A Divine Breath, The Soul and the Petri Dish

"And The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being."

When I was in high school, our religion teacher really got us going on a theoretical debate about the definition of life as it relates to the soul. Ask many American Christians (as opposed to Indian Hindus, Asian Buddhists, Native American Shamans, etc.) what makes it okay to harvest higher mammals, say, whales or other prey, and they will often point out that, after all,"whales don’t have souls.” Based on such logic one is naturally led to the follow-up question: “What is the soul and how does it get into the human animal to set him so apart from other creatures?” Most theologians attribute the soul to a divine spark imparted by God. Next question? When exactly, then, does God ignite the human animal with said spark? At conception? At 3 months gestation? 7 months? 9 months? At birth? At 6 months of age, 12 months, 2 years? When exactly does this miracle of souldom take place?

Some who argue against embryonic stem cell research argue that the cells in a petri dish are already human beings, as opposed to just a bunch of animal cells, meaning that the soul therefore, must be an automatic response to fertilization. In other words, the birthing of the soul is a a done deal - when the egg is fertilized, in pops the soul, or thus blooms the soul, or however you wish to visualize it, the birth of the soul and the fertilization of the egg are simultaneous. Of course, Genesis has a different set of rules. To my understanding, Adam was a biological entity first and then was endowed with a soul. “And The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being." The breath of God gave Adam his soul. Likewise Eve sprang from Adam’s rib, not from a fertilized egg. This might lead one to believe that the soul is something apart from simple biology such as an aggregate of cells.

If one believes in Genesis, as most opponents of embryonic stem cell research do, how does one then argue that the soul is just a product of biological function? What happened to God’s breath? Did He just decide not to take an active role in soul placement post Adam and Eve? Did he think He would be too busy to pay attention to imparting his divine breath to each and every soul and assign the task to some kind of automated function of cell reproduction instead? Gee, that’s not a very special chain of events. I, for one, don’t care for its implications.

I propose that, should a God be omniscient and involved in allocation of divine souls, from the very first to the very last, He also would be fully capable of knowing the fate of each and every fertilized egg that has ever been formed or will ever be formed. Do not most Christians believe He indeed knows what is in store for each of us? Even if we have free will, can not He see into the years and know today what choices each of us will make with that free will? Even in a long and prosperous life, can He not see how each biological entity will end, or at best, make its transition? So my question is simply this: Given that God knows all that has ever taken place and all that will ever take place, and if the soul is indeed the divine breath of God,would He impart that most precious divine spark into a fertilized biological cell cluster in a petri dish knowing full well that that soul will never have a host body?

I don’t the know origin of the soul, of course, because I’ve been thinking of this question for decades, long before modern technology led us to the ethical conundrums of today. One thing I do believe, however, is that the each soul is a mysterious gift from a mysterious God who is fully in charge of the power to impart souls at His own pleasure and in accordance with His divine wisdom as opposed to being forced to impart a soul to four cells in a petri dish because of immutable biological laws of Nature. Is it possible that just as every sperm does not become a baby, not every fertilized egg becomes a soul? And if not a soul, then, what separates it from the fate of the whale which, when harvested intelligently, has sustained whole populations of indigenous people for generations?

If we are to argue theological questions when it comes to matters of science, we must argue them to their completion using the biblical tenets we use to support our position as equally valid arguments to oppose our position. The ethics of embryonic stem research go deep and deserve much more than superficial sound bite posturing.