Roe V. Wade and St. Thomas

[Huiou_Theou]

Hi.

I’m trying to pin down exactly what St. Thomas said regarding conception.
Roe V. Wade apparently mis-cites Thomas’ opinion as church Dogma. (Which is false.)

I have located where Thomas made the remarks which Roe V. Wade is talking about:
“Commentary on the Book of Sentences” Book 3, d3, q5, a2 response

But I have neither a Latin nor an English translation of the question.
I would like to verify exact what Thomas said. Does anyone have the Latin of the above question and response? or an English translation of it?

I think Thomas understood conception to be a process, not a point in time.
Therefore the word “conception” would have been used in the Catholic Church with the ambiguous connotation that Aquinas had. So, we really can’t interpret older history based on new scientific observations about when life begins, or determine when ensoulment happens, but I’d like to correlate the two.

I think Thomas understood that the substance of a man (eg: modern haploid sperm) was not a man. A man’s substance doesn’t have the potential to develop into a human being by itself, eg;without fertilization in a woman’s uterus. eg: human life begins at fertilization.

But I think that legally, all attempts to stop the process once fertalization happens, whether or not ensouled immortally, would automatically be the equivalent of negligent manslaughter. For no one can determine if a human being was there or not (the spirit being intangible). I’d like to know, though, to what degree Thomas’s opinions truly affected canon law.

I’m fairly sure that Thomas would have deduced that Sperm/seed, does not contain a fully human in potential, once it leaves the man’s body. Such a haploid substance would necessarily be animated by an animal soul, not an immortal human soul. (As anyone can see under a microscope.) Though I’m not sure how Thomas would have viewed the process. eg: seed acting upon blood of the woman, perhaps? to become an animal, and then God creates a soul (intellect) which is added to that which is merely a human animal?

Secondly, several sites/sources indicate that Canon law used to have less severe penalites for abortion in the first 40 days of gestation (eg: prior to “quickening” / the first feelings of motion of the child.). Does anyone have a link to the old codes of canon law, pre 1500’s, that could verify exactly how the crime/punishent was written about?

 

[grannymh]

Hi.

I’m trying to pin down exactly what St. Thomas said regarding conception.
Roe V. Wade apparently mis-cites Thomas’ opinion as church Dogma. (Which is false.)

I have located where Thomas made the remarks which Roe V. Wade is talking about:
“Commentary on the Book of Sentences” Book 3, d3, q5, a2 response

But I have neither a Latin nor an English translation of the question.
I would like to verify exact what Thomas said. Does anyone have the Latin of the above question and response? or an English translation of it?

I think Thomas understood conception to be a process, not a point in time.
Therefore the word “conception” would have been used in the Catholic Church with the ambiguous connotation that Aquinas had. So, we really can’t interpret older history based on new scientific observations about when life begins, or determine when ensoulment happens, but I’d like to correlate the two.

I think Thomas understood that the substance of a man (eg: modern haploid sperm) was not a man. A man’s substance doesn’t have the potential to develop into a human being by itself, eg;without fertilization in a woman’s uterus. eg: human life begins at fertilization.

But I think that legally, all attempts to stop the process once fertalization happens, whether or not ensouled immortally, would automatically be the equivalent of negligent manslaughter. For no one can determine if a human being was there or not (the spirit being intangible). I’d like to know, though, to what degree Thomas’s opinions truly affected canon law.

I’m fairly sure that Thomas would have deduced that Sperm/seed, does not contain a fully human in potential, once it leaves the man’s body. Such a haploid substance would necessarily be animated by an animal soul, not an immortal human soul. (As anyone can see under a microscope.) Though I’m not sure how Thomas would have viewed the process. eg: seed acting upon blood of the woman, perhaps? to become an animal, and then God creates a soul (intellect) which is added to that which is merely a human animal?

Secondly, several sites/sources indicate that Canon law used to have less severe penalites for abortion in the first 40 days of gestation (eg: prior to “quickening” / the first feelings of motion of the child.). Does anyone have a link to the old codes of canon law, pre 1500’s, that could verify exactly how the crime/punishent was written about?

I may be able to help…

However, I do not have all the resources you are looking for.

 

[Lucretius]

St. Thomas did see the soul as something that developed: that first the creature created the vegitative aspect of the soul, and then the sensitive aspect, and then the rational aspect (with the rational aspect being what defines and human being/person). He was just following the best science at the time, actually.

