Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 11:34am

Basic Life Science and Catholicism

mildly edited and cross posted from Catholic Stand, because it seems to be timely

“Quit forcing your religion on me! Your Pope might think that a fertilized egg is alive, that it’s human, but that’s your opinion– I believe in science! It’s no more a person than a skin cell is, and you just think it has a soul. If abortion upsets you, you should get people to use birth control.”

If you’ve been in abortion discussions, you’re probably familiar with this kind of assertion. I’ll admit that I’ve taken some slight liberty with the paraphrase– I combined several variations into one claim. Other than that….

A ‘fertilized egg’ is a somewhat improper way to describe what happens when a sperm and egg (gamete) join; it’s a zygote, the first stage of development in all animals. It is a single celled organism of whatever species the parents were. In cloning the egg is emptied, the insides of a cell from whatever is being cloned are put in, and the result is induced to start growing as if fertilization had just occurred. (Nuclear transfer; I mentioned this in the Frankenstein installment.) Sometimes the phrase is used to mean “pre-embryo” or “pre-fetus,” although in non-abortion situations (such as IVF) a three-day-old organism is called an “embryo.”

While a skin cell can be said to be alive– because it is part of a living organism– a zygote is an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent : a living being. If uninterupted, a zygote will develop into a recognizable adult member of the species. A skin cell will remain an skin cell.

When a human egg is fertilized, the organism that results is a member of the human species, distinct from both parents. That is a scientific fact. The Catholic Church teaches that being a living human being means the individual has inherent dignity which we must respect. The question of ensoulment doesn’t arise. (You can find a much more in depth explanation of when human life begins in this PDF of the same name, from the Westchester Institute.)

All of this establishes that, scientifically speaking, the unborn ‘product of conception’ we’re looking at is both alive and of our species.

This is where things get confusing, because science does not speak on who is a “person.” The question of personhood is (in this context) a moral question. As Catholics, we are required to recognize all living humans as people– ironically enough, it is those claiming to be defenders of science who are making a moral judgment, and one that is sadly not that uncommon in the history of humanity. More recently the word “person” has come to be synonymous with “human being,” and is preferred by some to “man” to apply to an individual homo sapiens. It is then easily understandable that most people defending abortion would not want to recognize that their stance means that they are explicitly denying that all humans are “people.” Especially if someone is not carefully choosing their words it is understandable that they would try to claim that a member of our species below a set point of development is not a “human being.”

Pointing out that they are declaring a group of humans to be non-people can be effective, sometimes even on the person arguing for abortion. Please try to be as gentle as possible about it, the shock can be pretty nasty. The author John C. Wright wrote about his instinctive recognition of his son as a person, and laid out the logic rather bluntly. It is worth noting that at the time he was an atheist, though a very classically influenced one.

On a related note, some folks will say that If you don’to like abortions, you should support birth control.  This sounds like it should make sense– the logic of “women have abortions because they have an unwanted pregnancy; birth control reduces pregnancy; more birth control would result in less pregnancy.”

First a religious or philosophical response: for a Catholic, this is roughly on par with saying “if you don’t like murder, you need to support assault!”
Chemical “birth control” results in death for the small human, in some cases as a primary means, some physical methods (IUDs) also cause death, and even something as basic as a condom inherently deforms the essence of sex. This is religion, or at least philosophy, although obviously some (sometimes very) non-religious people will agree that risking your kid’s life so you can have lower risk of pregnancy is obviously wrong.

Now the practical side.

Birth control does not necessarily reduce the number of pregnancies, it lowers the chance of a pregnancy as a result of intercourse. Failure is usually measured in terms of the percent of female users who have an unintended pregnancy in the first year of typical use. Not listed, of course, is not having sex unless you recognize that the reproductive act may result in a new life.

That is what makes contraception– and the “contraceptive mentality”– a root cause of the heat in the abortion debate. Contraception promises that you will have sex without a chance of needing to be responsible for your resulting children. So, if pregnancy results anyways, it’s very tempting to believe that there’s not really your offspring involved.  People you can’t see are so much easier to dehumanize, and the unborn are both really small and not walking around.

