For those theists who believe in evolution, the existence of a Creator/God, and that humans possess a soul which differentiates them from all other animals: When and how did this soul first manifest? I ask this because evolution seems to me to be a continuim, with no discrete line between human and not human.
For the purposes of this discussion the how of creation is off the table unless it directly affects the answer to the question. The Creation of your choice is stipulated.
God works in mysterious ways. I doubt if you’re going to get a better answer than that. I always wonder something similar about Christians who are OK with abortion. How do they know when the soul unites with the body (if “unites” is even the right word)? I started a thread along those lines a few years back, and it never got anywhere.
I think you answered it yourself. Why does the soul need to be a sharp, delineated line where one day it wasn’t there and the next it was? If you take that view then it is guess work as to when humanity crossed that line.
Personally I see no reason why animals can’t have a soul. Anyone who owns a dog (for instance) would be hard pressed to say they were soulless. So to with humans. I think it could be viewed more as a continuum that saw the soul grow as we grew as a species. That may fly in the face of religious doctrine but then I do not buy into religious doctrine.
Perhaps I do not understand the religious view of the soul but as to abortion I guess the assumption is fertilization occurs and poof…the unborn has a soul the same as anyone else. My view is the soul would increase along with the growth of the unborn child. I cannot see it having more “soul” when it is a blastocyte of 100 undifferentiated cells anymore than a mosquito would have a soul.
Hmm. I wouldn’t say there was anything unique about the human soul, if we use the word in its Aristotelean sense of “principle of life” - Ecclesiastes 3:18-21. The aspect of the human mind that makes us unique is our capacity for rational, abstract thought, and I personally regard Genesis 3 as a metaphor for the suffering, as well as the power, that this has given us.
As to when and how - that’s really a question for the neuroscientists and the archaeologists. Some time between the differentiation of H. habilis from its ancestral stock and the Neandertal burials, probably towards the later part of that time period. It really depends on what counts as evidence for rationality, and whether there’s a continuum between rational and irrational (as opposed to intelligent and non-intelligent).
It is defined that way. At least, I have never heard anyone who claims that humans have a soul that differentiates them from all other animals refer to part of a soul. It is either there or not there, by definition.
Let’s narrow it to theologies that posit a soul as the true, unique essence of a human, derived from God; said essence to be reunited with Him after death.
Gee, I forgot when I posted earlier that I had actually done this very thread before.
For what it’s worth: Christianity, Human evolution, and the concpet of the Soul
Tsst. If I interpret my religion in a way compatible with this question (complex, as I believe each individual to have a number of souls, among other things) the dividing line is use of spoken language.
Speech is one of the forces of creation (not an uncommon belief, I think; consider Genesis for an example from a different religion); the ability to use it brings those who have it a little closer to the level of the gods than those who cannot utilise that power. There’s a bit of myth that indicates that this power of language was given to people so that they could handle their own problems (rather than being dependent upon the gods).
The ability to use language has a range in the animal kingdom – I wouldn’t be willing to make a positive declaration about which animals have the capacity to use it sufficient to ‘qualify’. I’d say that those creatures who understand language are working on developing the capacity for this sort of soul, and those that have limited capacity for using language have the early parts of it.
I don’t know when exactly the soul was introduced. But the question isn’t very relevant to me and my faith: My neighbhor works a night shift and I work a day shift. When I leave in the morning, his car isn’t there. When I arrive in the afternoon, it is. I don’t know when it got there, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
What do you mean by “OK”? Do you mean “think it should be legal” or do you mean “think it’s immoral”? Or do you not believe the two should differ?
Legal. If a fetus has a soul, how can you justify allowing it to be killed for no reason?
Because I can’t prove it has a soul, and my faith isn’t a proper basis for legislature?
So, why not allow a newborn baby to be killed? You can’t prove it has a soul either, and your faith is no basis for legislature.
Because pretty much everyone, even those who don’t share my faith, agree that killing newborns is wrong, and the consensus of the populace is a basis for legislature?