This concept also motivated his objections to the Immaculate Conception. If Mary doesn’t have a rational soul at conception, she can’t have Sanctifying Grace by default.

You will notice however, that even though the current science did not see abortion as on the same moral level as murding a newborn, both were still considered mortal sins. The advances in science have only shown that abortion is worse than the Medievals thought!

Here’s a quick article from CA: catholic.com/quickquestions/did-st-thomas-aquinas-believe-ensoulment-occurred-40-or-80-days-after-conception-maki. I disagree when the article claims that Aristotle’s concept of the soul is not comparable with the Biblical concept somewhat.

On another note, St. Thomas seems to have tried to fix his misunderstandings on conception: catholicnewsagency.com/news/another_champion_of_abortion_becomes_defender_of_life_the_story_of_stojan_adasevic/

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[marymary1975]

I dont have a link but i can tell you that both St Thomas and St Augustine are constantly misquoted and taken out of context by pro choices who love to argue that they were in favor of abortion and that is wrong. They were only trying to figure out when ensoulment happens and that based on a very primitive knowledge of gestation. Hopefully someone else can give you the links but I think the argument is deceptive as it is like saying that modern medicine is wrong because 300 years ago doctors used to say or do something different.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

St. Thomas did see the soul as something that developed: that first the creature created the vegitative aspect of the soul, and then the sensitive aspect, and then the rational aspect (with the rational aspect being what defines and human being/person). He was just following the best science at the time, actually.

This concept also motivated his objections to the Immaculate Conception. If Mary doesn’t have a rational soul at conception, she can’t have Sanctifying Grace by default.

You will notice however, that even though the current science did not see abortion as on the same moral level as murding a newborn, both were still considered mortal sins. The advances in science have only shown that abortion is worse than the Medievals thought!

Here’s a quick article from CA: catholic.com/quickquestions/did-st-thomas-aquinas-believe-ensoulment-occurred-40-or-80-days-after-conception-maki. I disagree when the article claims that Aristotle’s concept of the soul is not comparable with the Biblical concept somewhat.

On another note, St. Thomas seems to have tried to fix his misunderstandings on conception: catholicnewsagency.com/news/another_champion_of_abortion_becomes_defender_of_life_the_story_of_stojan_adasevic/

Christi pax,

Lucretius

Hi Lucretius,
Pachum Christi. I agree totally concerning the mortality of the sin.
But, I’m not entirely sure that Thomas “misunderstood” conception from a Catholic Dogmatic perspective even though he came to a wrong conclusion. Mary could not have had sin prior to having an intellectual soul. The material of the human body, being dust of the earth, is without sin until a human/intellectual soul begins to inform the material. (My thought is oversimplified, but I don’t know how to express myself better right now).

Conception, as a process, may have allowed parents to interfere with it. Even Psalm 51, could refer not only to the initial sexual act and fertilization but ongoing sexual relations and specifically adultery after the child was already conceived.
A child is formed over time.

Note the actual definition of the immaculate conception does reference prior Roman doctrine which states that the soul was infused into a body.

papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9ineff.htm

based on the belief that her soul, in the first instant of its creation and in the first instant of the soul’s infusion into the body

Even in the papal encyclical, you’ll notice, that there are references to different instants and instances of conception. I’ve seen translations of the definition in the past which said something like,"… preserved free from original sin from the first moments [plural] of her conception."

But a body must be presupposed to exist for a soul to be infused into a body.

There is a technical issue in the translation which is not consistent across the years that I have read the material.

Therefore, I suspect the translation’s accuracy: What the church understood “conception” to mean when the encyclical was written, and what the scientific community in the united states calls “conception” now are quite possibly two different ideas.

I do, however, tend to think the Aristotelian concept of “soul” is different from the biblical/Christian one that Catholics have come to accept. In what way do you see them as compatible?

The human soul is holistic, not something which can be compartmentalized.
So, when the church talks about “infusing”, I think that automatically means that any other animal soul or other life principle which existed before that/those moment(s) became transformed, very much like transubstantiation. That which forms/informs or holds the body together, became radically different.

The Russian doctors dream, which is private revelation, is also curious. Infants which die in original sin, alone, are expected to descend to hell, immediately according to Catholic Dogma. They, however, are not to be punished for sins they never committed.
In the dream, there is evidence that the children had not forgiven the doctor or were afraid he could still “hurt” them. Both of which are signals that the children in his dream were not in heaven. But I am puzzled as to why Thomas would have pointed to children in the age of 4 to 24 as being those whom the abortion doctor killed.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I dont have a link but i can tell you that both St Thomas and St Augustine are constantly misquoted and taken out of context by pro choices who love to argue that they were in favor of abortion and that is wrong. They were only trying to figure out when ensoulment happens and that based on a very primitive knowledge of gestation. Hopefully someone else can give you the links but I think the argument is deceptive as it is like saying that modern medicine is wrong because 300 years ago doctors used to say or do something different.

