The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Two souls for one person?

In reply to:

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[color:"blue"]I will accept your answer, but I must point out that both possibilities that you give say that not every fertilized egg has a soul and this may bear on the issue of the morality of abortion.

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No, not quite! [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/ponder.gif" alt="ponder" title="ponder[/img] What I said was in this specific case, which medically, is an abnormality God created the one unique soul for this one unique individual person. I have no way of knowing, and surely no one does, how these two alleged fertilized eggs joined to form the one person. But as to how this all relates to the issue of abortion, i.e., the possibility that a fertilized egg could be "soul-less", since the origin of the soul is beyond the ability of finite beings to comprehend, we are not at liberty to make any judgments in regard to whether or not it is possible that any one fertilized egg can be disposed off without impunity. The biblical teaching is that there is one soul per individual which we can confidently say comes into existence at conception. Thus there is no basis upon which anyone could abort a fetus and not come under the judgment of God.

Perhaps we should consider this particular case and those like it as we do miracles. God has set into place what we call the "laws of nature", which contrary to the general myth of "Mother Nature", don't operate automatically, but are superintended by God's providence. A miracle is not a violation of these "natural laws", but an exception to them since God Himself is in total control of all things. My point here is that a miracle is that which is a departure from the expected "norm" and is thus not something which one assumes will be a normal occurrence. That being true, we organize our lives around the "norm" and not the "exception" and so govern ourselves. To use a practical illustration, we expect and rely upon the rising and setting of the sun. One would be a little "off" to sit around and wait to set his clock expecting the sun to stand still as it did in the days of Joshua, eh? [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh[/img]

So, again I say that we must presume that with rare exceptions, each person will grow from one fertilized egg and be the possessor of one soul. And if there is a break in that norm, then we have no basis upon which to speculate that there will be more than one soul given to the resulting person. [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/grin.gif" alt="grin" title="grin[/img]

In His Grace,