From: pub@riscee.pko.dec.com (Publius)
Subject: Re: ABORTION: WHEN Does Human Life BEGIN?
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard MA
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 17:57:54 GMT

In article <74157@hydra.gatech.EDU> rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts) writes:
>
>  ... One 
>particular person on the net (Publius) says that the Pro-Life interpretation 
>of this verse denies God's foreknowledge.  I've not heard anyone teach
>it the way Publius says it is taught.  However, I don't know all of what 
>is being taught and so I can't vehemently deny it.  However, I've asked 
>him to present who is teaching this passage in such a way that it 
>denies God's foreknowledge.

I answered your question a while ago in a previous post.  Here let me
repeat it again.

As I understand it, and if I am wrong, please correct me, the way
that many anti-abortionists "prove" their notion of 'personhood
begins at conception' based on Jeremiah 1:5 is this: they would
point at this verse and say: "Look!  God knew Jeremiah before he
was born, so Jeremiah must be a person before his birth (or otherwise
how could God knew him?)"  Now, Richard, can you in good conscience
say that you have not heard many anti-abortionists speaking like this?
And can you in good Christian conscience say that that way of
interpreting Jeremiah 1:5 is not a denial of God's foreknowledge?

>I didn't say Jeremiah existed prior to his forming in the womb.
>As I point out above, God could have set Jeremiah apart when he was in
>the womb, but I believe it was prior to that - maybe even before the 
>foundation of the world, since God knows what is going to happen.

Then how does this verse have anything to do with "personhood
begins at conception"?

>  ... I believe God called him before 
>both of those events.  I believe it just as easily could have ALSO said that
>God knew him before he could walk, before he could talk, and so on.   

Not so, Richard.  You and me both are capable of knowing someone
before he/she can walk, before he/she can talk.  There is nothing
extraordinary about this.  But only God, who alone has the
foreknowledge, can know someone before birth and before 'forming in
the womb'.  Can you see the difference here?  Jeremiah 1:5 is a
proof of God's foreknowledge precisely because Jeremiah was
not a person before he was born.

Just to show that the Scripture considers the birth as the beginning
of personhood, let me bring up another example.  We both know that
at the moment when we believed in Jesus Christ and received Him as
our Lord and Saviour, we became 'born again', for a new life came into
us and we became a new person.  Now, if the anti-abortionists have
their way, we might have to change the terminology to "conceived again".
How do you like that in the light of the Scripture?

>However, the mention of the earliest stages of life have more weight.
>If nothing else both the forming in the womb and the birth are given equal 
>standing in the life of Jeremiah.

I would say that these two events (birth and 'forming in the womb') are
two milestones before Jeremiah could be called a 'person'.  BOTH of
these two milestones are necessary for the personhood.  Only by this
interpretation that God's foreknowledge implied in Jeremiah 1:5
would not be compromised.


Regards,
-- 
For Christ and His Kingdom
-- Publius
Disclaimer: These opinions are mine, all mine, mine alone.