Hi Mary.
Yes, I agree. The argument in the brief for Roe v. Wade is deceptive.
And I do see propaganda on the web that supposedly the church accepted early term abortions at one point or at very least failed to punish early term (pre 40day) abortions as murder. What is surprising, is that I don’t see any easily found Catholic responses which actually go to the original sources and prove from them that the rhetoric is false. Even using Google and Yahoo for a few hours, I was unable to turn up a single person who actually cited and copied the text from St. Thomas or Augustine and did an expose.
That’s why I am asking here, and preparing to document exactly what I find.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

OK. I found a Latin copy:
corpusthomisticum.org/snp3002.html

Just plugging the response into Google Translate, gives a crude idea of what is being said:

[7906] Super Sent., Lib. 3 d. 3, q. 5 a. 2 a. I answer, that the conception of Christ, according to the faith must be that suddenly there is placed: the human nature had assumed before, as he was not in its own species was completed and they are not assumable, except by reason of the whole with its parts, as is clear from what was said in 2, dist., Qu. 2, art. 3 quest. 1. Now the properties of human nature is not predicated of the Son of God, accidents, before the assumption. Therefore, everything that is human is said to be the Son of God, did not precede the completion of human nature. The conception of the Son of God that, as is clear in the Creed, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, etc. is prior in time, therefore, we must ensure that the complete nature of the conception of Christ was not of his flesh, and thus it follows that at the same time was being conceived and conceived: and because of that it is necessary to lay down that the conception of the sudden, so that we in the same instant, that is, the conversion of that blood into the flesh, and the other parts of the material of the body of Christ, and the formation of the members of the organizational and the animation of an organic body, and the assumption of a body of an animated being, in the unity of the Divine Person. In other cases, however, this in successive stages of cases, so that the conception of the soul is perfected only as far as the fortieth day of the sea, as the Philosopher says in 9 of the cattle, and the women was up to the ninetieth. Augustine seems to accrue to the body of a male, however, in the completion of the six days, such that they are distinguished, according to him in the letter to Jerome. The first six days, as it were the likeness of the seed of the milk she gave; Nine days turned into blood; After twelve days to solidify; is formed into a perfect ten and eight days of the outlines of the limbs; is increased, and hence it is now the size of the rest of the time, even to the time of His birth; hence the verse, six in the milk of the day, they are in the blood of three times three, two groups of six to the flesh, the old members of the three times figure. In Christ, however, the conception of the matter supplied by the Virgin: and as soon as he received the form and shape of the human body, and the soul, and to the unity of the divine persons are to be adopted.

hmmm… Thomas clearly is talking about conception as a process which happens much later than fertalization, he doesn’t exactly speak of ensoulment – but he does speak of the formed matter receiving a soul.

Perhaps someone with better Latin skills can improve the translation.

I don’t see that St. Thomas, would have believed that an immortal human soul with original sin exists at the moment of fertilization. For he clearly understood conception to be a process when the form of the human body became visible at around 18 days, and was fully animated by the 40th day (for males).

Although, killing of an infant before the 18th day would still be mortal sin, the sin would not necessarily damn an infant to hell in Thomas’s view. Clearly, later term abortions would have an immortal soul infused into them…
So, the question is one of manslaughter, not necessarily murder.

Human life begins at fertalization, but the creation of the immortal soul is at an unknown time.

 

[grannymh]

Human life begins at fertalization, but the creation of the immortal soul is at an unknown time.

The definitive answer on God’s immediate creation of the spiritual soul is found in the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition. Please read CCC 20-21 for the explanation of small print.

It is the immediate immortal soul which animates conception so that a living human is immediately present in the womb.
**CCC 364 **The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.
**CCC 365 **The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

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.

​

Links to the Catechism
scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/

 

[thinkandmull]

St. Thomas did see the soul as something that developed: that first the creature created the vegitative aspect of the soul, and then the sensitive aspect, and then the rational aspect (with the rational aspect being what defines and human being/person). He was just following the best science at the time, actually.

This concept also motivated his objections to the Immaculate Conception. If Mary doesn’t have a rational soul at conception, she can’t have Sanctifying Grace by default.

