- Oct 22, 2010
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Abortion and the Christian: What the Bible Says
Recently I was given a new scenario by a friend who was attempting to determine how he felt theologically about an issue. The friend was in a relationship with a woman who had been at one point pregnant, and that pregnancy had implanted in a fallopian tube. Knowing that this would certainly kill the woman and the unborn, the woman aborted the pregnancy. The two questions were, did this woman kill her child and, if so, is this child now in heaven? My initial reaction was that this was not a person, so not a child, and there was no spirit in heaven. However, the repercussion of this was that my belief that a soul is present at conception was now at issue. I decided to consult the bible, logic, and science. From this point on, we will use the New International Standard version of the bible.
The Biblical Proofs for Ensoulment from Conception
I had always grown up with a fully pro-life stance. I had been taught that the bible didnt directly deal with abortion, but that life begins at conception and the principles of the Bible teach against it. Still, I had also seen serious issues with the hard-line approach. These logical gaps were things like the percentage of conceptions which never implant and are never known, the splitting of twins post-conception, and others. However, with this new study, I discovered that these teachings about a non-direct edict from the bible with principles supporting ensoulment at conception were seemingly incorrect. While biological life is certainly present from the point of conception until biological death (and then in various parts of the body after death for various times), I was looking for evidence of a spirit, a soul, a person, from conception. My first discovery was that the verses used to prove ensoulment at conception were extremely weak, with an obvious bias required to see the verses as proof. Lets take a look at those verses:
The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
-- Jeremiah 1:4-5
This was one of the verses that I was presented with repeatedly when I searched for arguments in favor of ensoulment / personhood at conception. Reading the arguments, the pro-life supporters used this verse often as a proof-positive of their position. However, as I read it, I absolutely did not see any evidence of personhood or ensoulment at conception instead I see this as a verse that would require extreme bias to reach that conclusion. First, the verse says Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, which reaffirms Gods omniscience. The verse shows that even prior to conception, God knew Jeremiah, which is totally consistent with the idea that God knows the future, past, and present. The idea that God would have someone appointed as His messenger since the beginning of time is totally consistent with the concepts of omnipotence and omniscience. If personhood is established by this verse, it would not only apply personhood in the uterus, but would also establish it prior to conception. The idea of personhood prior to conception is not a mainstream doctrine within Christianity and does not appear to be taught anywhere else. However, I do not believe that the verse is speaking about personhood at all, but instead to Gods knowledge of all events, past, present, and future.
Next, lets look at a psalm by David:
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
- Psalms 139: 14-16
In this Psalm of David, we see that God has set in place the mechanisms which form a human body in gestation. This verse is contextually poetic, so to take it as meaning that God Himself literally knits together the unborn is rather silly. Just as God doesnt actually make the moon and the stars rise (obviously the Earth rotates due to gravity, a mechanism created by God), God doesnt literally knit together embryos. What we can see theologically in this scripture is that God is, once again, omnipotent and omniscient, knowing the future before it happens.
However, there is one important thing to see in this verse. What amazes me is that while this scripture is used to confirm that personhood / ensoulment occurs at conception, the last verse definitely places this belief in doubt. The verse says that God saw the authors unformed body (developing unborn), and then immediately says that all of the authors days were ordained for him before they came to be. This would seem to say that during gestation, the authors days had not yet begun. While this may not be the authors intent or determination, and this is a poetic text, it certainly seems to contradict the purpose of pro-life supporters in using this passage. Taken in context, this verse which is often used to propagate prenatal ensoulment, would very much seem to say the authors days had not yet begun (or came to be) at the point of God being able to see his unformed body (prenatal).
A more interesting passage also comes from Psalms:
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
- Psalms 51:5
This verse is a strong point for the idea that a spirit exists in the unborn from the point of conception. However, it is not definitive. The question is, how can something be sinful without a spirit? And if it is sinful from the point of being conceived, does that not mean that the spirit is present from that point? Well, there are a couple of things to look at here. First, this is a poetic text again it isnt meant to be taken literally. If you are a total literalist (have fun with Song of Solomon), youre pretty much left with no other option than to believe that a spirit exists from the point of conception. Of course, thats going to give you difficulty with the rest of this paper when there will be other contradictory scriptures to counter that. If you take this contextually, youll see this is David emphasizing, through poetry, the degree of his sinfulness.
The second thing to look at is the idea of flesh which is a persistent theme throughout the bible. The bible repeatedly teaches the concept of a human as consisting of more than one part just as mainstream Christianity teaches a God in three Persons, mainstream Christianity also teaches humans in the form of a body, soul, and spirit (some combine soul and spirit into one). Here are a few of those passages which reaffirm this division of a human:
63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit[a] and they are life.
