Talk:Ensoulment

message: As Choster says, "many religions believe in souls", but the terminology, concepts and beliefs are different.
I think it would help to compare and contrast the religious beliefs if there was a separate article on Ensoulment (Christianity) (as there was in the past) which linked to the nearest equivalent in other religions.--Nathan Cole 12:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separate articles? 

message: This article appears to represent only the Christian / Catholic point of view.  All of the 
cited links are from the Bible, Biblical sites, or the Roman Catholic church.
The following article, which I have not validated, shows different ideas of the time of 
ensoulment among different religions: .  I will try to find 
evidence for my at this point completely unverified understanding that earlier in time, 
when child mortality was high, even the Catholic Church taught that ensoulment happened some 
days after birth.
In any case, the single-religion POV presented here makes me challenge the objectivity of 
this article.
Peter 14:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question objectiveness and sources 

message: Since identical twins form after conception, do they only have half a soul each? Atomic Wedgie 03:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Souls are indivisible. Either there are two already there or the second one is infused after the separation. Remember that spirits are not restricted by space, but rather exist where they act. Thus that old question: How many angels can fit on the point of a needle? All of them.
--94.37.172.194 (talk) 21:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Identical twins

message: Presently, the Wiki entry states, "the Church teaches that ensoulment is at conception. This is taught as an article of dogma which is required belief by all its members."  There is no source for this, and from what I know, it is simply false!!  The 2003 New Catholic Encyclopedia has an entry ("Soul, origin of") which says, regarding "Time of Infusion," that "Exactly when this happens is more controversial, and still an open question with scholastic philosophers of high standing on both sides" (p 356).  The NCE entry continues by pointing out that the CDF's Donum Vitae  states, "The Magisterium has not expressly committed its authority to an affirmation of a philosophical nature" (I.1).   The CDF would not withhold its affirmation on a matter which is, as the Wiki entry claims, "an article of dogma."
Furthermore, the Wiki entry states "The Roman Catholic Church has maintained as part of its dogma the writings of the early Church father, Tertullian (160–220 CE), who wrote..."  This is nonsensical.  "Tertullian" is "part of the [the Church's] dogma"??  A dogma is a solemnly defined and obligatory teaching, but as far as I know neither "Tertullian" (this is nonsensical), nor the entirety of his writings, are considered dogma.  Sure, Tertullian's statement about ensoulment provides an early testimony to the predominant Catholic belief that this begins at conception, but to claim that this statement is somehow dogma?  This whole part needs to be rewritten by someone who knows what "dogma" is.
According to the NCE, the present situation stands as follows: the CDF has put its weight on the position that ensoulment, and thus personhood, begin at conception, but it has not taught this.  The majority view (which grew with the advent of the human genome) among Catholic theologians tends toward the moment of conception, but this is not a settled matter, and certainly not a dogma. 
Bpeters1 (talk) 19:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I was the one who added that paragraph.  It was my understanding of the matter at the time, but I think you're right, it is in error.  Please go ahead and fix it, if you know how. MamaGeek (talk/contrib) 12:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article of Dogma??? 

message: There ought to be an article on the declaration Dignitas Personae in order to better explain how the Church views living embryos. ADM (talk) 05:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Dignitas Personae

message: The philosophical position taken in Dignitatis Personae on the question of the value of a human being is found in ¶ 5:
Indeed, the reality of the human being for the entire span of life, both before and after birth, does not allow us to posit either a change in nature or a gradation in moral value, since it possesses full anthropological and ethical status. The human embryo has, therefore, from the very beginning, the dignity proper to a person.
Unfortunately, as a philosophical argument, this reasoning is circular.  It is true that one cannot posit a change in value if the human being possesses full anthropological and ethical status from the moment of conception, but this if is the very conclusion desired, albeit expressed in different terms.  It begs justification.
In any case, this paragraph makes no pretense to declaring a matter of settled dogma.  The very reason the argument is couched in philosophical terms is because it is not a matter of settled dogma and the CDF recognizes the need to provide a justification for the main conclusion.
I make no suggestion here that there is no basis for a dogmatic declaration in favor of ensoulment at conception, nor do I believe there is no philosophical justification for this eminently desirable conclusion.  On the contrary, I believe the scriptures cited are at least highly suggestive of the conclusion and I also believe that a legitimate philosophical argument, based in natural theology, is possible. [[[User:Lgearhart|Fr. Larry]] (talk) 19:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The position taken in <em>Dignitatis Personae</em> 

message: I believe this article violates Wikipedia's neutrality policy and is written in a way that is unsalvageable at this point. I recommend the placing a speedy deletion tag if this article falls under that policy.--Amadscientist (talk) 04:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Essay not encyclopedic article 