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Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 3:03pm

As I watched the video of the girls of Nigeria who have been captured by Islamist terrorists, I had the strangest little picture form in my mind of Sandra Fluke.
She was talking about women’s right to government provided birth control but the girls couldn’t hear what she was saying.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 3:14pm

Our first world discussion about birth control seems vanity. Trying to convince people who don’t believe the most basic truths about life because their lives or so protected and so abundant. In the movie “God Is Not Dead” the left leaning reporter got her own wake up call when she was diagnosed with cancer… sad to wonder what it will take to really convince people. Great arguments suggested here and we can’t quit trying.

slainte
slainte
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 3:39pm

Science acknowledges Divinity in “Conception to Birth Visualized”.

http://youtu.be/RROgLtKWqRU

Paul W Primavera
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 6:10pm

Liberals for all their talk about revering science know the least about the subject, and that includes everything from nuclear energy to life sciences. What is worse: they do mot want to know science. What they know is but a caricature.

Penguins fan
Penguins fan
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 9:04pm

Those who claim to believe in “science” really don’t believe in anything but their own ideologies.

Anyone who tells me that my wife’s miscarriage did not result in the death of our baby will get a fist in the mouth. Leave it to the Left to dehumanize those they find bothersome. The unborn, Jews, Catholics, Eastern and southern Europeans, Slavs, black Africans, Japanese-Americans in World War II…..

I watched parts of the Cosmos miniseries with Neil Tyson. He did a nice job narrating and the CGI was well done, but what was nauseating was the references to greenhouse gases and global warming and climate change, blah, blah, blah. Don’t foister that crap on me. I know the entire thing is made up of lies. The leaked emails proved it.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 1:13am

I would have reservations about describing a zygote as a “person.” I should prefer to say that it was a “living individual whole whose life is—all going well—to be the life of one or lives of more than one human being.” Perhaps, “human organism” would be the best succinct description.

I mean that if A and B are monozygotic twins, they cannot both be the same “person” as the zygote from whom they developed. Were A identical with Z and B identical with Z, then, by transivity of identity, A would be identical with B; which is absurd, as Euclid would say.

There is a very good analysis of this problem in Miss Anscombe’s two papers, “Were You a Zygote?” and “Embryos and Final Causes.”

It is thought that this may have influenced the CDF’s 1987 Instruction, Donum Vitae, “The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature, but it constantly reaffirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion. This teaching has not been changed and is unchangeable”

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 4:23am

I would disagree. From a Thomistic framework (and thus an Aristotelian one), there are the four causes as intimated by your reference to the final cause. Those causes are material, formal, efficient and final cause. The formal cause is that which causes the matter to be the type of thing it is. The form of dog coming to matter causes that matter to be dog. The form of cat causes the matter receiving it to be cat. The form of man is the soul. The form coming to matter causes it to be man.
Now, there is act and potency. An acorn is in Aristotelian natural philosophy a oak in potency. That is, while it has not achieved the fullness of the end (final cause) of the oak tree, it has that very nature of oak. The very nature of the acorn is not a potential oak but rather an oak in potential. Given the proper conditions, the formal cause of oak will direct the operations of the oak in potential (acorn) to its final end (cause) of oak tree. In the oak tree the nature of the oak is in act whereas in the acorn the nature was present though it was in potency to the final end.

So too with a fertilized egg. Its form is a human soul which is that of a rational animal – a person. This form is never anything else but the form of a nature of a person. Given the proper conditions, this form will direct the operations of the fertilized egg through the varied stages of development (blastocyst, zygote, fetus, infant, toddler, child, adolescent) to the final stage of a full adult person. This is the realization of the fullness of personhood – potency realized in act. But this personhood was always present from the moment of conception in potency if not in act.