You will notice however, that even though the current science did not see abortion as on the same moral level as murding a newborn, both were still considered mortal sins. The advances in science have only shown that abortion is worse than the Medievals thought!

Here’s a quick article from CA: catholic.com/quickquestions/did-st-thomas-aquinas-believe-ensoulment-occurred-40-or-80-days-after-conception-maki. I disagree when the article claims that Aristotle’s concept of the soul is not comparable with the Biblical concept somewhat.

On another note, St. Thomas seems to have tried to fix his misunderstandings on conception: catholicnewsagency.com/news/another_champion_of_abortion_becomes_defender_of_life_the_story_of_stojan_adasevic/

Christi pax,

Lucretius

Thomas Aquinas believed Mary, as a human, had original sin for a period of time. So this had nothing to do with Aquinas’s thoughts on biology

 

[Huiou_Theou]

The definitive answer on God’s immediate creation of the spiritual soul is found in the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition. Please read CCC 20-21 for the explanation of small print.

It is the immediate immortal soul which animates conception so that a living human is immediately present in the womb.CCC 364 The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, …

CCC 365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

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.

I see a point which needs clarification/verification;

The word “Immediate” can mean at the first possible instant, but it can also mean without “mediation”. The context of CCC366 is that the parents do not have a part in creating the spiritual soul. The clarifying text says nothing about time, but only about who is the creator of the spiritual soul. That points to the meaning of “immediate” not defining “when” the immortal soul is infused into the body but only who is the source.

Now, notice: CCC365 talks about the “soul” being the “form” of the body.
St. Thomas also clearly indicated that he believed the shape/form of the body was evident by the 18th day after the substance of the man and woman (milk/blood) came together? If the translation is correct, and he says “day”, then Thomas believed the form of the body was in existence before even modern science says it is. Modern photomicrographs show crude form of the body at around 6 weeks (36 days).
But Thomas is not that far off, and his error makes his opinion more conservative than that of modern biology.

There is also a supporting legal issue that people such as Pope Innocent III did not have definite proof that what was in the womb was en-souled with an immortal (as opposed to mortal) soul at all times. Hence the charge of “murder” was uncertain and possibly overly severe for women who procured abortions before the definite signs of human animation were present. That’s why I’d like to find out exactly how canon law treated women who procured abortions in the time between Innocent III and the council of Trent.

Lack of proof does not give license to kill, as there could be an immortal soul even before the “form” of man becomes visible. That’s why I would still say abortion is negligent homicide or manslaughter. There is a definite risk which the killer has an obligation to verify before killing, but which they can not do. Therefore, they kill based on a guess or personal assessment and not based on knowledge.

However, I am bothered that even now there is no infallible declaration that the first moment of fertalization is when the immortal soul is infused into a body. Even the dogma of the Immaculate conception indicates that Mary’s immortal soul was infused into a pre-existing (and therefore living) body.

Since a man’s sperm is clearly motile (animated) because it swims, it must have an animal soul. Since sperm leaves the man’s body and continues swimming whether in a natural discharge, unnatural discharge, or during intercourse; the man’s sperm could not be considered to have an immortal soul without simultaneously holding that billions of humans die every day of natural causes. I have never seen anyone in the church actually teach such a thing, so I seriously doubt such a position is tenable.

Sperm are genetically haploid and none of them will ever become a full human being that walks the face of the earth. They must first “die” in fusion with an ovum/egg in a woman before becoming a child in the womb.

Scripture also says, “for you created my inmost being in the womb.”(Psalm 139;13) and “Among [man] none knows what is the way of the spirit: as the bones are hid in the womb of a pregnant woman”. (Ecclesiastes 11:5) “And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils.” (Genesis 2:7)

Also note, scripturally, that the “Breath of life” is “spirit”, and the spirit/life is in the “blood”. That is, in scripture, the seat of the spirit is the blood which carries life.

That’s why our salvation comes through the shedding of blood, upon the cross, and the return of that purified blood (purified spirit) to be sprinkled upon us.

I don’t yet see how the economy of salvation rests on the the spirit/breath/blood, and yet many insist that a child before even having blood and breath of their own would have an immortal soul. I don’t know how these two things reconcile.

