Will human-made life have a soul?

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PatThompson

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As our understanding of the natural world progresses, it appears that we are getting closer and closer to creating honest-to-goodness life. Not computer simulations, not clones or modifications of existing life, but all together new life forms that haven’t existed before.

My question for you is: When/if we create biological life (is born, consumes energy, able to replicate, dies…) will it have a soul, and if so, does G-d create the soul in the same way He created ours?

(My understanding is that the Catholic Church, or at least many Catholics, believe that animals have souls.)

Here’s just one recent story about the path to creating life - note it doesn’t say this is how life on Earth was created! wired.com/wiredscience/2009/06/tpna/
 
All living things have souls, so yes it will have a soul. The real question is whether it will be immortal.
 
PatThompson said:
(My understanding is that the Catholic Church, or at least many Catholics, believe that animals have souls.)
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Very interesting question. Unfortunately, I do not know enough to answer, but I do want to comment on the above statement. The teaching of the Church is actually that animals do not have souls, so I don’t know where you are getting your information.

Pax.
 
PatThompson said:
Interesting! So there are mortal, and immortal souls? And who granted this new life form a soul?
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Plants and animals have mortal souls. The soul is the animating principle or life force if you will.

The thing that separates man is his immortal soul. It does not die when our bodies die.
 
JSSebastianoP said:
The teaching of the Church is actually that animals do not have souls, so I don’t know where you are getting your information.
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Do you have a link or two to back-up that claim?

As others have mentioned, it seems like Catholic teaching states that animalshave mortal souls, as opposed to humans who have immortal souls (making my survey incomplete, but I can’t see a way to change it).

I can’t find a direct quote, and I’m not sure if this is true or not (it only seems to appear on animal-rights web pages), but apparently:
In 1990, Pope John Paul II proclaimed [in a general audience] that ‘the animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren’. He added that all animals are ‘fruit of the creative action of the Holy Spirit and merit respect’ and that they are ‘as near to God as men are’. The Pope emphasized that ‘animals possess the divine spark of life – the living quality that is the soul’.
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(from our very own forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=5265599 )

But you’re saying animals don’t have souls at all?
 
PatThompson said:
Do you have a link or two to back-up that claim?

As others have mentioned, it seems like Catholic teaching states that animalshave mortal souls, as opposed to humans who have immortal souls (making my survey incomplete, but I can’t see a way to change it).

I can’t find a direct quote, and I’m not sure if this is true or not (it only seems to appear on animal-rights web pages), but apparently:

(from our very own forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=5265599 )

But you’re saying animals don’t have souls at all?
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I’m sorry for misleading you… That’s what I remember being taught (that animals don’t have souls) but upon furthur research it seems that was wrong. I guess I or whoever was teaching me presumed that ‘no immortal soul’ meant ‘no soul’.
Again, I’m sorry for my mistake and thank you…

Pax
 
JSSebastianoP, not a problem, we’ve both learned something! I didn’t realize there was a distinction between types of souls.

I still wonder “where” the soul of a human-created life might come “from”.
 
Dogma of the Church:

Man consists of two essential parts - a material body and a spiritual soul.
The rational soul per se is the essential form of the body.
Every human being possesses an individual soul.

Source: theworkofgod.org/dogmas.htm#Dogma-II-Creator

Notice: nothing about animals having souls.
 
If a clone receives from God a soul, than it will be a human person.
If a clone dose not receive a soul, than it is not a human person.

Whether or not God would give clones souls is up to Him.
 
Of course it will have an immortal soul.

It’s God’s design, God’s DNA, we’re merely using the building blocks and the design He has already perfected. He is written into the very fabric of our being down to the first two cells that make us unique individuals of the human species.

God will not allow us to hijack His design. He will not allow us to take our sacred bodies and make some monstrosity out of them.

It will be a human being, a human being is made in His image an likeness. A human being is a person no matter how it’s assembled.

ETA: your second answer choice doesn’t make sense;)
 
shannyk said:
Of course it will have an immortal soul.

It’s God’s design, God’s DNA, we’re merely using the building blocks and the design He has already perfected. He is written into the very fabric of our being down to the first two cells that make us unique individuals of the human species.