Will respond to the twinning question later.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 5:00am

“Human existence is the criterion for the objective ordering of human rights” Fransisco Suarez from Thomas Aquinas. First let me say to Foxfier that this is a very fine exposition of the truth of science. You know I am not known for weaving the cloth of threads, I only do my best to posit what I do know.
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For science to know anything, the thing must first be defined correctly. All life comes from and with the soul. (We know this because when the soul leaves the body, death occurs.) Aristotle said that a table has a table soul and a rock has a rock soul, existence, as a thing exists. The human being is composed of a human body and an immortal human soul, from the very first moment of existence.
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The Supreme Court went looking for the constitutional person in Roe v. Wade, but found only life, really, the human soul, for without the human soul, there would be no life and no need for abortion. Signs of the soul are life, growth, free will and sovereign personhood. (The person wills to live. The person dies when the person chooses to not live.) Finding the human soul, the Court ought to have found the person. When the human soul is aborted, life for the human person ends. When the human soul is created by our Creator, a new person is begotten. The court must be concerned with the human person and our constitutional posterity, those future generations still to be brought into the world, as these future generations exist in the mind of God. Atheism is unconstitutional. The Constitution of the United States of America, is the law of the Land, and bringing our constitutional posterity into the realm of the physical is constitutional while destroying our posterity is unconstitutional and unlawful.
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What was not proven, for the burden of proof was on Sarah Weddington and the abortionists and the burden of proof was not met, was that the newly conceived was not a person. How Roe presumed to go into court and state that the physical existence of our posterity in a citizen’s womb was not a person, and without proof, to have her unconstitutional falsehood placed into law.
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The individual substance of a rational nature, is Thomas Aquinas’ definition of the person, the human being composed of human body and human soul. God creates life and endows unalienable rights enumerated in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The state is constituted by the persons to protect and preserve human life, our physical constitutional posterity.
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How is it that the actual bench the Justices sat upon has a bench soul and the newly begotten human being has no human being soul, as the individual substances of a rational nature sitting in Roe v. Wade found to be Truth and Justice?
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The human being without the human soul, life and personhood does not exist in time and in eternity.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 5:29am

Thank you, Phillip: “This is the realization of the fullness of personhood – potency realized in act. But this personhood was always present from the moment of conception in potency if not in act.”
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In the sovereign Person of Jesus Christ, as true God and true man the act of the human being is perfect and eternal. Made in the image of God, man has recourse to Christ’s perfect act from conception. This is evident in the Immaculate Conception. Without God, man is worse than lost, man ceases to exist as man. Man takes his being from God, through Christ. Roe v. Wade is the imposition of atheism on our citizens and taxation without representation.
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“Who Will respond to the twinning question later.”
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Two or more souls are sent into the material, physical world and direct the growth of two or many persons with free will and sovereign personhood made in the image of God.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 5:43am

“In cloning the egg is emptied, the insides of a cell from whatever is being cloned are put in, and the result is induced to start growing as if fertilization had just occurred. (Nuclear transfer; I mentioned this in the Frankenstein installment.)”
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It is the Frankenstein installment. Frankenstein had no soul of his own only that of the dead.
Cloning is not a fertilized egg in act or in potential, no procreation only manipulation. Cloning produces the walking dead, zombies with no soul of their own.

Kevin
Kevin
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 7:41am

Since the science and philosophical angles have been covered so well (we obviously have had practice engaging our culture of death), might I offer a “everyman’s” explanation for those neither scientists nor philosophers and perhaps do not give the thought to it we do. We agree that a human is no less of person because he or she is missing a leg, or more of a person be he or she has an higher IQ. We are not more or less of a person because we just turned 5,10,30, 50 or 70. Good looks, wealth and power do nothing to make us more of a human person. And except for the cold blooded atheists, most of us do realize that being born is an artificial and phony criteria that does not make us more or less human. When we can get most people on this same page it is time to propose the question, what makes us a human person? Most people believe in something metaphysical such as a soul that makes us human persons. Coming this far in the discussion makes it a lot easier for a person to conclude the personhood of the unborn human regardless of the stage of development.
I have found that a similar discussion on love and the purpose of sexual expression can lead others to better understanding of the evil of contraception, however, I think an inner selfish desire to hold onto lust makes many a person to not actually deal with their own conclusions.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 9:27am

