God vs. Chance

Formerly anonymous Thomist James Chastek writes rants in his comments more profound than most of my posts on the same issue. Go and read.

On St. Thomas Aquinas, the soul and conception

A distinction between human life and the presence of a human soul is not philosophically tenable. Or at least not insofar as many who put it forward attempt to use St. Thomas Aquinas as support for their position.

It is true that St. Thomas, following the received embryology of his day, did not believe that the ensoulment of an immortal, rational soul happened until some few months after conception. What is never mentioned is that, given St. Thomas' understanding of the relationship between body and soul, this means that there was no human life until after the ensoulment of an immortal, rational soul.

The soul is the substantial form of the body. This means that the soul makes the body be the kind of being that it is and grants to it all the powers that it possesses. Now, a human being is a rational animal. This means that it possesses a rational soul, from which stem its powers of intellect and will. But, since the soul is the substantial form of the body, this rational soul is also the origin of a man's vegetative and animal powers, i.e. the powers of life, reproduction, growth, nutrition, sensation and local motion.

Now, in the received embryology of the day, the being in the womb after conception first possessed only a vegetative soul. Thus it possessed only the powers of vegetative life, nutrition, growth. After some development this vegetative soul was replaced by an animal soul. Thus the being no longer had simply vegetative life, but animal life. Thus, in addition to the powers of nutrition and growth it now began to develop the powers of sensation and local motion, as seen through the development of sense organs and limbs. Finally, when this animal development had reached a fitting stage, God would infuse the being with an immortal, rational soul. Animal life would now be replaced by human life, and the rational soul would be the origin not only of the powers of nutrition, growth, sensation and local motion, but also of the powers of intellect and will.

As this brief sketch hopefully makes clear, there was no human life before the infusion of an immortal, rational, human soul. For to have a human life is to be a human being, to be a human being is to be a rational animal, and to be a rational animal is have an immortal, rational soul.

Thus those who would use St. Thomas as cover for their pro-abortion positions demonstrate only that they know nothing of St. Thomas. For in St. Thomas there can only be human life were matter is informed by an immortal, rational soul. If it can be demonstrated that human life begins at conception, then, for St. Thomas, it would be demonstrated that a human soul is infused by God and present at the moment of conception. To say otherwise would be to imply a duality between body and soul that is entirely foreign to the thought of St. Thomas.

An interesting note: The Council of Vienna formally declared that "whoever shall obstinately presume in turn to assert, define, or hold that the rational or intellective soul is not the form of the human body in itself and essentially must be regarded as a heretic" (Denzinger, 30th ed., no. 481). The conclusion that can be drawn from this pronouncement and the brief philosophical sketch given above I will leave to the reader.

Some notes on abortion, phil. of nature, logic, &c.

A soul is the form of a living being. A form is that which causes a particular being to be the type of being it is. A particular being is a being that is whole in itself and distinct from all other particular beings.

Is the being that comes into existence at conception a particular being? Yes. It is a distinct being that is whole in itself, not a part of another being. If this were false, then any and every part of the being that comes into existence at conception would be a part of the pregnant woman. Thus, pregnant woman would eventually be two headed, four armed, four legged &c. Some of them would even be hermaphrodites. This is absurd. Thus, the being that comes into existence at conception is a particular being.

What type of being is this particular being? It is human. It is a being that posses a full human genome. Science can tell us that.

If what exists after conception is a particular human being, then it has a human form. And since human beings are living things, this is the same as saying that it has a human soul.

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The "being" in "human being" means being per se, i.e. being that is whole and distinct in itself. A thumb does not posses this type of being. It is not whole and distinct in itself. Rather, it is a part that belongs to another being, a being that is whole and distinct in itself.

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Form and matter are the two concomitant principles of physical beings. Form is that which makes a being be this type of being. Matter is what makes a being be this particular being. If you agree that there are individual beings, but that individual being share common types or natures, then you have all you need to hold the existence of form and matter. And since a soul is simply the form of a living being, you have all you need to hold the existence of soul.

There is nothing in this definition that requires any theological belief. There is nothing that requires a person to hold that any soul is spiritual and will survive the death of the form/matter composite being whose existence it informs. Indeed, Aristotle is not always clear on where he stands in this regard. Many believe that the textural evidence shows that Aristotle himself did not believe in the immortality of the human soul.

Nothing here requires faith. All that is required is the ability to recognize that many individual physical beings share the same type or nature. Biology does this whenever it divides living beings into Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species.

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taxonomy: Biology. the science dealing with the description, identification, naming, and classification of organisms.

Is it just me?

Am I the only one bothered by the fact that a few sub-disciplines of natural philosophy have usurped the title of knowledge (scientia) all for themselves?

On the kind of being possessed by the "product of conception"

As I have previously discussed here, a substance is a particular being, something that exists in and through itself. It must be a being that is whole in itself and distinct from all other particular beings. Let us then ask ourselves the following question: Is the being that comes into existence at conception a particular being?

Yes. It is a distinct being that is whole in itself, not a part of another being. If this were false, then any and every part of the being that comes into existence at conception would be a part of the pregnant woman. Thus, pregnant woman would eventually be two headed, four armed, four legged &c. Some of them would even be hermaphrodites. This is absurd. Thus, the being that comes into existence at conception is a particular being.

If this is so, the question that arises next is: What type of being is this particular being? It is human. It is a being that posses a full human genome. Science can tell us that.