Although we might pick at St. Thomas’ biology as being less exact than our own; none the less, Thomas clearly understood something which correlates to modern biology eg: that the modern concept of ovum/egg correlates to the ancient concept of the woman’s milk or blood. Yet if the mother’s spirit is not at all involved in the creation of the child’s, then I find it difficult to make any certain pronouncements on the en-soulment of a child without an infallible decree from the church. There is something very much missing in the logical arguments and even church teaching as to when en-soulment occurs and why.

I’m not at all convinced that modern biology would have changed St. Thomas’s opinions much at all, even if he had access to them.

 

[thinkandmull]

I agree with your last sentence there Huiou Theou. Many are conditioned to believe that the presence of DNA means there is a full human being. However, this is from conditioning in our society. Presenting pictures and explanations of DNA to someone from the middle ages good provoke a different response.

Does anyone know **where **Aquinas wrote that by the 18th day the shape of a human is there?

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I agree with your last sentence there Huiou Theou. Many are conditioned to believe that the presence of DNA means there is a full human being. However, this is from conditioning in our society. Presenting pictures and explanations of DNA to someone from the middle ages good provoke a different response.

Does anyone know **where **Aquinas wrote that by the 18th day the shape of a human is there?

The same passage I quoted has 18 days with regards to the limbs.
Thomas says:

                ... is formed into a perfect ten and eight days of the outlines of the limbs

The conjunction “and” generally means to add, so 10 + 8 = 18.
So Thomas appears to be saying that arms and legs are discernible by the 18th “day”.

The link I gave in the previous post is to a Latin copy of the same text.
I’m not sure where 18 comes from, except that St. Thomas arrives at the figure after talking about 6 three times.

I know from studying Genesis, that the order of creation (time of formation) is 6 days, arranged in a pattern of 3x2. The final day of the week, the seventh, is when God rests (enters the temple?) and is not mentioned by Thomas for that comes after formation is complete. So, I think that Thomas may be referring to the story of creation in Genesis.
Notice Aquinas also speaks of the “sea” where I expected the word womb, and he mentions St. Augustine. I am unsure of his exact references, but the connections are highly suggestive of an attempt to reconcile biblical creation with that of a child.

The full DNA of a person is present even in skin cells, which we sluff off every day. So, DNA is still just the “matter” that the intellectual soul forms/informs. The state, or “epigenetic” conditions of the matter affect whether or not the church treats the cell as imageo dei, or merely cells.

For example, the fertilized egg splits into stem cells; one set becomes the placenta, the other becomes the child. The genetic code in both, however, is identical. Yet, in spite of cautions against “bodily mutilation” which Christianity/Catholocism talks about, medical doctors routinely cut half the genetic child off when the placenta is removed. And circumcision is another such mutilation. Yet, no one thinks that removing nearly half a child’s body mass by tying off the umbilical cord, salting it (drying it), or cutting it off is murder. Yet that body, the placenta, had to have had at least a vegetative soul in order to be alive.

Curiously, Jesus received his name (AKA “God saves”), at the moment he was first recorded as having been cut and his blood presumably shed by a priest. His name was given before he existed, but not attached to him until the circumcision on the eighth day after his birth.

Note: Many of the eastern rites do not believe Jesus was delivered through the vaginal canal, with placenta. Rather God miraculously brought him forth preserving Mary’s virginity in a special way.

On the other hand, Roe V. Wade is about law, not so much about theology and biblical study except where legal precedents are concerned.
Early church views of when a person has a soul may not be very relevant.
I’m just wanting to understand the history better for myself.

 

[thinkandmull]

to me

“The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature” John Paul II approved. vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

So the argument from DNA is not conclusive. Maybe something has greater ontological worth once is has flowered beyond a certain stage. The existence of functioning organs seems to me to be the point where someone is a person. Slave traders use to say that blacks weren’t fully people. Hilter and the Germans said that Jews were like dogs. However, when someone loves children, they will be concerned whether they are killing one or not, even if just in possibility. Obama said in an interview that he doubted whether any knew when life began. So he is ok with people maybe killing babies!

Huiou Theou, its not just the Easter than speaks of a miracle at Jesus’s birth

“But as the Conception itself transcends the order of nature, so also the birth of our Lord presents to our contemplation nothing but what is divine. Besides, what is admirable beyond the power of thoughts or words to express, He is born of His Mother without any diminution of her maternal virginity, just as He afterwards went forth from the sepulchre while it was closed and sealed, and entered the room in which His disciples were assembled, the doors being shut; or, not to depart from every*day examples, just as the rays of the sun penetrate **without breaking or injuring **in the least the solid substance of glass, so after a like but more exalted manner did Jesus Christ come forth from His mother’s womb without injury to her maternal virginity. This immaculate and perpetual virginity forms, therefore, the just theme of our eulogy.” The Catechism of Trent

“The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man.” 499, Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Pope Paul IV’s “Cum quorundam” (7 August, 1555) spoke on this too, but so far I can’t find it. Anyone know?

