On Ensoulment
Many people of faith regard themselves as progressive. Their faith in Christ, for example, is resolute. However, they are not doctrinaire in their belief system - scripture is open to interpretation, and organized religion takes on the “broken mirror” analogy: each faith represents but one piece of the whole, therefore, none of the individual pieces represent the “whole truth” but a single part. Issues, then, such as homosexual marriage, capital punishment, environmentalism, and abortion are viewed with a far less dogmatic eye by Liberal Christians (derisively labeled “al la cart Christians” by some, I say approaching rationality) than by their more strident counterparts. Another issue, evolution, is also accepted by most of the progressive faithful, thus rejecting the fiction, pseudo-science “creationism.”
And here is my point: If you accept evolution then you must agree with the statement that “we” all evolved from a single source; from the primordial ooze we arose. However, as a person of faith, or a Christian more specifically given the context of Western society, you must also believe in an afterlife of some kind, or else your faith doesn’t really follow from anything. Therefore, given biblical teaching, the issue of ensoulment must be broached - it is, after all, from this notion of the “soul” that the idea of eternal life is derived. This raises a fundamental question: If you accept both evolution and some conception of an afterlife, at what point does ensoulment take place?
It seems to me that there are only two possible answers to this question. One, god selected the stage of the evolutionary chain in which Homo Sapiens erupted to introduce to the world “souls,” which, in keeping with Judeo-Christian dogma, excludes all nonhuman animals from grace or eternal life. If only considered for a moment, however, the issue of arbitrariness enters the equation. In effect, so the reasoning goes, god saw three beings standing in front of him: a worm, a cow, and a human animal. Leaving aside the fact that each of these three beings originated from a single source through complicated processes of evolution where some genes mixed and others branched out in different directions, and that what separates one from the other is merely an alteration in the genetic code, god decided to select but one being from but one evolutionary stage to grant eternity too. Considering Darwin’s theory holistically, selecting as god selected is almost ludicrously absurd given that he/she could have just as easily closed his/her eyes and pointed to some canid species, for example. Natural selection is essentially random mutation. There is no design, therefore, Z mutation getting a “soul,” while A-Y do not, is uncomfortably arbitrary. Framing this arbitrariness as “divine plan” does not change its nature.
The second answer is more interesting. One might reason that creation as we know it will, in some perfected state, make-up heaven as we know it. Earth cleansed; god’s grand design abstracted existentially. Avoiding the arbitrariness problem raised in the initial answer, the validity of the theory of evolution means that at our genesis, inchoate life was ensouled, and generation after evolutionary generation new life came into being, each sharing two traits: A) origins, and B) a soul. As a theological (and philosophical) issue, investigating further this brief sketch would be an interesting pursuit in and of itself. However, another, perhaps more, interesting question arises. If all beings along the evolutionary chain have been granted eternal life, then killing some of that life - with all the suffering therein - as a means to satisfy a taste bud (and only a taste bud) ought to be a cause for concern. Consider the outcome: What words will assuage the perfectly reasonable sentiment of hostility of the female cow whom had to experience rape, pregnancy, the removal of her baby, and milking-by-machine, over and over and over again, so that we can enjoy dairy ice cream as opposed to the non-dairy varieties? If confronted in the afterlife with a family of pigs who had to suffer the unimaginable in this life because “I just love bacon,” will an apology sway? What of the chickens, or any of the other billions upon billions of animals that we kill for their flesh, sport, or convenience? The heavenly horizon darkens. Perhaps all nonhuman life go to a different heaven? One can only hope.
“But,” goes the inevitable rebuttal, “god gave them to us to use as our means.” Indeed, but remember:
Genesis 1 29:30:
“Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and for every beast of the earth and every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.”
We were “created” as vegans; in our perfected state non-interference with sentient life was a maxim. It was Original Sin that ended this harmony.
Romans 5:12:
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”
Man sinned and god rescinded its decree that human animals (and nonhuman animals many believe) ought to be vegans. Where then do the progressive faithful find a defense of killing animals to please their palates?
Crossposted @ That Vegan Girl
re: “Therefore, given biblical teaching, the issue of ensoulment must be broached - it is, after all, from this notion of the “soul” that the idea of eternal life is derived. This raises a fundamental question: If you accept both evolution and some conception of an afterlife, at what point does ensoulment take place?”
This is not quite correct. There are Christians (even relatively conservative evangelical Christians) who hold to nonreductive physicalism - ie. we do not have dual unrelated natures (physical and spiritual) but that our spiritual nature emerges from our physical nature. The most helpful and accessible book on this is Nancey Murphy’s “Bodies and Souls or Spirited Bodies?” see: http://books.google.com/books?id=-RxdcpDZfxIC
~ Recent blog post: Challenging and Reshaping Historical Approaches to Original Sin: Response by Denis Lamoureux ~
Does this anti-dualism hold for nonhuman animals, Steve?
~ Recent blog post: Proposition 2: Some thoughts ~
Hi Alex,
Scripture is clear that humanity alone has been given the “image of God”, but what exactly that means is wholely unclear.
Not sure I’d call these ideas (eg. nonreductive physicalism NP) anti-dualism. Also note, that I am not sure of my own position in this - merely pointing out that the question is (even more) complicated than laid out above. Has this spiritual nature emerged in non-human animals as well? Ah - very good question?
~ Recent blog post: Challenging and Reshaping Historical Approaches to Original Sin: Response by Denis Lamoureux ~
It seems to me that even accepting the premise that our spiritual nature emerges from our physical nature (which still raises the question, “When?,” if evolution is accepted as valid), the problem of arbitrariness is not avoided, but merely reframed into a slightly more complicated package. The assumptions that seek to ground this new argument, however, are the same.
~ Recent blog post: Proposition 2: Some thoughts ~
This whole article presents and interesting mental exercise, but any sort of definitive, reasonable answer to questions of faith will always be elusive. Faith does not require reason. In fact, faith often operates in the absence of reason.
When confronted with reason, people of faith will often resort to inventing new and more elaborate fictions, often with little or even no support from their own scriptures, to rationalize how their non-reasoned view of reality can be made to conform to the reasoned, or scientific model of reality.
It is kind of like when Star Trek geeks argue about how two contradictory episodes can be construed to make sense within the framework of the Star Trek mythos when the ultimate answer is that the contradictory episodes were simply written by different people and human error is to blame for any episodal discrepencies.
One simply cannot force evolutionary theory into belief systems that were established long before anyone had any concept of evolution. One would be better off abondoning the outdated and unreasonable philosophies of primitive people altogether and working solely in the realm of reason and science. There is no sense in trying to marry reason and science to faith and superstition.
I love “mental exercises, Matt. My aim is not to define a standard, but, through Socratic dialogue, open-up some space for discourse. Steve’s input is an example of this possibility.
~ Recent blog post: "Compassion For All Beings" ~