Foxfier,
Check online the biology on that. I think all texts note that the cells are totipotential and thus uncommitted to a role in a person as yet for about 14 days. That’s why they can be scientifically teased into twinning. At c.14 days the cells commit and twinning can no longer take place. Human matter is present in the first two weeks but not a person. But check the embryology sites online. The second problem is the chimeric individual who has the DNA of two persons thusly: two fertilized fraternal twins lie too close in the initial days and fuse into one cell mass which eventually becomes one person ( unless identical twinning happens days later). Provable cases of this are so recent (? last 60 years) that it is possibly another reason St. John Paul II hesitated in talking of this area with absolute certitude in EV and hence the CDF also.

slainte
slainte
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 10:06am

Penguins Fan writes, “Anyone who tells me that my wife’s miscarriage did not result in the death of our baby..”
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I am very sorry that you and your wife lost your precious baby; I too had a miscarriage and know the pain of that loss.
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You might find the movie “Heaven is For Real” comforting. http://youtu.be/hFVOo9oNVeg

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 10:40am

Some quick thoughts from another writer on Anscombe and twinning:

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2006/01/sweet-reason

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 12:32pm

bill bannon: “Human matter is present in the first two weeks but not a person.” God awaits the will of man and his wife at procreation to instill a human soul and endow human rights with free will and personhood, simultaneously at fertilization of the newly begotten human being. There is no human being, no human life, no human matter without the human soul.
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The soul is the form of the body. The will of the individual to live and grow to become the human form of the soul must be present.
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From the beginning, body and soul, are present in the human matter. The person is present. The will is present. Life is willed to be by the human being in his soul. There is no human life without the human soul and the personhood therein.
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Man is the glory of God. There is no man without God. There is no life without God. God is present in the life of the newly fertilized egg from the first moment of existence, for God is existence.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 1:08pm

Mary,
You wrote, “The soul is the form of the body”. But Aquinas saw the first two successive souls ( vegetative and sensitive) as not being the rational soul.
Delayed ensoulement was the longest tradition on the matter in the Catholic Church. Your view began in the 18th century at which point St. Alphonsus kept with the older one. Trent’s catechism has the older one in the section on the Incarnation/ Creed article three, 9th paragraph:
” ….the most sacred body of Christ was immediately formed, and to it was united a rational soul enjoying the use of reason; and thus in the same instant of time He was perfect God and perfect man. That this was the astonishing and admirable work of the Holy Ghost cannot be doubted; for according to the order of nature the rational soul is united to the body only after a certain lapse of time.”
That is why the CDF passage cited by Michael PS implied that the ensoulement issue is not settled as did St. John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae…in section 60 or 61.

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 1:18pm

Here’s the section from Donum Vitae:

“This Congregation [for the Doctrine of the Faith] is aware of the current debates concerning the beginning of human life, concerning the individuality of the human being and concerning the identity of the human person. The Congregation recalls the teachings found in the Declaration on Procured Abortion: “From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a new life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. To this perpetual evidence…modern genetic science brings valuable confirmation. It has demonstrated that, from the first instant, the program is fixed as to what this living being will be: a man, this individual-man with his characteristic aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization is begun the adventure of a human life, and each of its great capacities requires time…to find its place and to be in a position to act.” (25) This teaching remains valid and is further confirmed, if confirmation were needed, by recent findings of human biological science which recognize that in the zygote resulting from fertilization the biological identity of a new human individual is already constituted.

Certainly no experimental datum can be in itself sufficient to bring us to the recognition of a spiritual soul; nevertheless, the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo provide a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of this first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person? The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature, but it constantly reaffirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion. This teaching has not been changed and is unchangeable. (26)

Thus the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life.”

