When Did God Create Our Soul?

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Somewhere in the New Testament …maybe Timothy, it is written that the Trinity knew us before the creation of the world, sorry I forget where.

O.K. each of us were concieved ( sperm enters ovum) that has a precise point in time. Did God 1. create our souls at that same time, He let the “need” for a soul force Him to create a soul OR 2. God had created our souls before He created the universe…and held us in safe keeping until there was a “place” for us on earth.

Pardon me. I know this may sound odd. But I do think it’s a valid question of an Apologist or Theologian. Thank You.:ehh:
 
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Exporter:
Somewhere in the New Testament …maybe Timothy, it is written that the Trinity knew us before the creation of the world, sorry I forget where.

O.K. each of us were concieved ( sperm enters ovum) that has a precise point in time. Did God 1. create our souls at that same time, He let the “need” for a soul force Him to create a soul OR 2. God had created our souls before He created the universe…and held us in safe keeping until there was a “place” for us on earth.

Pardon me. I know this may sound odd. But I do think it’s a valid question of an Apologist or Theologian. Thank You.:ehh:
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Thomas Aquinas dealt with this issue in his Summa Thologica, Q. 91.:

Some have thought the man’s body was formed first in prority of time, and that afterwards the soul was infused into the formed body. But it is inconsistent with the perfection of the production of things, that God should have made the body without the soul, or the soul without the body, since each is a part of human nature. this is especially unfitting as regards the body, for the body depends on the soul, and not the soul on the body.

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St. Thomas seems to be saying that it is impossible for a body to be created without a soul, simply because without it, the body would corrupt. Nor is the other alternative acceptable, because a soul without a body is not a complete human person, and it is human beings that God creates in his image and likeness. So we are left with the only alternative, that is, if we regard a fetus as a human being from the moment of conception, then at the moment of conception it already has both body and soul.

Gerry
 
Yes Gerry, thank you for the Thomas Aquinas reference. BUT.

I do believe that the soul is infused into the Zygote at the moment the ovum was fertilized…so that first single , individual cell had our soul in it.

My question is: When did God creat that soul that was infused into that single cell?

Was that soul created some time before that fertilization of the ovum?

Could it be that our soul ( which is a spirit - just like angels…well almost) was created long before the moment of fertilization?
I don’t want to go Mormon on you, but it is possible that God created our souls before He created the universe. That is a statement i.e., it is possible. Does anyone know?:bowdown:
 
Scripture (I think Jeremiah) does say that God knew us before He formed us in the womb. However, since time has a different meaning outside our physical world I would not concern myself with the concept of what “before” actually means.

Greg
 
It’s a very valid question. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says ‘The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God and that it is immortal.’ So at conception we receive our soul. God did not create our souls before He created the universe. That is an idea of the New Age movement. And of Mormonism.
 
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moira:
It’s a very valid question. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says ‘The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God and that it is immortal.’ So at conception we receive our soul. God did not create our souls before He created the universe. That is an idea of the New Age movement. And of Mormonism.
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Precisely. Why would God create a bunch of bodiless souls before creating the universe? How could souls preexist the universe, when there was absolutely nothing before the creation, no matter, no time, no space?

It is thoroughly unscriptural, and philosophically untenable.

As the Church teaches, the soul is created immediately upon conception. Let us leave it to God how He does this.

Gerry
 
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Exporter:
Yes Gerry, thank you for the Thomas Aquinas reference. BUT.

I do believe that the soul is infused into the Zygote at the moment the ovum was fertilized…so that first single , individual cell had our soul in it.

My question is: When did God creat that soul that was infused into that single cell?

:bowdown:
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The soul, as is obvious from the teachings of the Church, and implied in St. Thomas’ statement, is created and infused into the zygote at the moment of conception.

Gerry
 
The soul is created at the moment of conception, as the animating principle of the body.

God knew us, of course, from eternity, even “before” we existed.
 
Paragraphs 363 through 367 of the *Catechism *discuss the soul. Paragraph 366 specifically states “that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God…” In other words, at the moment of conception, God creates and infuses an individual soul into each person’s body.
 
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larryo:
Paragraphs 363 through 367 of the *Catechism *discuss the soul. Paragraph 366 specifically states "that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God…" In other words, at the moment of conception, God creates and infuses an individual soul into each person’s body.
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362 The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that “then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”[229] Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.

363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person.[230] But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,[231] that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

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:[232]

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 honour since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day 233

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body:[234] 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.

Now, while it doesn’t appear to directly answer whether or not the soul existed in heaven with God before ‘it’ was united with the physical body chosen for ‘it’…I would go back to the beginning phrase I highlighted in red. I think that pretty much covers it, don’t you?
 
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YinYangMom:
Now, while it doesn’t appear to directly answer whether or not the soul existed in heaven with God before ‘it’ was united with the physical body chosen for ‘it’…I would go back to the beginning phrase I highlighted in red. I think that pretty much covers it, don’t you?
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The soul is indeed the “form” of the body, because it is through this profound union that man becomes an entire human being, and the deprivation of the soul as in the moment of death, brings about the corruption/destruction of the body. Thus man cannot be man without the union of the two, and hence, man cannot come to be unless both are present at the very moment of conception.

Gerry
 
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