 

[thinkandmull]

Hi Lucretius,
Pachum Christi. I agree totally concerning the mortality of the sin.
But, I’m not entirely sure that Thomas “misunderstood” conception from a Catholic Dogmatic perspective even though he came to a wrong conclusion. Mary could not have had sin prior to having an intellectual soul. The material of the human body, being dust of the earth, is without sin until a human/intellectual soul begins to inform the material. (My thought is oversimplified, but I don’t know how to express myself better right now).

Conception, as a process, may have allowed parents to interfere with it. Even Psalm 51, could refer not only to the initial sexual act and fertilization but ongoing sexual relations and specifically adultery after the child was already conceived.
A child is formed over time.

Note the actual definition of the immaculate conception does reference prior Roman doctrine which states that the soul was infused into a body.

papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9ineff.htm
Even in the papal encyclical, you’ll notice, that there are references to different instants and instances of conception. I’ve seen translations of the definition in the past which said something like,"… preserved free from original sin from the first moments [plural] of her conception."

But a body must be presupposed to exist for a soul to be infused into a body.

There is a technical issue in the translation which is not consistent across the years that I have read the material.

Therefore, I suspect the translation’s accuracy: What the church understood “conception” to mean when the encyclical was written, and what the scientific community in the united states calls “conception” now are quite possibly two different ideas.

I do, however, tend to think the Aristotelian concept of “soul” is different from the biblical/Christian one that Catholics have come to accept. In what way do you see them as compatible?

The human soul is holistic, not something which can be compartmentalized.
So, when the church talks about “infusing”, I think that automatically means that any other animal soul or other life principle which existed before that/those moment(s) became transformed, very much like transubstantiation. That which forms/informs or holds the body together, became radically different.

The Russian doctors dream, which is private revelation, is also curious. Infants which die in original sin, alone, are expected to descend to hell, immediately according to Catholic Dogma. They, however, are not to be punished for sins they never committed.
In the dream, there is evidence that the children had not forgiven the doctor or were afraid he could still “hurt” them. Both of which are signals that the children in his dream were not in heaven. But I am puzzled as to why Thomas would have pointed to children in the age of 4 to 24 as being those whom the abortion doctor killed.

I was going to private message this question to you, but I think its deactivated in your server. Anyway, are you saying that there is a discrepancy in the Latin text of Pius IX’s decree on the Immaculate Conception. Or just in the English translations??

 

[Huiou_Theou]

to me
“The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature” John Paul II approved. vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

Exactly. The argument is very subtle.

So the argument from DNA is not conclusive. Maybe something has greater ontological worth once is has flowered beyond a certain stage. The existence of functioning organs seems to me to be the point where someone is a person. Slave traders use to say that blacks weren’t fully people. Hilter and the Germans said that Jews were like dogs. However, when someone loves children, they will be concerned whether they are killing one or not, even if just in possibility. Obama said in an interview that he doubted whether any knew when life began. So he is ok with people maybe killing babies!

And Obama is quite wrong. We know when life, human life, begins. That’s fertalization. We do not know when the immortal soul, capable of suffering, is created by God and can be damned to hell by an abortion. If you search my recent back posts, I got into a thread on whether or not aborted infants automatically go to heaven.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=950817

What is curious is that when the CCC came out many years ago, the Vatican was denying that limbo was pemissible for Catholics to believe in. We were instructed that we were allowed to hope that God saved infants outside of the sacrament of baptism, but no guarantee was possible. Yet, in the thread above, there is article linked to at the vatican which is more recent, and which argues very clearly for limbo as still being possible.

So…I like to keep in mind that articles from the congregation for doctrine of the faith are not Dogma nor infallible. They are church teaching, but vulnerable to small errors. They need to be evaluated in context of what sources they cite as the constant teaching of the church, vs. the opinions which appear to be formed recently.

In the case of the present document from the Vatican that you cite, what is clear is that abortion whether or not a human immortal soul is involved is condemned. That teaching can be traced in both the Eastern and Western churches as a basic truth that goes all the way back to the time of Christ. The question of exactly why abortion is wrong, at various times of gestation, can be for different reasons. But according to constant church teaching, abortion is always wrong.