The next question we must ask is: Is this newly existing human being a person? A person is an individual substance of a intellectual nature. We have already demonstrated that this being must be taken as a substance rather than as an accident or as something that is solely a part of another being. And since we are talking about a particular being rather than the nature of a particular type of being taken as a genus, we must admit that it is an individual substance.

Now we are left to ask whether of not this being has a intellectual nature. This being has been shown to be human. A human being by definition possesses human nature.

So what is human nature? How do we come to know the essence of humanity? Well, how do we come to know the essence of anything? We observe its acts and properties. These show us its powers, which in turn lead us to understand its essence.

So what powers to humans have. There are the basic powers of bodily life: the powers of nutrition and growth which preserve the individual, and the power of generation which preserved the species. There are the sensitive powers of sight, touch &c, which gives a being perception of individual things. And there is the power of intellect, which gives a being perception not just of individuals but also of universal natures. Now, if it is part of human nature to possess an intellect, it follows that human nature is an intellectual nature.

Human beings are persons, since every particular human being is an individual substance of an intellectual nature. The being that comes into existence at conception is a being that possesses a human nature. It follows necessarily then that the being that comes into existence at conception is a person.

Some thoughts on intelligent design, creation and evolution

"Do you believe in creation or evolution?"

Yes.

"Do you believe in intelligent design? Do you believe intelligent design is science? Are you a creationist?"

Define your terms. What do you mean by 'intelligence', 'design', 'intelligent design', 'science', 'creation' and 'creationism'?

Moreover, have you solved the demarcation problem? Have you published that paper yet? Where has it been published? I would dearly like to read it.

Questions: Can design be unintelligent? Does not 'design' imply planning, intent and mind? Would 'unintelligent design' not be a contradiction?

If 'science' is that which can be known by empirical observation and repeatable experiment, is evolution really science? Has anyone every observed macro-evolution? Has anyone ever seen one species give birth to a new and different species? What experiments can one do under controlled circumstances to prove the theory? These are real questions, not rhetorical ones. I would appreciate real answers and real sources to go to in order to improve my knowledge.

Did Darwin defend his theory via laboratory experiment, or only thought experiment? Was not his whole argument based on the fact that his theory best fit the observed data? If this worked for Darwin, why not for Behe, et alii? Allowing them to take part in the conversation is not the same as admitting that they are correct.

At the end of the day I am and remain a Thomist. Whichever side is correct is interesting and important to the truth of things. But whichever side is correct has no effect whatsoever on the question of the existence of God.

God is the immediate efficient cause of all things because He is the immediate efficient cause of their acts of existence. God is required, no matter which theory of the physical processes involved in the origins of life is correct. Eliminate God and you do not have self-sufficient nature. You have nothing.

Edited to add:

It seems that I have committed the fallacy of equivocation, as the comments should demonstrate. To clarify, when I asked "Has anyone ever seen one species give birth to a new and different species?" I was not using the term "species" in its biological sense, which would be the mode of signification that I appeared to be using since I was, at least in part, discussing biology. It might be better to ask, "Has anyone ever seen a being with one ontological mode of existence produce a being of a superior ontological mode of existence?" I am primarily interested in metaphysics, not biology, though I am indeed interested in the biology insofar as it is a part of observable reality that needs to be taken into account when discussing metaphysics.

The invalidity of an argument that stems from scientific materialism

Neurological research ha been done in which people's brains are observed while they undergo changes in their subjective internal states. By this I mean that they are told to try to bring about certain thoughts, ideas, emotions, intentions &c. The researchers can then correlate these internal states with the brain states that they observe. This tells them more about the structure of the brain and its relationship to our thoughts, emotions &c. Certainly a noble and interesting area of research, one that might be useful in the diagnosing and treating of certain physical and chemical disorders that might lead to mental and emotional problems.

But scientific materialist do more than recognize the measurable correlation between these subjective internal states and their correlating brain states. They argue that the cause of these subjective internal states are the correlating brain states. The argument goes as follows:

If a person is subject to some internal state, then their brain has a brain state that corresponds to that internal state.

A person's brain has a brain state that corresponds to some internal state.

Therefore the person is subject to that internal state.

This is an invalid argument. While the conditional statement is simply a restatement of the research data, the rest of the argument is an example of the fallacy of affirming the consequent.

It may be true that particular brain states are necessary for certain subjective internal states. But this is certainly not a problem for an Aristotelian or a Thomist, whose philosophical psychology and philosophical anthropology requires the activity of the internal senses for any kind of thought: "The Philosopher says (Metaph. i, 1; Poster. ii, 15) that the principle of knowledge is in the senses" (Summa Theologiae I, q. 84, a. 6 sed contra). It does not follow from the research, however, that particular brains states are a sufficient reason for certain subjective internal states. If scientific materialists are correct, at least insofar as human nature is concerned, they will have to do more than point to these kinds of studies to prove it.

On the definition of "unnatural"

When speaking about various theological and philosophical topics, such as anthropology and ethics, a major source of argument is the use of the term "unnatural." Many a modern man will argue that something is not unnatural because it is a phenomenon that occurs in the natural world.

This is not how the term in used in traditional theological and philosophical discourse. Rather, when we speak of nature, we are speaking of a thing's formal and final cause, insofar as the form of a thing is the principle that moves the thing towards its proper end. Thus, when we say that something is "unnatural," we mean that it causes a thing to act against attaining its proper end.

Thus, it can be entirely correct to call certain urges, inclinations and actions unnatural, even though they appear as phenomenon in the natural world.