. I think you would agree that death occurs when the body permanently stops breathing (when the cells, which make up the body, permanently stop taking in oxygen from the blood & giving out carbon dioxide to the blood). That is how I know that a soul is present from the time the body starts breathing (from the time the cells, which make up the body, start taking in oxygen from the mother’s blood & giving out carbon dioxide to her blood).

With that being said, I have no problem with those (such as yourself) who believe that the soul is present from the moment the ovum is fertilized, as long as they know that the soul is at least present from the moment the embryo is implanted in the womb. If we don’t know the latter, then we are in danger of making ourselves unknowingly complicit in prenatal homicide by voting in favor of abortion.

That’s why, for those who vote in favor of putting 3000 unborn children per day to death, I pray, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). The way that prayer gets answered is by our Father giving them the ears to hear the words of truth, and us the mouth to speak it (Acts 2:22-38). On Good Friday, our Lord asked our Father in heaven to FORGIVE those who voted for him to be put to death; and on the day of Pentecost, 3000 of them heard the words of truth, repented, and were baptized for the FORGIVENESS of sins.

 

[Ghosty1981]

Ah! I left out the adverb permanently. I think you would agree that death occurs when the body permanently stops breathing (when the cells, which make up the body, permanently stop taking in oxygen from the blood & giving out carbon dioxide to the blood).

I think I can go with that. It reminds me of the “warm and dead” principle in emergency medicine: if a body is hypothermic it may not be detectibly living because everything has slowed down or temporarily ceased, but a room temperature body with the same characteristics is likely truly dead.

With that being said, I have no problem with those (such as yourself) who believe that the soul is present from the moment the ovum is fertilized, as long as they know that the soul is at least present from the moment the embryo is implanted in the womb. If we don’t know the latter, then we are in danger of making ourselves unknowingly complicit in prenatal homicide by voting in favor of abortion.

Fair enough. I just put considerable weight on clear vital activity of the embryo before implantation because I believe that vital activity in a human body equals a human person. I can understand where your’re coming from, I just don’t put as much weight on where the oxygen is coming from but rather simply that respiration is occuring. I will also add that I don’t limit vitality to respiration, but merely view it as a clear indicator of life.

That’s why, for those who vote in favor of putting 3000 unborn children per day to death, I pray, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). The way that prayer gets answered is by our Father giving them the ears to hear the words of truth, and us the mouth to speak it (Acts 2:22-38). On Good Friday, our Lord asked our Father in heaven to FORGIVE those who voted for him to be put to death; and on the day of Pentecost, 3000 of them heard the words of truth, repented, and were baptized for the FORGIVENESS of sins.

Agreed! God bless!

 

[blackforest]

Replying to the OP: I don’t have time to sift through 400+ posts. The bottom line is that it’s impossible unless you’re a bigot. “Personhood” is a socially constructed abstraction conferred upon individuals thought to matter enough to have basic human rights.

 

[Cathoholic]

DanielJohn2300 . . .

How could a human individual not be a human person?

They cannot “not” be a “person”.

The soul is immediately created by God, and those persons are ensouled by our Lord and God immediately.

All human beings are persons with a soul.

After they physically die, their soul and body separate.

The soul immediately goes to God for your particular judgment.

At the end of the world, we all undergo our General Judgment (which all will see).

At the end of time, everybody gets their bodies back as well. Everybody.

For the saved, their bodies will be an instrument of glorification in a sense.

For those who definitively had rejected God, (died in that state of rejecting saving grace) will experience the pain of loss. But they too get their bodies back. These bodies will be part of their choice for everlasting suffering too.

God bless.

Cathoholic

 

[BlackFriar]

The soul is immediately created by God, and those persons are ensouled by our Lord and God immediately.

If you are opining it is settled Church doctrine that zygotes receive human souls at conception please give us the respect of reading quickly through this thread. You will find you are mistaken, one of the few points agreed above.

 

[Ender]

My diocese has come up with a set of Definitions and Guidelines for Creating an Advance Medical Directive which includes this definition as part of "A review of concepts used in Catholic moral teaching and important medical and legal terms to assist individuals and families in developing a use, Christian-based Advance Medical Directive."

Brain Death - Defined by the medical profession and state law as the irreversible loss of all brain function, from which recovery is not possible. Brain death can be established with certainty based on strict guidelines that have been established by the neurological profession.(11)

11 - Practice Parameters for Determining Brain Death, summary statement of the American Academy of Neurology, September 24, 1994 (Neurology 1995; 45:1012-1014). Reaffirmed January 13, 2007

 

[Cathoholic]

BlackFriar (to me) . . .

please give us the respect of reading quickly through this thread.

That is a reasonable request BlackFriar.

I’ll go back and read through the 400 plus posts (but this seems like pretty basic catechesis).

.

BlackFriar

If you are opining it is settled Church doctrine that zygotes receive human souls at conception please give . .

You know how I am going to respond to THAT BlackFriar.

.

BlackFriar

If you are opining it is settled Church doctrine that children receive human souls at by the time they are two years old, please give . . .

.