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 1:20pm

From Ms. Anscombe “And this “living individual whole” is nothing less than a complete and distinct human organism possessing all of the genetic material needed to inform and organize its growth, as well as an active disposition to develop itself using that information. The direction of its growth is not extrinsically determine , but is in accord with the genetic information within it.”
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“as well as an active disposition to develop itself using that information.” This would be the rational will to live of the rational human soul

The fact that a human individual in the embryonic stage can divide or be divided into two individuals is no cause for doubting whether the individual is a human being.
“In “Embryos and Final Causes,” Anscombe correctly observes that “the Catholic Christian Church has always objected to procuring abortion, but to this day has not adopted the doctrine of immediate animation.””
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“Immediate animation”, even of several souls, is necessary since there is no life without the rational soul.
Aquinas taught that “ensoulment “ took place when the child began to kick and was felt, leaving the question as to how the child arrived at that point. If the soul is the form of the body, there is no body without the soul.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 1:24pm

Phillip,
The CDF Cardinal writing that seems unaware of the identical twin problem at all.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 1:36pm

Phillip: “Certainly no experimental datum can be in itself sufficient to bring us to the recognition of a spiritual soul:”
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The Immaculate Conception, the soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is proof that the human soul is present in the human being from conception.
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To Foxfier: From whom did Frankenstein get his soul? Was Frankenstein’s soul pieced together with the pieces of his body? The pieces were dead, having no soul. The souls of these dead had already gone to eternity, leaving Frank. with no soul from them. Did God bless the dead in Frank. with reincarnation? I think not. The Frankenstein monster had no soul.
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I am glad that Ms. Anscombe was a contemporary of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 2:07pm

bill bannon:
“Mary,
You wrote, “The soul is the form of the body”. But Aquinas saw the first two successive souls ( vegetative and sensitive) as not being the rational soul.”
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I am one person. How many souls can one person have? Vegetative and sensitive and now, rational are phases of the one human soul. Are you two souls when you sleep and when you are awake?
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When God creates a rational, immortal human soul at procreation for the newly begotten child, that soul guides the child into eternity, forever. Am I to meet my vegetative and sensitive souls in the hereafter. I hope I like myself. If I do not, I am coming back for a refund, and God help them.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 2:12pm

“Immediate animation”, even of several souls, is necessary since there is no life without the rational soul. ”
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“even of several souls” refers to twinning and tripleting and is not a comment on a vegetative or sensitive forms of the soul.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 4:00pm

Foxfier,
No, he is unaware when he writes this: ” that in the zygote resulting from fertilization the biological identity of a new human individual is already constituted “. That rules out multiples which result not from an individual with a primitive streak ( post 14 days ) but multiples result from the fact that the cells are totipotential with no primitive streak prior to the primitive streak phase when no twinning can happen because dual members like hands now have their initial basis.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 4:39pm

Here for readers are two opposing very intellectual authors on the twinning problem in the Jesuit periodical, Theological Studies…

http://www.ts.mu.edu/readers/content/pdf/51/51.4/51.4.2.pdf

http://www.ts.mu.edu/readers/content/pdf/58/58.4/58.4.6.pdf

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 5:21pm

“…how could a human individual not be a human person?”

Bill,

As I formulate my response to the question of twinning (which will take some thought to respect your position) perhaps you can address this question from Donum Vitae.

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 5:25pm

Also, just quickly reading from your 1st reference, we have this:

“But we suggest that appropriate protection of the human organism changes with its developmental stages. We wish to present a theory which recognizes the right of every potential mother to a meaningful life and a healthy personality development,2 but which condemns irresponsible destruction of fetal life.”

It seems, at least from the first paragraph of your first reference that the degree of protection depends on its developmental stage. Also that every “potential mother” has a right to a meaningful life that does not involve an “irresponsible destruction of fetal life.” What is a responsible destruction of fetal life?

