Ensoulment

In religion, ensoulment is the moment at which a human being gains a soul. Some religions say that a soul is newly created within a developing child and others, especially in religions that believe in reincarnation, that the soul is pre-existing and added at a particular stage of development.As early as the time of Tertullian in the third century, Christianity had absorbed the Pythagorean Greek view that the soul was infused at the moment of conception. Though this view was confirmed by St. Gregory of Nyssa a century later, it would not be long before it would be rejected in favour of the Septuagintal notion that only a formed fœtus possessed a human soul. While Augustine speculated whether 'animation' might be present prior to formation, he determined that abortion could only be defined as homicide once formation had occurred. Nevertheless, in common with all early Christian thought, Augustine condemned abortion from conception onward.:4034. It is lawful to procure abortion before ensoulment of the fetus lest a girl, detected as pregnant, be killed or defamed.This Congregation 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 programme 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'. 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.The early Christians are the first on record as having pronounced abortion to be the murder of human beings, for their public apologists, Athenagoras, Tertullian, and Minutius Felix (Eschbach, 'Disp. Phys.', Disp. iii), to refute the slander that a child was slain, and its flesh eaten, by the guests at the Agapæ, appealed to their laws as forbidding all manner of murder, even that of children in the womb. The Fathers of the Church unanimously maintained the same doctrine. In the fourth century the Council of Eliberis decreed that Holy Communion should be refused all the rest of her life, even on her deathbed, to an adulteress who had procured the abortion of her child. The Sixth Ecumenical Council determined for the whole Church that anyone who procured abortion should bear all the punishments inflicted on murderers. In all these teachings and enactments no distinction is made between the earlier and the later stages of gestation. For, though the opinion of Aristotle, or similar speculations, regarding the time when the rational soul is infused into the embryo, were practically accepted for many centuries still it was always held by the Church that he who destroyed what was to be a man was guilty of destroying a human life.'from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care.' With regard to the embryo in the mother's womb, science itself highlights its autonomy, its capacity for interaction with the mother, the coordination of biological processes, the continuity of development, the growing complexity of the organism.It is not an accumulation of biological material but rather of a new living being, dynamic and marvelously ordered, a new individual of the human species. This is what Jesus was in Mary's womb; this is what we all were in our mother's womb.Throughout Christianity's two thousand year history, this same doctrine of condemning all direct abortions has been constantly taught by the Fathers of the Church and by her Pastors and Doctors. Even scientific and philosophical discussions about the precise moment of the infusion of the spiritual soul have never given rise to any hesitation about the moral condemnation of abortion.We created man from an essence of clay, then We placed him as a drop of fluid (nutfah) in a safe place, then We made that drop into a clinging form (alaqah), and We made that form into a lump of flesh (mudghah), and We made that lump into bones (idhaam), and We clothed those bones with flesh (lahm), and later We made him into other forms—glory be to God, the best of creators! (23:12-14)...We created you from dust, then from a drop of fluid (nutfah), then a clinging form ('alaqah), then a lump of flesh (mudghah), both shaped and unshaped: We mean to make Our power clear to you. Whatever We choose We cause to remain in the womb for an appointed time, then We bring you forth as infants and then you grow and reach maturity. ... (22:5)When 42 nights have passed over the conceptus, God sends an angel to it, who shapes it (into human form) and makes its hearing, sight, muscles and bones… In religion, ensoulment is the moment at which a human being gains a soul. Some religions say that a soul is newly created within a developing child and others, especially in religions that believe in reincarnation, that the soul is pre-existing and added at a particular stage of development. In the time of Aristotle, it was widely believed that the human soul entered the forming body at 40 days (male embryos) or 90 days (female embryos), and quickening was an indication of the presence of a soul. Other religious views are that ensoulment happens at the moment of conception; or when the child takes the first breath after being born; at the formation of the nervous system and brain; at the first brain activity (e.g., heartbeat); or when the fetus is able to survive independently of the uterus (viability). The concept is closely related to debates on the morality of abortion as well as the morality of contraception. Religious beliefs that human life has an innate sacredness to it have motivated many statements by spiritual leaders of various traditions over the years. However, the three matters are not exactly parallel, given that various figures have argued that some kind of life without a soul, in various contexts, still has a moral worth that must be considered. Among Greek scholars, Hippocrates (c.460 – c.370 BC) believed that the embryo was the product of male semen and a female factor. But Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) held that only male semen gave rise to an embryo, while the female only provided a place for the embryo to develop, (a concept he acquired from the preformationist Pythagoras). Aristotle believed a fetus in early gestation has the soul of a vegetable, then of an animal, and only later became 'animated' with a human soul by 'ensoulment'. For him, ensoulment occurred 40 days after conception for male fetuses and 90 days after conception for female fetuses, the stage at which, it was held, movement is first felt within the womb and pregnancy was certain. This is called epigenesis, which is 'the theory that the germ is brought into existence (by successive accretions), and not merely developed, in the process of reproduction,' in contrast to the theory of preformation, which asserts the 'supposed existence of all the parts of an organism in rudimentary form in the egg or the seed;' modern embryology, which finds both that an organism begins with an inherited genetic code and that embryonic stem cells can develop epigenetically into a variety of cell types, may be seen as supporting a balance between the views. Stoicism maintained that the living animal soul was received only at birth, through contact with the outer air, and was transformed into a rational soul only at fourteen years of age. Epicureanism saw the origin of the soul (considered to consist of only a small number of atoms even in adults) as simultaneous with conception. Pythagoreanism also considered ensoulment to occur at conception.:109 From the 12th century, when the West first came to know more of Aristotle than his works on logic, mediaeval declarations by Popes and theologians on ensoulment were based on the Aristotelian hypothesis. Aristotle's epigenetic view of successive life principles ('souls') in a developing human embryo—first a vegetative and then a sensitive or animal soul, and finally an intellective or human soul, with the higher levels able to carry out the functions also of the lower levels—was the prevailing view among early Christians, including Tertullian, Augustine, and Jerome. Lars Østnor says this view was only 'presaged' by Augustine, who belongs to a period later than that of early Christianity. According to David Albert Jones, this distinction appeared among Christian writers only in the late fourth and early fifth century, while the earlier writers made no distinction between formed and unformed, a distinction that Saint Basil of Caesarea explicitly rejected.:72–73 While the Hebrew text of the Bible only required a fine for the loss of a fœtus, whatever its stage of development, the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Hebrew text, a pre-Christian translation that the early Christians used, introduced a distinction between a formed and an unformed fœtus and treated destruction of the former as murder.:9, 24 It has been commented that 'the LXX could easily have been used to distinguish human from non-human fœtuses and homicidal from non-homicidal abortions, yet the early Christians, until the time of Augustine in the fifth century, did not do so.'