- John 6:63
Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
- John 3:6
13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
- Romans 18:13-14
With this understanding of the physical / spiritual division established by the bible, and the concept of the body being sinful but the spirit able to overcome, the poetic message of David is better understood. The idea that flesh is sinful at every point, regardless of a spirit is a solid, biblical teaching. So even if David says that from conception he was sinful, it doesnt necessarily mean that a spirit is there from that point. If we were to take that passage in a literal way, it would indicate that sin is not related to rebellion from God since an embryo / fetus cannot make any decision as to whether or not it wishes to obey or disobey God. That combined with an understanding of the poetic context of the passage, means a verse that were about to look at gives us a bit more insight into the question.
The passage that I speak of is used to show that a spirit exists in the developing unborn is found in the gospels. However, I think the opposite is shown in this verse, and quite clearly:
39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
- Luke 1:39-41
This scripture is puzzling when I try to determine why it is used. The only thing I can come up with is that people think since the English translation of the bible uses the term baby here that it means the fetus is ensouled and fully human. There are a couple of problems here: one, if the fetus had a soul and/or spirit, then why is it not filled with the Holy Spirit rather than just Elizabeth? Two, obviously this is a miraculous event since a fetus (and even a newborn) is not cognizant enough to respond to a greeting of special significance beyond any other type of stimulus. But thirdly, with more study, this scripture is shown to be cherry picked a few verses prior we see this prophecy about John the Baptist while he is still being formed in his mothers womb:
13 Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. 14He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth.
- Luke 1:13-15
And there we have it, more evidence that ensoulment doesnt happen prior to birth. In a direct message from God, Zechariah is given the message that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. He is not filled from conception, not before birth, and when the Holy Spirit fills Elizabeth, it does not fill the fetus within her. We also see a common theme in the bible reiterated here God commands what a name will be once the child is born. If the entity is a person, why does it not receive a name until its birth? If you take the time to study this, youll see that this principle is applied over and over in the bible.
Now at this point, weve really dealt with the strongest verses against abortion and in favor of a spirit from conception forward. Thats it. We could go through verses such as You shall not murder, but using a verse like that presupposes that ending a pregnancy is murder. We could go to verses such as So God created man in his own image, but then we have to make a leap of rationale in order to reach a conclusion that because of this a human in gestation should not be terminated. So having looked at the best that the bible has to offer in the way of biblical evidence that a soul exists at conception or from a very early point in gestation, lets look at what it has to say from the opposite viewpoint:
Recently I was given a new scenario by a friend who was attempting to determine how he felt theologically about an issue. The friend was in a relationship with a woman who had been at one point pregnant, and that pregnancy had implanted in a fallopian tube. Knowing that this would certainly kill the woman and the unborn, the woman aborted the pregnancy. The two questions were, did this woman kill her child and, if so, is this child now in heaven? My initial reaction was that this was not a person, so not a child, and there was no spirit in heaven. However, the repercussion of this was that my belief that a soul is present at conception was now at issue. I decided to consult the bible, logic, and science. From this point on, we will use the New International Standard version of the bible.
The Biblical Proofs for Ensoulment from Conception
I had always grown up with a fully pro-life stance. I had been taught that the bible didnt directly deal with abortion, but that life begins at conception and the principles of the Bible teach against it. Still, I had also seen serious issues with the hard-line approach. These logical gaps were things like the percentage of conceptions which never implant and are never known, the splitting of twins post-conception, and others. However, with this new study, I discovered that these teachings about a non-direct edict from the bible with principles supporting ensoulment at conception were seemingly incorrect. While biological life is certainly present from the point of conception until biological death (and then in various parts of the body after death for various times), I was looking for evidence of a spirit, a soul, a person, from conception. My first discovery was that the verses used to prove ensoulment at conception were extremely weak, with an obvious bias required to see the verses as proof. Lets take a look at those verses:
The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
-- Jeremiah 1:4-5
This was one of the verses that I was presented with repeatedly when I searched for arguments in favor of ensoulment / personhood at conception. Reading the arguments, the pro-life supporters used this verse often as a proof-positive of their position. However, as I read it, I absolutely did not see any evidence of personhood or ensoulment at conception instead I see this as a verse that would require extreme bias to reach that conclusion. First, the verse says Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, which reaffirms Gods omniscience. The verse shows that even prior to conception, God knew Jeremiah, which is totally consistent with the idea that God knows the future, past, and present. The idea that God would have someone appointed as His messenger since the beginning of time is totally consistent with the concepts of omnipotence and omniscience. If personhood is established by this verse, it would not only apply personhood in the uterus, but would also establish it prior to conception. The idea of personhood prior to conception is not a mainstream doctrine within Christianity and does not appear to be taught anywhere else. However, I do not believe that the verse is speaking about personhood at all, but instead to Gods knowledge of all events, past, present, and future.