message: I am removing everything that makes an unsourced claim, all peacock terms and weasel words.--Amadscientist (talk) 04:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bold copy edit 

message: This article used to have a lot more useful content in it.  It looks like most of it was deleted by "Amadscientist", trying to bias the article.  Please ban them from editing and restore the content.  Quote from Augustine was removed, quotes from the Bible were removed, etc.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.58.226 (talk) 02:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted content 

message: I have removed a large chunk of text added twice by an anonymous editor. I believe the anonymous editor can probably contribute a lot to this article, but I want to encourage the editor to work within out guidelines, and attempt to write an encyclopedia article. A long list of what early Church Fathers had to say about abortion is not encyclopedic. That content can be condenses and summarized, and key quotes can be used, but this isn't WikiQuote, and such large blocks of quotes breaks up the flow of text and isn't within out style guidelines (in addition to having basic formatting errors and looking terrible on screen). Also, keep in mind that we generally cannot cite primary sources like ancient texts directly, but need to cite scholars discussing those sources. So instead of citing a Church Father directly and claiming that passage relates to ensoulment, we need to find scholars making those claims to avoid original interpretation of ancient texts and such. I really do believe anon can contribute, and I want to encourage them to keep working, but please consider Wikipedia's mission of being an encyclopedia, read up on our rules and style guide, and consider how you can contribute. I'd be glad to help where I can if you have questions. -Andrew c [talk] 15:21, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleted content 2

message: I will for now refrain from making further edits to this article.  I will only leave an indication of my disagreement with the systematic removal of sourced information about the Jewish view that wasting seed is considered in the Talmud to be equivalent to murder, and about the explanation that the Talmud's judgement on it as punishable by death "was not out of a radical puritanism in the Jewish religion. The punishment was simply a particular response to the universal problem, as inevitable as it is insoluble, of establishing the precise moment when life begins. If we can turn abortion into murder by declaring that an embryo is alive, and then if we push that originating instant back a few hours and declare that the sperm is alive, any waste of sperm becomes homicide."  Esoglou (talk) 19:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Variety of views among Jews even today 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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message: Relation to citation 21 ( Stem cells, human embryos and ethics: interdisciplinary perspectives: Lars Østnor, Springer 2008), the text in the book (at page 105) is:
"Augustine presaged the predominant view when he argued that an unformed
fetus had no soul and no sentience (Noonan 1970:15–16). His view was accepted
by Thomas Aquinas and by most theologians through at least the 18th century
(Noonan 1970:34–36)."
confirming what the editor of this part of the article has written. Greetings, Ricardo Ferreira de Oliveira (talk) 14:09, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation needed

message: Is the CCC an official documentation of Church teaching? One source claims that life at conception is not offficial is there other sources to back this up? Thoughts?Manabimasu (talk) 01:58, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not “official” 

message: This is not clear as to what is meant. Please rewrite, and add clear, universal, English punctuation: "In religion, ensoulment is the moment at which a human being gains a soul. Some religions say that a soul is newly created within a developing child and others, especially in religions that believe in reincarnation, that the soul is pre-existing and added at a particular stage of development." Misty MH (talk) 18:42, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please clarify the intro paragraph 

message: I have just flipped through Aristotle's On The Generation of Animals and it doesn't have anything that mentions the soul enters the foetus around 40 days, as per the claim of quickening in this article.  Neither is 
this mentioned in On The Soul, which reference 7 in the
article maintains is the case.
This article has the following claim on Aristotle
"Aristotle believed a fetus in early gestation has the soul of a vegetable, then of an animal, and only later became "animated" with a human soul by "ensoulment". For him, ensoulment occurred 40 days after conception for male fetuses and 90 days after conception for female fetuses
, the stage at which, it was held, movement is first felt within the womb and pregnancy was certain. This is called epigenesis,"
There is no mention of the term epigenesis in either Aristotle's On The Soul and On The Generation Of Animals.
I also flipped through Aristotle's On The Soul, and no mention of the 40 day entre of the soul into the foetus.
Perhaps, it is in another work of Aristotle's.
I did find the following:
On the generation of animals
by Aristotle
p32 Part 23
"For at first all such embryo seem to live the life of a plant.  And
it is clear that we must be guided by this i speaking of the sensitive
and the rational soul.  For all three kinds of soul, not only the nutritive,
must be possessed potentially before they are possessed in actuality.  Ant it is
necessary either (1) that they should all come into being in the embryo without
existing previsouly outside it, or (2) that they should exist previously . or (3) that
some should so exist and others not".
...
embryo and semen have soul in potentiality but not actually. (p33)  part 23 Endo999 (talk) 05:17, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  No Mention of 40 day entre of soul into foetus in Aristotle's On The Soul as Per the reference in this article