From: rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: ABORTION: WHEN Does Human Life BEGIN?
Date: 10 Nov 92 18:50:31 GMT
Organization: CERL-EE, Georgia Institue of Technology

In article <1992Nov9.175750.8303@engage.pko.dec.com> pub@riscee.pko.dec.com (Publius) writes:
|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

This is your assertion, which I have not evidence to deny, but for
which I have asked for evidence from you to support.  Show the
documentation for it.

|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

If you read my recent post on this, you will find out that God can
and does know things before they exist.  I don't say nor have I heard
anyone on the pro-life side say that Jeremiah existed before his birth.

Here I think you need to look at God's abilities - he can do great
things.

    Romans 4:17 (NIV)   As it is written: "I have made you a father 
    of many nations." He is our father in the sight of God, in whom 
    he believed--THE GOD who gives life to the dead and CALLS THINGS 
    THAT ARE NOT AS THOUGH THEY WERE. 

|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?

Yes. Have your read my other recent and past post on this?

|>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"?

It at least shows that the forming in the womb (which I'll define
as from conception to birth) is of noteworthiness, just as birth
is of worth.  We even continue forming after we are born - we are
not fully formed.  

|>  ... 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

You misunderstand.  Yes we can know someone before they walk or talk
and I guess you mean after their birth, correct? God knew Jeremiah
before he was born and before he was formed in the womb.  These 
things happped before Jeremiah could walk or talk and so it could
have said God knew Jeremiah before he walked and talked, ALSO (THAT'S 
ALSO aka IN ADDITION TO and not instead of).  That is God knew
Jeremiah before was formed in the womb and logically he also knew
him before he could walk.  I suggested these other developmental
stages as ADDITIONAL STAGES that could have also been stated for before
which God knew Jeremiah.  That is that God knew him before he
existed, which inludes knowing him before he could walk.  Conception
is often mentioned as the starting place and we know that Jeremiah
was conceived.
 
|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.

Agreed.  It seems you keep putting me in some other camp than
which I belong - whether his other camp exists or not.

|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?

See below.  John the Baptist leap in his mother's womb.  There is
life there - it may not be the same exact thing.  One birth transforms
you from breathing water to air and the other transforms you from 
spiritual death to life.

|>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.

Person or life - are you stating a preference to the worth of
the unborn.  Both are significant.  As the unbeliever exists
before his spiritual birth, so does the physically unborn exist
before the physical birth.  We are born into a new way of life,
but we can't have the one (the latter) with out the other (the 
former.)  All of the stages are important.

For Christ and His Kingdom,
Richard Pitts

-- 
rpitts@cerl.gatech.edu       |    
Atlanta, GA                --|-- 
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