As this appears to have turned into an abortion debate, I feel justified in re-hijacking it to point out that “legislation” is the better word here. A legislature is a body that generates legislation.
But that doesn’t speak to how you, yourself, make the decision about what a person is and how a person becomes a person. Let’s not hijack this thread just yet, though. It’s not like people are rushing into this thread to opine about the OP, but give a day or two at least. Or start a new thread.
To get back to life and reality, the OP talks about the transition from no-soul to soul. (Pun intended and promptly apologised for).
Let us say that Australopithecus afarensis (or a 21 week foetus) has no soul, but Homo erectus (or a 22 week foetus) does. What is it about that change which makes the soul continue after death? (By the way, if we’re not talking about souls which continue after death, perhaps it would be better to scrap the ‘s’ word entirely and just talk about ‘minds’ or ‘consciousness’ or something.)
Alternatively, one could set the threshold at dogs, or bees, or jellyfish (or blastocytes, or zygotes, or the ovum just as the sperm latches onto the zona pellucida). One would still either have to suggest how this change somehow caused some kind of continuation after death and decay of the physical hardware, or talk about souls waiting to be born (Doh! I wasted my entire physical existence on a Neanderthal miscarriage.)
The word soul came from the word anima.meaning life,that is where animation comes in ,we speak of a thing being animated that is alive in comparison to a rock that is not animated.
Some time in early history of man (it is believed) some one was unconscience and came to, so the idea of an after life came from that, it was then called a soul, thought of as a seperate part from the body. Mankind does not like to think of his death as being the end so it is an easy idea to cling to.
I have wondered about this since it is said the body can cause a loss of soul by sin, I would think it the other way around the soul,(if it exists as such) should be responsible for the body.
In Genesis the punshiment for sin was death of the body, no mention of “now you have lost your soul” and will go to hell as many believe. Jesus death was to make man’s life eternal again and I believe once the people saw that others were still dying they decided it must be the soul that lives on. In a way this can be said to be true, as when the body dies we go back to the atoms etc. that we were and inherited from our parents,etc. Life is a passed on thing.We are made of star stuff.
Monavis
In reply; Does a frozen embryo have a soul? Does the souls freeze too,or does the soul hang over the embryo hoping that someday some one will defrost it an implant it in a woman or artificial womb? Does it jump in and out of people who claim to have died and then ressurected? It raises many questions.
Monavis
Checking back in here.
Thanks in advance for discontinuing the abortion hijack.
Metacom, I’m not asking how you know it is there, but at what point in evolution the animal (previously not human) acquired it. And for that matter, did it happen all at once, to every member of the popuation, or on an individual basis?
Lilairen, respectfully, believers in your religion are not the target audience. I am positing one soul per human, exclusive to humanity. Said soul, containing the essence of the human, to continue on after death. Sentient Meat sets the problem nicely.
John Mace, thanks for the link. I will read that thread.
What I am really trying to get at is how evolution can be justified with a belief in a soul. It is not a trick question. I am not looking for a “gotcha.” I am curious about the thought processes; the reasoning, if you will.
I suppose soul is synonymous with spirit. In a book I’ve been reading The Disappearance of the Universe the concept seems to be that we were and are soul, or spiritual beings one with God. We see ourselves as separate beings from God and each other and that’s the problem. Remember the parable of the body? Can the hand say “I’m different from the body?”
If I’m understanding the concept correctly, rather than God creating the Universe we did when we believed we were separate. Time and space are illusions we created in order to reinforce the separate from God, belief.
I think evolution is an appropriate term for our spiritual growth. We progress over a series of physical lifetimes to lose our illusion of separateness. The circumstances of our birth, our own personality and intelligence are a reflection of the progress we did or did not make in our previous life.
Interesting. Let us, for a moment, take this back to Earth 5 billion years ago where, perhaps in some clay layer or lipid base near a thermal vent, the first life which had no previous life appeared. Was its soul ‘waiting for that to happen’, or did it appear along with the first life, before which there were no souls anywhere (either in or out of spacetime)?