God will not allow us to hijack His design. He will not allow us to take our sacred bodies and make some monstrosity out of them.

It will be a human being, a human being is made in His image an likeness. A human being is a person no matter how it’s assembled.

ETA: your second answer choice doesn’t make sense;)
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Nope. Whether God gives clones souls is up to Him. Souls are gifts, just as bodies are gifts. No man can say the soul comes with the body, because the soul did not evolve.
 
It is my understanding that what distinguishes the human soul from those of lower beings is it’s rationality and immortality. The Compendium of Aquinas states in No. 93 that the rational soul is produced by God and No. 79 states that “accordingly, this incorporeal substance whereby man understands, occupies the lowest place in the genus of intellectual substances”, which to my reading implies that animals are not in the category of having immortal or rational souls, however it is certainly not beyond the infinite power of God to raise up animals and plants on the last day, please correct me if I have made a factual statement in error.

Laus Deo
 
PatThompson said:
As our understanding of the natural world progresses, it appears that we are getting closer and closer to creating honest-to-goodness life. Not computer simulations, not clones or modifications of existing life, but all together new life forms that haven’t existed before.
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We are not even in the slightest close to taking inanimate matter and making it ‘alive’.
 
God has already given us the power to procreate, i.e. reproduce human beings. We assume every child has a soul but some children are so defective we cannot be sure they are human beings and have a soul. To legislate that some beings have souls and others do not is an attempt to read the Mind of God. Since we cannot even be sure scientists will synthesize **one living cell **the possibility of synthesizing a person is so incredibly remote it is not worth considering. Our time on this earth is limited and there are far more important issues to discuss…
 
Eucharisted said:
Nope. Whether God gives clones souls is up to Him. Souls are gifts, just as bodies are gifts. No man can say the soul comes with the body, because the soul did not evolve.
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you completely misunderstood what i said. i never said a soul wasn’t a gift from God. human bodies and souls are intrinsically bound, what i mean is, God will not allow us to use His design for our bodies for anything other than a human person.

we already know man made IVF babies have souls, clones wouldn’t be any different.
 
tonyrey said:
God has already given us the power to procreate, i.e. reproduce human beings. We assume every child has a soul but some children are so defective we cannot be sure they are human beings and have a soul. To legislate that some beings have souls and others do not is an attempt to read the Mind of God. Since we cannot even be sure scientists will synthesize one living cell the possibility of synthesizing a person is so incredibly remote it is not worth considering. Our time on this earth is limited and there are far more important issues to discuss…
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Human Beings do not create souls, only God. And I don’t know what you mean by “defective”, if a sperm and egg cell meet, it’s a life and at the precise moment of this meeting is the soul created by God.
 
DorianGregorian said:
Human Beings do not create souls, only God. And I don’t know what you mean by “defective”, if a sperm and egg cell meet, it’s a life and at the precise moment of this meeting is the soul created by God.
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So would that be when the egg’s jelly sacks burst the sperm’s enzyme chamber? Or when the sperm’s enzymes start or finish dissolving the egg’s outer wall? Or when the sperm’s nucleus enters the egg? Or when the nuclei combine to form a full gene spectrum… in which case what point while it’s migrating the 23 chromosomes?

Something cool I found… there is a whole video series on the intricate specifics of the process here:

videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/23380-fertilization-and-sexual-reproduction-part-3-video.htm
 
DorianGregorian said:
Human Beings do not create souls, only God. And I don’t know what you mean by “defective”, if a sperm and egg cell meet, it’s a life and at the precise moment of this meeting is the soul created by God.
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I did not say human beings create souls. We procreate and are responsible for bringing children who have a soul into the world. We do not create life let alone a soul. In some very rare cases the foetus is so deformed it has no intelligence and is unrecognizable as a human being. In such cases we cannot be certain it has a soul. Only God knows…
 
tonyrey said:
I did not say human beings create souls. We procreate and are responsible for bringing children who have a soul into the world. We do not create life let alone a soul. In some very rare cases the foetus is so deformed it has no intelligence and is unrecognizable as a human being. In such cases we cannot be certain it has a soul. Only God knows…
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Whoah. Are you talking viability here?
 
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