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On the nature of God


Jake Huether

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Jake Huether

I wanted to add this to my previous post about God's Nature... but it looks like in the transition this section of the Phorum was cut to 2 pages??

Anyway...

I've been dialoguing with this fellow over email the last few months on ensoulment, abortion, etc.

He brought up that identical twins also start out as one-cell and later split, and how do we reconcile this with ensoulment at conception, etc.

Well, to be clear, the Church has never Taught that ensoulment (or personhood if you prefer) occurs exactly at conception. It has only definitivly Taught that murder is wrong from conception to natural death.

However, knowing that souls are immaterial, they occupy no space, we may speculate that even this one-celled human may have two souls with God's foreknowledge that twinning will happen.

And it made me think about the nature of God. At this instance, a single-celled human (before twinning) may actually be two persons (that is of course if ensoulment has happened). So that a human cell may be two persons and will eventually develop into two human persons.

And in this we can see clearly the idea of the Trinity. God is one in Being, yet three Persons.

I don't know... I may be wrong. Just intersting though.

Just thought it was interesting...

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that is interesting, but way too deep for me right now. I'm going to tuck the concept away and see if any bells go off in the future

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phatcatholic

i would be interested to see how the church or any catholic theologians have addressed the impact that something like "twinning" has on determining when ensoulment occurs. anyone aware of any documents that address this issue? (i'll be looking for some, too)

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With respect to the greater abilities others on this board have on doctrinal matters, I'd say that the point is moot.

Ensoulment may or may not occur apart from conception. We don't know when this mysterious assignment occurs. We're simply bound to accept that procured (meaning induced) abortion is inherently sinful. Whether ensoulment occurs at any point in this process is irrelevant. Those details are in God's hands.

[quote]Well, to be clear, the Church has never Taught that ensoulment (or personhood if you prefer) occurs exactly at conception. It has only definitivly Taught that murder is wrong from conception to natural death.[/quote]

Frankly, this position is more consistent with the overall picture offerred by the Church on human sexuality. If you offer that abortion is wrong only after ensolument, then you have to allow that contraceptive/abortifacient practices prior to "ensoulment" are acceptable.

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blovedwolfofgod

There is always that passage, I forget where, where God says "I have known you before you were in the womb" or something of that nature. Is it possible that ensoulment has already happened prior to conception? Well, god exists outside of time so all things can happen simultaneously for Him. Perhaps in His infinite wisdom, he has already forseen what is to come and who is to come and thus created the souls already.

Or I am absolutely insane and an informal heretic. :sweat:

Someone, correct me.

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phatcatholic

well, i think the church has always taught that our souls don't exist before our bodies do. so, its my understanding that our souls are created at the moment of conception and infused into our body, or sometime after conception. it is awkward, at least for me, to think that what would constitute a human body could not be called a person b/c it didn't have a soul yet.

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Omniscient God certainly knows which zygotes will twin in the future, so why couldn't He just provide them with two souls in knowledge of the future division?

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blovedwolfofgod

Sorry bout that phatcatholic. What I was reading was that the body was united to a pre-existing soul AFTER the resurection. Aquinas makes my head spin, so I got kinda confused and realized that what he was talking about was not conception, but after the body had lived and died.

Yeah, a soul without a body would be incomplete. However we do come across that at death, a body without a soul and so it is not yet a person. However, this is an effect of sin and death, not life. So, yeah... I stand corrected.

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Jake Huether

In Psalm 51 David says:

[quote] 5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
      sinful from the time my mother conceived me.[/quote]

And if we are sinful at conception, this necessitates a soul at conception, because original sin effects souls, not flesh. You can't sin, or have sin, if you don't have a soul.

Maybe the Church has never specifically Taught that ensoulment happens at conception simply because there is no need to teach something that is made clear in Scripture??

But then again, I'm sure David wasn't thinking about "conception" as when the sperm enters the egg, or in the case of a clone, when the nucleus of an egg is exchanged.

Maybe there are two conceptions that take place in this whole process...

The conception of human life (when the egg is fertilized)... and then the conception of the human person (or Personal life), when God gives us our Personal souls. "Conception" in either case meaning "the beginning". So it could be that David was prophesying about the conception of a Person, not just human life??

Whatever... Haha. You could come up with all sorts of interesting theories I suppose. :wacko: :drool:

Just throwin some thoughts out.

God bless.

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phatcatholic

well, the hebrew word for "conceive" here means to be in heat, or to conceive sexually, which would point more to your original understanding of the word.

also, depending on the translation, the "sin" in question could actually be the mothers. the KJV says:

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me."

if the mother conceived "in sin" and he was shapen "in iniquity" this could just as easily mean that david was born from sinful sexual relations, as in adultery or prostitution. the mother was "in sin" when she conceived him.

maybe the Church has not defined it b/c its not necessary? its my understanding that the position of JPII was that the mere potential that a soul could exist at conception is enough reason to never condone abortion at any stage of biological development.

your thoughts?

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Jake Huether

Amen, my brotha from anotha motha. Haha.

Good info. It's making me think more...

It's interesting, once you really get down to it, just how deep you can get in contemplating Godly things...

I often thought that I would get bord if I was a monk in a cell... but now I understand that they most definitly had their work cut out for them.

St. Therese, the Little Flower, often would sit behind her bed and "contemplate Godly things" as a child. Just amazing.

It seems that all these things about conception, ensoulment, the Body and Blood of Christ, Purgatory, Indulgences, the Trinity... they all connect in one way or another. It flows so well in Catholicism. If people would just take the time to calm down and think it all over, they'd most certainly see. No Christian denomination has this. There's always a disconnect! And most Protestants will willingly admit that they don't agree with everything their church teaches, and in most cases because there are these disconnects that cannot be explained. Not so in the Church Christ founded.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

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Jake Huether

Yo,

While I was thinking about your thoughts on being concieved in sin, as in the parents being in sin while concieving, it made me think about Mary!

She was concieved without sin. And so you can think of her being without sin at conception, but it is also interesting to note that her parents, so Tradition passes down, were aslo in a perfect state of grace while they concieved Mary! Pretty cool!

Okay... I'm off to check out your post in the Indulgences section.

God bless.

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