Is the church's teaching that "life begins at conception" scientific and not a matter of faith/morals?

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…yah, what the title of the thread asks

wouldn’t this be a matter of science since it deals when a human is made, etc…thus, not making this teaching infallible?
 
No. It deals with when the soul is present, a metaphysical element of our humanity. The Church does not teach at what point the soul is infused into the body. The Church teaches from the first moment of conception the new life must be protected and respected.
 
Yes it is a matter of the biological sciences (which say yes life begins at conception)

The teaching that abortion is a grave sin (very grave indeed) (at any point from conception to birth) is a matter of Theology and of the Teaching of the Church.
 
Actually, yes, it is scientific, and it is now an established fact that life does begin at conception. The entire genetic code is formed immediately, and the process of growth (cell division) begins as well. At that moment, everything from eye color to gender, even down to any genetic disorders are determined. It is “alive” in every sense of the word.
 
prodigalson2011 said:
Actually, yes, it is scientific, and it is now an established fact that life does begin at conception. The entire genetic code is formed immediately, and the process of growth (cell division) begins as well. At that moment, everything from eye color to gender, even down to any genetic disorders are determined. It is “alive” in every sense of the word.
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Great Answer. If you have any links to this info, could you post them please? I could really use it in some discussions I end up in quite often
 
It is, in fact, all three. Science has only recently confirmed what has always been taught as a matter of faith and morals. Faith is absolutely not opposed to science, rather it guides and illumines its practice.
 
prodigalson2011 said:
Actually, yes, it is scientific
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While science may coincide with Church teaching, the Church is not teaching science. The Church is stating a doctrinal truth of faith and morals about human life. It is based on the human person being made in the image and likeness of God-- i.e., presence of a spiritual soul.
 
1ke said:
No. It deals with when the soul is present, a metaphysical element of our humanity. The Church does not teach at what point the soul is infused into the body. The Church teaches from the first moment of conception the new life must be protected and respected.
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(Bold is mine.)

I believe you are mistaken regarding the bolded line. The soul is the life of the body, and the Church most definitely teaches that life begins at conception, which means tht the soul is infused into the body at conception.
 
Does anyone really belief that life does NOT start at conception? How bizarre is that?:confused:
 
The Church’s teaching is something that science backs up.

At conception, the embryo becomes a distinct person - it has its own chromosomes, etc., and all it does from that point on - all the way into adolescence, in fact, is grow larger and more complex.

There is no more obvious point of departure from the parent that conception… no legitimate biologist would disagree. Those that are pro-abortion simply refuse to say "baby,’ etc. about the embryo, but that’s just a semantical game.
 
jpjd said:
(Bold is mine.)

I believe you are mistaken regarding the bolded line. The soul is the life of the body, and the Church most definitely teaches that life begins at conception, which means tht the soul is infused into the body at conception.
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While it is implied, you won’t find any document that says it directly. I know, I’ve looked.
 
1ke said:
While science may coincide with Church teaching, the Church is not teaching science. The Church is stating a doctrinal truth of faith and morals about human life. It is based on the human person being made in the image and likeness of God-- i.e., presence of a spiritual soul.
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That is all I meant, in much the same way we now know that the Church’s teaching that the universe was created from nothing is a scientific truth. Likewise, science has confirmed what the Church has always taught about life: that it begins at conception.

Also, regarding your first post:
No. It deals with when the soul is present, a metaphysical element of our humanity. The Church does not teach at what point the soul is infused into the body. The Church teaches from the first moment of conception the new life must be protected and respected.
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How does the doctrine deal with the presence of the soul if the Church does not teach at what point the soul becomes present? A little inconsistent there. 😉
 
This doctrine is more to do with faith than with morals, but only insofar as faith is required for any natural knowledge.

Yes, it’s a statement of scientific fact, but that doesn’t mean we could be wrong about it. We have plenty of evidence to prove that at virtually the moment of conception, an entirely new pattern of DNA is formed, and thus, the new life begins at that very moment.