Next, lets look at a psalm by David:
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
- Psalms 139: 14-16
In this Psalm of David, we see that God has set in place the mechanisms which form a human body in gestation. This verse is contextually poetic, so to take it as meaning that God Himself literally knits together the unborn is rather silly. Just as God doesnt actually make the moon and the stars rise (obviously the Earth rotates due to gravity, a mechanism created by God), God doesnt literally knit together embryos. What we can see theologically in this scripture is that God is, once again, omnipotent and omniscient, knowing the future before it happens.
However, there is one important thing to see in this verse. What amazes me is that while this scripture is used to confirm that personhood / ensoulment occurs at conception, the last verse definitely places this belief in doubt. The verse says that God saw the authors unformed body (developing unborn), and then immediately says that all of the authors days were ordained for him before they came to be. This would seem to say that during gestation, the authors days had not yet begun. While this may not be the authors intent or determination, and this is a poetic text, it certainly seems to contradict the purpose of pro-life supporters in using this passage. Taken in context, this verse which is often used to propagate prenatal ensoulment, would very much seem to say the authors days had not yet begun (or came to be) at the point of God being able to see his unformed body (prenatal).
A more interesting passage also comes from Psalms:
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
- Psalms 51:5
This verse is a strong point for the idea that a spirit exists in the unborn from the point of conception. However, it is not definitive. The question is, how can something be sinful without a spirit? And if it is sinful from the point of being conceived, does that not mean that the spirit is present from that point? Well, there are a couple of things to look at here. First, this is a poetic text again it isnt meant to be taken literally. If you are a total literalist (have fun with Song of Solomon), youre pretty much left with no other option than to believe that a spirit exists from the point of conception. Of course, thats going to give you difficulty with the rest of this paper when there will be other contradictory scriptures to counter that. If you take this contextually, youll see this is David emphasizing, through poetry, the degree of his sinfulness.
The second thing to look at is the idea of flesh which is a persistent theme throughout the bible. The bible repeatedly teaches the concept of a human as consisting of more than one part just as mainstream Christianity teaches a God in three Persons, mainstream Christianity also teaches humans in the form of a body, soul, and spirit (some combine soul and spirit into one). Here are a few of those passages which reaffirm this division of a human:
63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit[a] and they are life.
- John 6:63
Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
- John 3:6
13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
- Romans 18:13-14
With this understanding of the physical / spiritual division established by the bible, and the concept of the body being sinful but the spirit able to overcome, the poetic message of David is better understood. The idea that flesh is sinful at every point, regardless of a spirit is a solid, biblical teaching. So even if David says that from conception he was sinful, it doesnt necessarily mean that a spirit is there from that point. If we were to take that passage in a literal way, it would indicate that sin is not related to rebellion from God since an embryo / fetus cannot make any decision as to whether or not it wishes to obey or disobey God. That combined with an understanding of the poetic context of the passage, means a verse that were about to look at gives us a bit more insight into the question.
The passage that I speak of is used to show that a spirit exists in the developing unborn is found in the gospels. However, I think the opposite is shown in this verse, and quite clearly:
39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
- Luke 1:39-41
This scripture is puzzling when I try to determine why it is used. The only thing I can come up with is that people think since the English translation of the bible uses the term baby here that it means the fetus is ensouled and fully human. There are a couple of problems here: one, if the fetus had a soul and/or spirit, then why is it not filled with the Holy Spirit rather than just Elizabeth? Two, obviously this is a miraculous event since a fetus (and even a newborn) is not cognizant enough to respond to a greeting of special significance beyond any other type of stimulus. But thirdly, with more study, this scripture is shown to be cherry picked a few verses prior we see this prophecy about John the Baptist while he is still being formed in his mothers womb:
13 Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. 14He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth.
- Luke 1:13-15
And there we have it, more evidence that ensoulment doesnt happen prior to birth. In a direct message from God, Zechariah is given the message that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. He is not filled from conception, not before birth, and when the Holy Spirit fills Elizabeth, it does not fill the fetus within her. We also see a common theme in the bible reiterated here God commands what a name will be once the child is born. If the entity is a person, why does it not receive a name until its birth? If you take the time to study this, youll see that this principle is applied over and over in the bible.
Now at this point, weve really dealt with the strongest verses against abortion and in favor of a spirit from conception forward. Thats it. We could go through verses such as You shall not murder, but using a verse like that presupposes that ending a pregnancy is murder. We could go to verses such as So God created man in his own image, but then we have to make a leap of rationale in order to reach a conclusion that because of this a human in gestation should not be terminated. So having looked at the best that the bible has to offer in the way of biblical evidence that a soul exists at conception or from a very early point in gestation, lets look at what it has to say from the opposite viewpoint: