When does life begin?

[Everyman]

I am a Missourian in the midst of the stem-cell debate. For starters, when does life begin? Conception? If that is the case, why does my friend tell me that Augustine and the rest of the Church taught that ensoulment occurs 40 days after conception? Does ensoulment necessitate life?

 

[buffalo]

As we learned more science has found life begins at conception.

At this point a unique individual that had DNA unlike any other living human in the world.

It is believed ensoulment happens when the baby is created (conception.

In the days of St Augustine one could not know when conception occurred.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Think of it scientifically…

As soon as the sperm and egg unite… a unique set of FULLY HUMAN DNA has been formed.

That DNA doesn’t change at all during the pregnancy… it just grows into a fully formed baby…

What makes a human HUMAN?.. It’s DNA.
As soon as a unique set of DNA is created… a new HUMAN is there!

 

[Scottgun]

I am a Missourian in the midst of the stem-cell debate. For starters, when does life begin? Conception? If that is the case, why does my friend tell me that Augustine and the rest of the Church taught that ensoulment occurs 40 days after conception? Does ensoulment necessitate life?

The ensoulment question among Church scholars is a rabbit-trail that abortion apologists try to get us to go down. The ONLY thing to remember in this is that the Church never once has morally approved abortion–questions about ensoulment notwithstanding.

 

[JimG]

The question is: when does a new individual of the human species have its beginning? Individuals do have a beginning and an ending.

Biologically, the answer is that a new individual begins at conception. It’s how you and I and everyone else started.

 

[dch1983]

Augustine and the rest of the Church taught that ensoulment occurs 40 days after conception?

Anyone have a reference for this? I find it very peculiar and even troubling if an actual teaching…

 

[mosher]

Anyone have a reference for this? I find it very peculiar and even troubling if an actual teaching…

There is no particular source, that I know of, that you can go to that references all the discussion on this issue. Many theologians postulated different ideas about when God imparted a soul. This has its root in various Jewish traditions about this same issue. However, the teaching of the Church has never formally supported any position that is opposed to the soul being imparted at conception.

 

[Scottgun]

Anyone have a reference for this? I find it very peculiar and even troubling if an actual teaching…

Various theologians had various theories of ensoulment, but no teaching was given. The 40-day ensoulment was regarded as a process ending after 30-40 odd days rather than the idea that day 39–no soul, day 40 soul.

The other thing you need to watch out for is the Pope Gregory vs. Sixtus canard. The issue they were concerned over was what ecclesiastical crime was commited when someone aborted. Neither one, and no pope or council ever taught that the act of abortion was acceptable.

Scott

 

[JimO]

Also, don’t forget that even saints like Augustine or Aquinas were fallable humans and could be wrong. Their writings are not infallable teaching unless declared so by the Church. Many of the saints addressed issues put before them as best as they could with the knowledge of the time.

There are a number of official Church documents on abortion that state the Church’s teaching regarding conception as the beginning of human life. On November 18, 1974 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the Declaration on Procured Abortion. This document should have all you need. I don’t have a link for it, but you should be able to find in easily enough online.

 

[JimG]

The matter of ensoulment is, of course, not a matter observable by biological science. Medieval theologians had no knowledge of embryology. Since the soul (philosophically speaking) is the life force, or form, of the body, it was assumed the soul had to be present when the body became human.

Not knowing embryology, medieval theologians thought that the body was “unformed” for a period of time after the seed was planted.

Later knowledge of genetics corrected this notion: the new individual is genetically complete when the sperm and egg unite to form a new human individual in the form of the zygote. From that point on, the new individual is genetically complete, individual, and human. All that remains is development of the body.

It should be noted that in spite of their belief in delayed ensoulment, these theologians nevertheless unqualifiedly condemned the practice of abortion, whether before or after the alleged ensoulment.

Moderns who use the ensoulment argument in favor of abortion are being somewhat disingenuous, since most of them don’t even believe in the existence of the soul.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Sorry I can not remember the reasoning behind this logic thought I have read it before. My understanding is consistent with other posters 1) No one knows how or when the soul is infused 2) life begins at conception (with or without a soul) 3) these theories of infusing of Souls are just theories

FYI
Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) had other ideas. (13) He wrote a famous treatise called “De Anima” “On the Soul.”] He did not believe that the soul was separate from the body. He thought that body and soul were part of the same individual. If the soul has motion, said Aristotle, elaborating on the ideas of Anaxagoras, there must be both a Mover and a moved. The Mover was the soul and the moved was the body. According to Aristotle all previous views of the soul had failed!
One should not be too hasty to be disrespectful of a man like Aristotle. His wisdom has been revered for more than 2000 years, by Greeks, Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. He was considered the philosopher, par excellence, of the Christian Middle Ages. There is no denying he wrote an incredible amount. He knew a great deal about biology, very little about astronomy, but he was an authority on the soul. He even knew on which day a human embryo obtains its ensoulment! It is 40 days for the male and 80 to 90 for the female!! St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) believed Aristotle and explained to the faithful that an embryo first has a vegetative soul, then a sensitive soul and finally a human one arrives.
petalk.com/humanist/body-soul.html

 

[mdgspencer]

It is very difficult for me to think that an embryo is not alive. If anyone was able to look at it under a microscope, they would see it is alive.
A soul according to the Catholic tradition is what makes something alive, so if an embryo is alive it has a soul. The question should be is whether it has a human soul. Just because a person doesn’t think is no evidence that he lacks a soul. And so a very retarded person as well as those in a a so-called vegetative state are human beings. What reason is there for thinking an embryo isn’t a human being? I don’t see one.

