I addressed that, of course. It suffers from the three arguments I made
which seem to make it untenable. To refresh your memory:
1. Conception being a process, not an event
2. The fact of occasional twinning
3. The fact of occasional twins fusing back into one conceptus.
A couple of things to keep in mind here:
Conception is an event and not a process,as I see it. There is a point when
the sperm fertilizes the egg that a protective barrier is formed around the
egg so that no other sperm can enter (this takes a matter of a couple of
minutes). I would characterize that event as the point of conception.
Without a sperm entering an egg you have no conception and if more than one
enters,it will be aborted due to the wrong ploidy (DNA content) of the
embryo.
As to twins - there is a point where the two embryos are fully and
functionally separated, thus where there was one soul up until that point an
additional one could be easily infused at that point (cells coming apart
after division again takes a matter of minutes). I have never heard of two
fully formed embryos fusing back together into one embryo (it might but I
haven't heard about it and would suspect to be very very rare if at all if
you apply stringent scientific criteria to was is separate in the first
place).
>From: "Shuan Rose" <shuanr@boo.net>
>To: "Adrian Teo" <ateo@whitworth.edu>, <RDehaan237@aol.com>,
><hoss_radbourne@hotmail.com>, <dickfischer@earthlink.net>, <asa@calvin.edu>
>Subject: RE: Infusion of the soul as a process
>Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 17:23:03 -0400
>
> The problem I see here is that according to what I have heard, for the
>embryo to go on to be a human being, it has to implant in the wall of the
>uterus. Otherwise, it just gets washed out with the next menstrual
>flow-something that happens quite often. Do those embryos have fully formed
>souls too?
>See http://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual/section18/chapter248/248a.htm.
>According to this web site, the spinal cord and nervous system does not
>start to form until day 1o. The major organs, including ( I guess )the
>brain
>( the presumed seat of the soul) form by somewhere around day 70.
>Are there any experts on fetal development out there?If we are going to
>guess about the date of the infusion of the soul, let us have an educated
>guess.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of Adrian Teo
>Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2002 6:14 PM
>To: RDehaan237@aol.com; hoss_radbourne@hotmail.com;
>dickfischer@earthlink.net; asa@calvin.edu
>Subject: RE: Infusion of the soul as a process
>
>
>Hello All,
>
>Just a suggestion: How about the traditional view, that the huamn
>soul is fully formed upon conception and therefore, the conceptus is
>a fully human person?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: RDehaan237@aol.com [mailto:RDehaan237@aol.com]
> Sent: Sat 7/20/2002 4:54 PM
> To: hoss_radbourne@hotmail.com; dickfischer@earthlink.net;
>asa@calvin.edu
> Cc:
> Subject: Infusion of the soul as a process
>
>
>
>
>
> In a message dated 7/20/02 11:39:01 AM,
>hoss_radbourne@hotmail.com writes:
>
> << Even with this answer, however, it is OK to speculate,
>realizing that this
> is metaphysics, not science. One speculation is that the
>infusion of a soul
> is a PROCESS, and takes place over the many months of gestation, and,
> perhaps, is not complete until sometime in childhood. I don't like this
> speculation; it implies that there are such things as either
>"partial souls"
> or "incomplete souls." >>
>
> Burgy,
>
> How about an "immature soul"? That makes the soul a
>developing dimension of
> human beings, reaching full maturity perhaps sometime in
>early adolescence,
> or at the age of accountability, as some of us old timers called it.
>
> Just speculating.
>
> Regards,
>
> Bob
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