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 6:10pm

Phillip,
Let’s lengthen your first quote: ” nevertheless, the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo provide a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of this first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?”
There is neither an individual nor a person present as long as the cells have not decided on how many people are going to be born….or a lab deliberately teases the mass into twinning. Ergo this is another quote in which the Cardinal in question seems oblivious to the possibility of identical multiples.
Your second question is what Shannon means and since his phrasing is general I can only guess. He is saying that if the c. pre 14 day human cell mass is ended for an emergency then that is not abortion. Pro life people for years have been saying it is but Popes have not had the same rythmn of repetition. If they thought so, they should be saying so frequently and loudly as pro life people do. If the pill is an act of murder then it could easily be said by a Pope to a world press and they have not done that. They might know that the choice to eat too much by a woman also militates against implantation and therefore a
pope would then have to add that. They don’t because they know this area is iffy. The CDF says “procured abortion” not as they could have said “both procured abortion and pills that are abortifacient from fertilization”. The late Jerome and the late Augustine saw abortion as mortal sin but not murder until the preborn was formed and that was based on the Septuagint version of Exodus 21: 22-25 “If two men are fighting and a pregnant woman is struck in her belly, and her child comes out not fully formed, he shall pay a fine. As the woman’s husband shall impose, he shall pay it with a valuation. But if it is fully formed, he shall give a soul for a soul…”
Only in modern times did someone notice that this might be a mistaken translation because one Hebrew version reads differently : “When men are fighting and one of them strikes a pregnant woman so that her offspring comes out, and there is no mishap, he shall be fined in accordance with what her husband shall impose upon him, and it will be given over to adjudication. But if there is a mishap, then you shall give a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise.” ~Exodus 21:22-25. Here a preborn’s life seems to worth the brawler’s life no matter how young. But the Vulgate by Jerome is the official Church version based on other manuscripts still which Jerome rendered: “If men fall out, and one of them strikes a woman who is pregnant, so that the child is still-born, but she herself lives, he must pay whatever sum the woman’s husband demands, and the judges agree to; if her death follows, then life must pay for life.” (DR)
So the Vulgate does not have the brawler paying for the foetus with his life but he pays for the mother’s life with his. So our official version actually supports the Jewish position that the mother’s life is more valuable than the preborns.
Since Biblical manuscripts differ, the Church is not bound by them but at the extraordinary magisterium level where there is no doubt, She condemns abortion infallibly in section 62 of Evangelium Vitae in such a way as to pass canon 749-3 that demands clarity of infallibility in heresy trials. But that clarity is not reached on the abortifacient question of the preimplantation human cell mass. Ergo Shannon is arguing against the pro life position of laity and lower clergy but is not arguing against the clearly infallible of the Magisterium and his view resembles the relative assessments of the late Jerome and the late Augustine.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 6:38pm

Foxfier,
The rational soul according to Aquinas cannot divide and fills the entire organism therefore prior to twinning, there cannot be a soul…it’s withdrawal from part of the cell mass would be death to that part.
Summa T. Part 1, Question 76, article 8:
” But since the soul is united to the body as its form, it must necessarily be in the whole body, and in each part thereof…on the withdrawal of the soul, no part of the body retains its proper action…”
The twinning problem will return the Church eventually to the delayed ensoulement tradition that stretched from the Fathers to St. Alphonsus di Ligouri.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 6:42pm

Foxfier,
Go here to number one for Vulgate as official Church text and google it and you’ll see multiple attestations:
https://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/bible_versions.htm

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 6:50pm

Foxfier,
I don’t agree with your inferences from my text and for obesity and implantation…here but google on your own too.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130709124127.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20395425

Paul W Primavera
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 7:02pm

The official Church version is n longer St. Jerome’s translation, but the Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio of Pope John Paul II:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/bible/nova_vulgata/documents/nova-vulgata_index_lt.html

I purchased a hard copy from the Vatican’s publishing house a few years ago. It cost about$120.00 or so. I had it blessed by one of our priests here in Charlotte who also knows Latin.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 7:10pm

They are identical in most places and herein on this issue they have the same meaning…here is your new Vulgate and the same meaning:

si rixati fuerint viri et percusserit quis mulierem praegnantem et abortivum quidem fecerit sed ipsa vixerit subiacebit damno quantum expetierit maritus mulieris et arbitri iudicarint

If men quarrel, and one strike a woman with child and she miscarry indeed, but live herself: he shall be answerable for so much damage as the woman’s husband shall require, and as arbiters shall award.

