Human souls before conception

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To tell you the truth, it’s not about God’s knowledge of us. I didn’t know how to word the question properly…
 
Oh, I thought you clarification in post 3 said that is what it was about. Are you asking if souls exist before conception?
 
No. I wasn’t asking if souls existed before conception. What I was trying to ask is that before being united with matter, is the soul already individuated? I ask because Aquinas held that matter is the principle of individuation.
 
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God creates the soul “immedfiately” upon conception. He knew of tht soul from all eternity, but it did not yet exist. If He knew of souls that would never be, He would be an illogical deity.
 
Actually Aquinas and most of the Scholastics held the view that you are going against.
 
How can that happen if it does not exist? Still confused, seems obvious.
 
No. But the Catechism omits some parts that the Church has held that aren’t pertinent to salvation, like stuff on speculative theology. For this kind of stuff look at Denzinger.
 
You might want to look at writings on speculative theology written by the Church fathers or other orthodox catholic theologians.
 
tafan2 said:
  1. God creates a "temporary " non human soul and replaces it later on
The latter option seems absurd, does it not?
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I don’t think it sounds absurd at all. The way one priest explained it to me (and he was SSPX, or rather SSPX-affiliated) in an adult catechism class, there may first be a soul (i.e., a life principle) such as would be appropriate to a plant, then a soul such as a tadpole would have, then one such as a goldfish would have, then, at some point, God infuses an immortal human soul.
 
Seems like a strange way of doing it to me, but I admit I am not Good, and I suppose that’s why the Church hasn’t made a definitive statement. At least I got the two options right 🙂
 
Sbee0 said:
The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.
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I don’t think the word “immediately” here means “at the very moment that conception takes place”, rather, it means “without any mediation” (im-mediate, just as “im-mature” means “not mature”, or for that matter, “im-mortal” means “not mortal”), ex nihilo, if you will. Just to clarify.
 
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lbadiola said:
Note, I mean in God’s mind
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We can’t understand God, let alone his “mind” (whatever that means)

As Aquinas said, we can choose between
(1) perfect knowledge of imperfect things or
(2) imperfect knowledge of perfect things

But can never achieve perfect knowledge of perfect things.

It seems today’s culture much more concerned with (1), whereas around time of Aquinas the culture was more concerned with (2)
 
I will look up Aquinas’s thoughts in the Summa, but in the meantime can you give me a brief synopsis? By the way, you are now referring to the Fathers as opposed to the School Men, I suppose the thoughts on this are somewhat different between the two?
 
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lbadiola said:
Does the human soul already come individuated before conception?
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I understand (I am a Hindu) that there are several billion souls in existence in the spirit world (some have said about 60 billion of them in total) and out of these about 7 billion are currently in incarnation (in physical bodies).

There is a queue of souls waiting to be born (or reincarnate) on Earth and as a woman conceives, one of the waiting soul is assigned to be born as her child (as long as the both parents/family are an appropriate/suitable one for that soul). So the soul exists before conception.
 
Aquinas didn’t have accurate knowledge in the field of biology, as his views about it were coming from Aristotle, whose opinions were simply wrong. Because of these reasons Aquinas opposed immaculate conception, which is now a dogma of the Church.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
Is this in fact the Church’s teaching? I don’t think so. The soul is created and infused at some very early point, but we do not know if that is at the moment of conception or some point thereafter. Aquinas said 40 days for a male and 80 days for a female (not sure why he made that distinction, and not too happy about it, but if it were reality, we’d have to accept it regardless).
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Aquinas was wrong and at odds with the Church teaching. The Church teaches life begins at conception and that the soul is created immediately.

CCC 2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

CCC 2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

CCC 366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.

CCC 382 “Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity” ( GS 14 § 1). The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God.
 
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