 

[JimG]

It is very difficult for me to think that an embryo is not alive. If anyone was able to look at it under a microscope, they would see it is alive.
A soul according to the Catholic tradition is what makes something alive, so if an embryo is alive it has a soul. The question should be is whether it has a human soul. Just because a person doesn’t think is no evidence that he lacks a soul. And so a very retarded person as well as those in a a so-called vegetative state are human beings. What reason is there for thinking an embryo isn’t a human being? I don’t see one.

You are exactly right. And for that matter, the reason that some of the medievals didn’t think the embryo was “ensouled” until later was because they didn’t think it was alive yet (because no movement could be felt.)

 

[hasikelee]

Various theologians had various theories of ensoulment, but no teaching was given. The 40-day ensoulment was regarded as a process ending after 30-40 odd days rather than the idea that day 39–no soul, day 40 soul.

The other thing you need to watch out for is the Pope Gregory vs. Sixtus canard. The issue they were concerned over was what ecclesiastical crime was commited when someone aborted. Neither one, and no pope or council ever taught that the act of abortion was acceptable.

Scott

Scott,
I was in an argument over this the other day and the way I got my point across was with an analogy.

My analogy had to do with the way our legal system debates a murder. Is it 1st degree? 2nd? Manslaughter?

Augustine and other theologians/philosphers were attempting to discover how much of a sin it was to kill a preborn baby. How grave was it? Some had differing opinions.

 

[Riley259]

I am a Missourian in the midst of the stem-cell debate. For starters, when does life begin? Conception? If that is the case, why does my friend tell me that Augustine and the rest of the Church taught that ensoulment occurs 40 days after conception? Does ensoulment necessitate life?

It’s clear from both science and revelation that life begins at conception.

 

[manualman]

It is much simpler than most have made it out to be.

Prior to modern science, popular understanding of reproduction was that the man provided the “seed” and the woman provided the fertile soil where it grew. In this understanding, the seed needed time to grow in the ‘soil’ of the mother before it was truly a human since any fool could see that kids often had traits of the mother. Based on this faulty scientific understanding, it is any wonder that theologians had a hard time figuring out when the new PERSON came to be? Obviously, they couldn’t believe that the father’s testes were loaded with dozens to thousands of human beings. But if the seed itself were not human, then when did it become human? Lots of theorizing followed, but it was ALL based on this faulty scientific foundation. If you kidnapped Augustine with Bill & Ted’s excellent time machine and brought him here & explained sperm and egg conception, implantation and embryonics, it would take him all of 15 seconds to come up with the current catholic stance.

With the benefit of modern science, it is easy to see that the new child receives every fundamental trait he is going to receive from his parents at the time the sperm fertilizes the egg. Such a find would have totally eliminated the question in the minds of any number of early fathers, popes and theologians.

This is why the church fully supports legitimate scientific inquiry, even though so many scientists try to use it to bash the church. Without solid scientific facts, it is hard to draw sound theological conclusions.

 

[maryj]

Jeremiah 1:4-5 The word of the LORD came to me thus: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you.

Seems pretty clear to me!!

 

[johnnykins]

I am a Missourian in the midst of the stem-cell debate. For starters, when does life begin? Conception? If that is the case, why does my friend tell me that Augustine and the rest of the Church taught that ensoulment occurs 40 days after conception? Does ensoulment necessitate life?

To address your main issue, might I suggest you consider the question: When did you become you?

Presumably you are now an adult and bigger and different from when you were a child. Likewise, as a child you were bigger and different from when you were an infant. Going back further into the womb, when did you become you? Certainly at 7 months gestation you were you - or is someone going to claim that birth somehow was a watershed event turning you into you? Certainly at 22 weeks (the current earliest limit of viability) you were you - or is someone claiming that the event turning you into you is dependent on technology as until recently viability was much later in gestation. What about a heart beat? What does that say about adults who have a heart transplant or a mechanical heart? Are they no longer “human”? Are they no longer themselves? You want a notochord? More than x number of cells? Nidation? You lose the notochord as you grow - so is that really a good choice? Logically why do you need millions of cells, when the blastocoel you have is complete and growing? If nidation is the point, why is our existence dependent on an external person providing us anything?

I submit that no matter how you want to slice and dice it, you became you at conception. True you were very small and looked very different. However, it was clearly you from then on. Honestly I cannot see any other honest conclusion. Al other points along the way are very problematic. Conception both genetically and developmentally is the logical and clear point of the beginning of your life.

You have been you since conception. Why should anyone have the right to kill you? As Dr. Suess has Horton say, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

 

[estesbob]

I am a Missourian in the midst of the stem-cell debate. For starters, when does life begin? Conception? If that is the case, why does my friend tell me that Augustine and the rest of the Church taught that ensoulment occurs 40 days after conception? Does ensoulment necessitate life?

I prefer we look a bit further back-say to Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 1:5 (New International Version)

5 "***Before ***I formed you in the womb I knew a] you,
before you were born I set you apart;

It is true that Augustine and other Church fathers debated when ensoulment occured. But they were in agreement on one thing-abortion was a heinous croime at any stage of the childs development. This is also the unchanging teaching of Our church for the last 2,000 years