23 sin autem mors eius fuerit subsecuta reddet animam pro anima

But if her death ensue thereupon, he shall render life for life,

24 oculum pro oculo dentem pro dente manum pro manu pedem pro pede

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

25 adustionem pro adustione vulnus pro vulnere livorem pro livore

Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, May 17, AD 2014 2:27am

Kevin: “Most people believe in something metaphysical such as a soul that makes us human persons.”
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The human being, body and soul, makes us human persons. Government is constituted to protect human persons. Atheism denies human persons and defines the human being as an animal with no metaphysical soul or transcendent purpose or vocation in this world and without heaven. Atheism is refuted in the very First Amendment. Atheism is unconstitutional, while the atheist must be tolerated until he learns and accepts the truth about himself as a creature of God.
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Freedom of religion must remain a civil right for when the atheist finds himself in the truth.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, May 17, AD 2014 2:41am

Foxfier: I love you.
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Mary-
From whom did Frankenstein get his soul?
From God. Same as any victim of rape, IVF child, or future children of other atrocities on the course of human development.
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In the natural course, a child’s is made from the combination of his parents’ bodies. In IVF, similar but outside of the body. In cloning, similar but the parts are egg shell and cell filling. In, God forbid, the case of GM people– DNA parts of various parents in an egg shell. In the Frankenstein Monster’s case, similar but from the actual chunks of the people.
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Death is defined as the soul leaving the body. This happens when the body begins to decay (usually two or three days, Lazarus took four days) and the soul can no longer abide in it. Everything you say about life and soul coming together is true. My problem, trying to wrap my mind around the idea that Frankenstein had no life in his body since his parts were dead, the soul having left. No, I think that God did not give Frankenstein his life or his soul. Frankenstein is a fairy tale, filled with Mary Shelley’s errors.
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“In, God forbid, the case of GM people– DNA parts of various parents in an egg shell.”
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DNA parts exactly. DNA is human body parts and may not be patented or bought or sold, or owned by any person other than the human being to whom God created the DNA for.
Foxfier: I love you. Keep up the good work.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, May 17, AD 2014 3:25am

Foxfier: “I am one person. How many souls can one person have?
“Soul” is used at least partly as a way of saying “it is alive.” So, if it’s alive, it has a A soul, although the animating thing for a cat isn’t the same as for my son. (possible bad explanation here, it’s as good as I can do)”

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This is very well done. A cat has an animal soul which dies with it when the cat dies. (I suspect that Frank. had a Frank soul that died with him when he died…really dumb). Only the human being has a rational, immortal human soul capable of knowing, loving and serving God. (animals serve God by being animals, in the sense of Aquinas’ vegetable soul. Animals are innocent and not capable of committing sin). The immortality of the human soul is the image of and likeness of God in our being human. Without acknowledging our Creator, man cannot know who he is, or where his destiny lies.
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Twinning is the individual person, begotten, sharing himself and this too requires free will assent. The person consents to live at procreation. This act of the will to live is an act of the person’s soul. Can a twin or triplet be less than the human being, body and soul, of whom he or she is begotten? Can a candlelight be less, more or less, than fire? (very poor analogy)

Mary De Voe
Saturday, May 17, AD 2014 3:38am

bill bannon: “Foxfier,
The rational soul according to Aquinas cannot divide and fills the entire organism therefore prior to twinning, there cannot be a soul…it’s withdrawal from part of the cell mass would be death to that part.
Summa T. Part 1, Question 76, article 8:
” But since the soul is united to the body as its form, it must necessarily be in the whole body, and in each part thereof…on the withdrawal of the soul, no part of the body retains its proper action…”
The twinning problem will return the Church eventually to the delayed ensoulement tradition that stretched from the Fathers to St. Alphonsus di Ligouri.”
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Not if there are more than one soul and more than one person immediately animating the procreated individual.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, May 17, AD 2014 3:50am

bill bannon: “There is neither an individual nor a person present as long as the cells have not decided on how many people are going to be born….or a lab deliberately teases the mass into twinning. Ergo this is another quote in which the Cardinal in question seems oblivious to the possibility of identical multiples.”
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Actually the person does decide. The cells do not decide. The free will, an attribute of the immortal human soul, acts in deciding to live and the twinning may be God’s creation and immediate animation of more than one person (soul) in this particular individual.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Saturday, May 17, AD 2014 4:07am

Mary,
I am done. This debate swallowed my Friday. It will not devour my weekend. Adieu.

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