What I am more concerned about is that Catholic apologists seem to be confounding the word conception and ensoulment with fertilization when no such identity can be yet found in dogma. (I’m still looking.) Such a position leaves the U.S. supreme court and people like Nancy Peloci, with arguments that are at heart unanswered. I’m even finding quotes on the web accusing “Priests for life” of deleting context of early church documents to hide the fact that distinctions were made. Although priests for life may merely have quoted someone else who was misinformed, or someone else may be lying about priests for life; none the less the resulting confusion is exactly the kind of thing which costs many an intelligent high school Catholic student their faith. Once even a small lie is pointed out by opponents of the Catholic church, and sustained, the downfall of belief is often rapid.

The Vatican generally has more nuanced arguments, and doesn’t make major blunders; but even so, this topic makes me very uncomfortable. Getting the right answer for the wrong reason may be OK for most people, but in apologetics that’s often a liability.

In the linked article, I notice (and very much like) that Razinger made the comment that; “Thus, in the body and through the body, one touches the person himself in his concrete reality”

Tampering with the zygote, even if that were possible before it has been formed into something that definitely has an immortal soul. None the less, the tampering waits for and then touches the later person and is therefore still wrong. The distinction may seem subtle at first, but once the principle is understood, the morality becomes easier to understand regardless of when the immortal soul is infused.

Huiou Theou, its not just the Easter than speaks of a miracle at Jesus’s birth

Yes, Easter echos the same miracles as the nativity.
Thank you, I liked that very much.

Pope Paul IV’s “Cum quorundam” (7 August, 1555) spoke on this too, but so far I can’t find it. Anyone know?

I haven’t seen it. I’ll have to look.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I was going to private message this question to you, but I think its deactivated in your server. Anyway, are you saying that there is a discrepancy in the Latin text of Pius IX’s decree on the Immaculate Conception. Or just in the English translations??

I’m suspicious of the English Translation. I could be wrong, and the translation may be fine. The original Latin text, I’m sure is fine.

If the English is correct, the translation implies that Mary’s immortal soul, created without mediation by God, was infused into a pre existing / living body sometime after fertilization. (I’m avoiding the word conception, because the English connotation and the traditional church teaching connotations may be different.)

The reason I want to verify the translation is because of how important the document is.
At the risk of going off on a tangent, I’ll digress from the OP just a little.

The document on the Immaculate conception is Dogma, any unavoidable inference from the Dogma; by it’s very nature is of higher value (hierarchy of truth), than Papal encyclicals, or documents from the Vatican/CDF.

There is a philosophical issue regarding how original sin is transmitted which is at the very heart of the question of when en-soulment happens, and how the immortal soul is “touched” by the previously formed body so as to contract original sin. The Dogma appears to imply that a sequence of events must have happened.

Although the immortal soul is formed by God, without mediation, none the less scripture attests to the fact that parents can affect the child negatively. Psalm 51, and especially 1Corinthians 7:14. “Otherwise they WOULD BE UNCLEAN”

Note: “Clean” or “swept” is not the same as filled with the Holy Spirit/Sanctified. Clean merely means an empty temple which can be inhabited either by God or the Devil. Luke 11:24-26. At least one of Mary’s parents had to have faith as a pre-requisite for the immaculate conception.

The philosophical issue is this: God is all Good; anything he directly creates must be good. Therefore the immortal soul of every human being must have been created absolutely good (That’s the implication of “immediate” creation). Hence, original sin must be contracted at the instant a soul is “infused” into pre-existing flesh.

 

[thinkandmull]

I have forgotten most of the Latin I learned (mostly in high school). Whether Pius IX’s decree says “conception” or “conceptions” should be easy to find out for our Latin skilled friends on this forum.

When David says “in sin did my mother conceive me” it could easily be hyperbole. 1 Corinthians 7:14 could refer to a child at birth instead of before. I don’t see an argument against abortion from the Bible, and from science there could be graduations of human life as the child grows in the womb. However, when the Church calls use of even morning after pills murder, I don’t see how we can deny that there was a human (with the FORM of the soul) killed

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I have forgotten most of the Latin I learned (mostly in high school). Whether Pius IX’s decree says “conception” or “conceptions” should be easy to find out for our Latin skilled friends on this forum.

That may be true, but it wouldn’t be definitive. If the meaning of the word Conception has changed, then whether it is plural or singular in the document is irrelevant. The other translation I saw said from the first “moments” of her conception. The plural was on a different word. The inference is that conception is a process, not a point in time.

