Introduction
Exactly when
does the Creator recognize life beginning? I surmise that the
the soul is eternal, but the physical body begins at conception. Look at the
following from Psalm 139 for an idea.
Psalms 139:13-16 BBE
(13) My flesh was made by you, and my parts joined
together in my mother's body.
(14) I will give you praise, for I am strangely and
delicately formed; your works are great wonders, and of this my
soul is fully conscious.
(15) My frame was not unseen by you when I was made
secretly, and strangely formed in the lowest parts of the earth.
(16) Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book all
my days were recorded, even those which were purposed before
they had come into being.
Psalm 139 is purportedly written by David and there's no reason
to doubt this that I have found. David and the Creator had a
very close relationship. Would David have existed had his
mother had an abortion? What if the fleshy parts had been used
to repair his father's failing heart? Think about therapeutic
cloning. Is it possible that David could have never been?
At any point until David took his first breath, he was no more than
a parasite, completely dependent on the attached mother for its
survival.
In verse 13, David acknowledges that his physical parts were
joined together by the Creator when he still lay in his mother's
body. All this verse does tell us is that his fleshly
existence began at this point.
In verse 14, David separately
speaks of his soul from his physical being. David refers to
his formation, literally "woven" as delicate and strange. In
verse 15, he calls his body a frame made in secret, formed in the
lowest parts of the earth. With current advances we know that
our bodies are formed from DNA. The woven framework of all
living creatures of the planet.
In verse 16, we arrive at a core problem. The Creator, in
their omniscience, knows everything that would happen to David
before the DNA begins its function. Does that imply that David
existed before his conception? I surmise that it does.
Does this mean that anything grown from DNA is life? I surmise
that it is.
Therefore I believe the Creator sees two lives in
humans. The first to exist is our soul and the second is our
physical being. When does life begin? Life, as science
knows, begins when DNA starts the process of growing into a final
form.
The Tough Questions
Q. Is abortion okay?
A. We are admonished to Love Neighbor.
c.f. Matthew 22:39. The question is completely personal to the
mother and the father of the union's result. Should the parents
lives be ruined by the child's birth, it would be unfair to
continue the pregnancy. I don't see the decision as one to be made by anyone
but the parents either. This even applies in cases where the
parents are minors. If the mother is the victim of rape, then I
believe the father has no right to decide. Except in that
case, a
mother should be prevented from making the decision without the father's
involvement.
Q. What about Stem Cell Research?
A. This research
holds the promise of curing man's diseases and extending life
indefinitely. Some believe this equates to playing God.
I agree on some level with this group. However, I cannot see
the harm in taking our medical knowledge to the next level. If
using stem cells provides us a closer path to the end of human
suffering, who are we to propose that God is opposed to it.
Genesis 11:4-8 BBE
(4) And they said, Come, let us make a town, and a tower
whose top will go up as high as heaven; and let us make a great
name for ourselves, so that we may not be wanderers over the
face of the earth.
(5) And the Lord came down to see the town and the tower
which the children of men were building.
(6) And the Lord said, See, they are all one people and
have all one language; and this is only the start of what they
may do: and now it will not be possible to keep them from any
purpose of theirs.
(7) Come, let us go down and take away the sense of their
language, so that they will not be able to make themselves clear
to one another.
(8) So the Lord God sent them away into every part of the
earth: and they gave up building their town.
When men built the tower of Babel, God corrected the error. He did not wait for the end result and then take away
the tower, no more than he has taken away our access to stem cells.
Matthew Gerrior 11/29/2005