I apologize if I’m jumping the gun a little, but I want to cover as much of the topic as I can. If you’re asking only the first question, you needn’t read past the first answer.

Is this a matter of scientific fact? Yes.

Is there some possibility this might be wrong? I don’t see how.

Even if it was wrong, would it change the church’s moral teachings on the subject of the unborn? No.

Are those teachings infallible? You betcha.
 
chief714 said:
Great Answer. If you have any links to this info, could you post them please? I could really use it in some discussions I end up in quite often
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princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html - quotes from numerous scientific publications

prolifephysicians.org/lifebegins.htm - Fertilized egg meets all criteria to be scientifically defined as alive.

naapc.org/why-life-begins-at-conception - several scientists discuss the matter and one points out that, despite their efforts, the pro-choice crowd has never found a scientist who would testify in court that life doesn’t begin at conception

nationalreview.com/articles/226168/when-life-begins/robert-p-george - Another clear cut explanation from a Princeton scholar

Good luck in your debates. So many pro choicers are in denial, ignoring the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community and claiming there is no generally agreed upon answer. Which is a bald-faced lie. Visit some pro abortion blogs. All they have to offer are red herrings and Christian character assassination. One even told some outrageous and obviously fabricated story of a pro lifer rushing into a burning fertility clinic where a mother and her new born child were trapped and saving the 200 frozen embryos stored there while leaving the woman and child to burn to death. His point? Christians only care about the unborn. Of course, this entry was met with praise from the clinic workers and libertines who frequent his sorry excuse for a blog, saying it was “so true.” The lies these people tell themselves to help them sleep at night. :nope:
 
Ben_Sinner said:
…yah, what the title of the thread asks

wouldn’t this be a matter of science since it deals when a human is made, etc…thus, not making this teaching infallible?
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when life begins is a moot point, imo. but it doesnt begin at conception. whatever life we see comes from already living components. it just adopts new forms, just as those components adopted their form at some point, also from preexisting life.

from one of those links:

princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html
“The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum… But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down.”
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the components necessary in the case of humans are human themselves (of humans).
 
hazmat said:
when life begins is a moot point, imo. but it doesnt begin at conception. whatever life we see comes from already living components. it just adopts new forms, just as those components adopted their form at some point, also from preexisting life.

from one of those links:

princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html
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I disagree. The MATERIAL for new life comes from preexisting life, but that material is not ittself living. Sperm and eggs do not contain, on their own, the necessary components to be considered living things: a complete DNA code, the potential for growth, etc. Scientifically, life is considered to begin to exist when these things are present. This happens upon conception. So while new life must be preceded by a preexisting life, there is still a decisive moment when that particular life, with its unique DNA, begins to exist, and that is at the moment of conception. I think you took that quote out of context.
 
The importance of philosophy (along with empirical science and church moral teaching) should not be under-estimated.

For example some thorny issues which may not have been adverted to in this discussion:
  1. What exactly does “conception” mean. It is not as clear cut as we might first think when one tries to define clearly and exactly what it means. Good to remember that the church (and the secular world) knew nothing of fusion of egg and sperm in its teaching on human reproduction until only very recent times. The modern meaning of this word (is it a new word?) seems to be ambiguous.
  2. How exactly do we define “human life” and how would we recognise it in something that does not look human? Because its got human DNA (thats pretty modern, obviously the church couldn’t have relied on this method for the last 1800 yrs)? Because its from human parents? When a human soul is infused (how do we know when that happens)?
  3. Mainstream church teachers in medieval times assumed that what we now call the conceptus or embryo, while alive, was not “human alive” until a much later time.
The above does not make a hoot of difference to church moral teaching which of course holds that abortion at any stage of pregnancy is a grave evil.

But I am suggesting that the evil of abortion, in traditional church teaching/debate, may not have centred wholly and soley around the horror of the killing of an innocent human life as we Catholics seem to think today.
 
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