If I had a copy of the document in Latin, I could probably figure it out from the word endings; but I don’t have one right now.

When David says “in sin did my mother conceive me” it could easily be hyperbole.

I don’t think so. The LXX/Greek copy uses a very specific word for what his mother did. There is only one other place in the bible where that word is used, and that is when Jacob was damaging the clean white coats of the sheep he was taking from his father in law, Laban. The very purpose of putting the unnatural cravings into the sheep was to make them breed unclean. Jacob was purposely doing something to introduce defects into the body of the child.

Also, Psalm 51 is explicitly a psalm of David after he went into Bathsheba in an act of mortal sin/adultery. David was not her husband and presumably could not sanctify the child. Notice that scripture says they mated in defilement: 2Samuel 11:4 and explicitly says that Urias (the faithful father) refused to mate with her afterward up and until the day he died. So Urias could not have sanctified the child. And also notice what happens to that child who’s entire conception happened without the faithful father being involved in the womb at any time:

2Samuel 12:15. … and now the little son Urias’ wife had borne to David was was struck down by the Lord, and no hope was left for him.

Claiming Psalm51 to be hyperbole is missing the very inspiration for the psalm. The Psalm is a reflection of what God judged in the case of the parents committing mortal sin during the conception of a child.

1 Corinthians 7:14 could refer to a child at birth instead of before.

I really don’t think that’s possible. Re-read the passage carefully:
Paul says the spouses sanctify each other, not that they sanctify the child.
The only way that the passage can be taken is that the sexual act between spouses offers the grace to cleanse the other spouse’s flesh. Cleanliness refers to the state of the body. Cleanliness is not the same as having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or being adopted as a son of God. But, the same type of cleansing is true of Christ and the Church, for the Eucharist which causes the two to become one flesh at communion also forgives venial sins; Notice how Paul explicitly speaks of how the body is purified elsewhere, for example: Ephesians 5:25-33. Especially verses 31-32.

Also, consider:
A child at birth is baptized. There is no need for a parent to sanctify the child once they receive the sacrament of initiation. The sacrament would make the child clean even if both parents were pagans. Hence, the fact that Paul says the child WOULD be unclean, must imply a time before baptism. All Christian churches which are apostolic, whether Eastern rites or western; all of them baptize infants. All early baptisms from the year 400 and before, included exorcisms. I don’t see how 1 Corinthians 7:14 has any value to a child after being born. Christian parents do not have sexual intercourse/become one flesh with their child; what would be incest and clearly cause the child to become unclean rather than keeping them clean.

I don’t see an argument against abortion from the Bible, and from science there could be graduations of human life as the child grows in the womb. However, when the Church calls use of even morning after pills murder, I don’t see how we can deny that there was a human (with the FORM of the soul) killed

There are several arguments against abortion in the bible.
For example, an unborn child is seen to have value: Exodus 21:22.
So that death (even if unintentional) is punished by a fine.
Keep in mind that Biblically, a man’s life had a finite value. That’s why Jesus was purchasable for 20 pieces of silver. Murder could be bought off.

As to murder, consider: The human soul is immortal. Killing the body can not change the spirit/soul. So murder is not about what is done to the spirit, rather murder is about what is done to the body. Matthew 10:28. “there is no need to fear those who kill the body, but have no means of killing the soul; fear him more, who has the power to ruin body and soul in hell.”

The Eastern churches say something to the effect, “We care not about the hair splitting difference of whether the body is formed; it’s still murder.”

This is also why I want to know exactly what canon law said prior to the reformation; as the claim is often made that pope innocent III refused to call abortion prior to quickening, murder. Also note, where tradition is not universal and constant; no appeal to infallibility can be made. Different people withing the church are apparently working with different presumptions about what is and is not murder.

However, whether or not a person believes an immortal soul is bound to a fetus; I am sure murder (in the biblical sense) is still possible whenever a living human body, formed or not, is being killed out of hatred or selfishness. The crime is perhaps negligent manslaughter for those who do not believe the zygote or fetus or baby should be considered human; but it’s still a crime against something that is scientifically demonstrated to be human and with the full human potential being actualized unless killed prematurely.

 

[thinkandmull]

So you are saying that Davids mother sinned when she conceived David?

 

[thinkandmull]

I think St. Paul is speaking of a certain blessing that a child receives when one or its parents are in a state of grace during the conception

I am wondering though is anyone has any creditable material on Innocent III and early abortions