DanielJohn2300. What is happening here is people who deny immediate creation of the human soul and placement of that soul in the young PERSON (BlackFiar uses a biologic term sometimes used by some, to prop up a weak theologic position), use the term “zygote”.

This is reasonable, but you must realize that a human “zygote” is of the HUMAN species, it undergoes cellular respiration, has its own personal genetic compliment, utilizes energy, is undergoing mitosis, is giving off heat, and is GROWING.

Non-living things like “rocks” don’t have these characteristics.

So we know this “zygote” is a HUMAN, and it is LIVING.

I’m not saying BlackFriar is trying to buffalo you here. I am just saying SOME people use terms and arguments like this to undermine the personhood of these . . . . Human Persons.

 

[BlackFriar]

Nobody respects a guy who comes late to an intense home movie and then expects his mates to hit the pause button and explain what he missed.

If you are unwilling to skim read prior posts to discover you are trying to reinvent the wheel, and mistakenly so at that, then I leave you to your solipsistic windmill tilting.

 

[Cathoholic]

BlackFriar . . .

Nobody respects a guy who comes late to an intense home movie and then expects his mates to hit the pause button and explain what he missed.
.
If you are unwilling to skim read prior posts to discover you are trying to reinvent the wheel, and mistakenly so at that, then I leave you to your solipsistic windmill tilting.

WHAT?

Good night what an over-reaction!

I already said I 'd go back and read all 400+ posts.

I thought the question was pretty basic catechetical teaching mixed in with some common sense.

I thought DanielJohn2300 would appreciate a simple direct answer.

And now I am getting a barrage of insults from you BlackFriar (“nobody respects”, “if you are unwilling to skimread” [actually I DID “SKIMREAD” BlackFriar. Now I am going to go back and SLOWREAD], and “your solipsistic windmill tilting”).

My posts have not called for any of these insults from you.

DanielJohn2300. I’m going to blow off BlackFriars comments, go back and read the posts, and I’ll be back in the next day or two (maybe sooner).

 

[BlackFriar]

Your response was:

I’ll go back and read through the 400 plus posts…

I suggest the unecessary repeated emphasis on the “400 plus posts” looks like mild sarcasm.

If I am mistaken I apologise, but perhaps you could have posted a little less ambiguously.

 

[Cathoholic]

BlackFriar . . .

I suggest the unecessary repeated emphasis on the “400 plus posts” looks like mild sarcasm.
.
If I am mistaken I apologise, but perhaps you could have posted a little less ambiguously.

No apology needed. I have pretty thick skin.

No sarcasm was intended. (Why would it be taken as sarcastic when I explicitly said it was a “reasonable” request?)

As I said, I already skimmed them. I thought the post from thistle (post # 200 was easy to remember and I had that in the back of my mind even before my first post) was an excellent application of catechesis along with common sense.

I’ll be back here.

 

[Cathoholic]

Hello DanielJohn2300.

Well I’ve read each post here and I gotta say, the answer to your question is still the same.

Your question again?

How could a human individual not be a human person?

Those “human individuals” cannot “not” be a “person”.

They ARE people.

The soul is immediately created by God, and those persons are ensouled by our Lord and God immediately.

.

Just as thistle said in post 200 (quoting James) “The body without the spirit is dead”.

Ask yourself if these tiny persons in their embryonic development stage are “dead”?

(thistle gets a common sense award here)

.

St Augustine just assumes people know body and soul are part and parcel to life (and they DO know. That’s WHY he could use this as an analogy to the Church and the Holy Spirit).

.

“What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the members of Christ, that is, the body of Christ, which is the Church.” (Saint Augustine)

.

All living human beings are persons with a soul.

After they physically die, their soul and body separate.

The soul does not perish at the moment of death when it is separated from the body. This same soul will be once again reunited with the body at the end of time.

The soul immediately goes to God for your particular judgment. Etc.

Ignoring these implicit teachings, sometimes some people will attempt to argue that there isn’t anything “explicit” about when ensoulment occurs.

Ask them if that PRINCIPLE means you can deny ensoulment in a two-year old kid?

Does SHE (or he) have a soul?

Of course.

Well the Church has never given us THAT EXPLICIT teaching either!

But it HAS taught us implicitly.

But we don’t want to fall into pedantics or some form of “scrupulosity” about the Church not saying “EXACTLY this" or “EXPLICTLY that" . . . . about ensoulment.

The Church has said more than enough for us to know (along with the biology that we now KNOW about “living” organisms) that ensoulment is IMMEDIATE.

The catechesis that we have, and common sense are enough to see, ensoulment occurs IMMEDIATELY (and from God) in a new baby in the embryonic stage.

CCC 366a The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God . . . .

And these souls are NOT put on the “shelf” until later. This is WHY St. Basil could talk about pre-existence of souls back in the 300’s A.D. as “absurd nonsense” . . . .

ST. BASIL THE GREAT That is the absurd nonsense of Origen who lays down the doctrine of the priority of the existence of souls.

—St. Basil. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Book 4. Chap. 6.

.

“Human individuals” cannot . . . . “NOT” be a “person”.

Human individuals ARE PERSONS.

Not corpses, not zombies, not blobs of tissue. Persons.

Ensouled persons.