Creation Sin Escathology

God, in his own creative way, created the whole universe and everything that is therein, but created it out of nothing. The creation, the creatures continue to be created, evolving and recreating – from microbes to bacteria, from planktons to big trees, from animals as well as humans. Reproduction and evolution are the scientific terms suitable for the recreating and continuity of creation. God is the ultimate creator without being changed or reduced. His creation never emanates from him. By his will everything came into being. God’s creation is that which he had created in the beginning and that which continuous to be created.

One of the many wonderful creations that he had is man. Man was created in the image and likeness of this God. He was given will and intellect, a soul, a body and spirit. He is created, just as the rest of the living plants and animals to be co-creator, to procreate. In the search for knowledge and search for meaning of life, man had discovered many things and had a lot of breakthroughs in these endeavour he undertook. One of the many discoveries is on the manner of reproduction. Aside form the fact that humans have discovered physical sexual intercourse as the main form of reproduction; they have discovered that one can reproduced without doing the workout in bed. This came about in the search of men for a wellness in life, for a better living – away from disease, defects, infections, better outlook.

IN VITRO FERTILIZATION (IVF) is one of the many ways now to reproduce. In IVF, eggs are surgically removed from the ovary and mixed with sperm outside the body in a Petri dish ("in vitro" is Latin for "in glass"). After about 40 hours, the eggs are examined to see if they have become fertilized by the sperm and are dividing into cells. These fertilized eggs (embryos) are then placed in the women's uterus, thus bypassing the fallopian tubes.[1]

The result of IVF is a so called test-tube baby. The first IVF baby in the world was born in July of 1978 at Bourne Hall, in Cambridge, England. To date, tens of thousands of babies have been delivered as the result of the IVF treatment. Only in the US, there are about 30,000 IVF pregnancies and healthy deliveries per year. The fertilization rates of 70-80% are currently being achieved, with healthy pregnancies and deliveries. These advanced fertility treatments are minor outpatient procedures and do not involve hospitalization. The cost is between $3,000 and $10,000.

The mother usually undergoes ovarian stimulation for a week with fertility medications so that several mature eggs develop. In order to determine the best time to stop the fertility medications and recover the eggs, ultrasound examinations and blood tests are performed.

There are different types in doing IVF: (1) GIFT (Gamete Intra-Fallopian Transfer), is to place the eggs and sperm into the wife's fallopian tubes directly, instead of in a laboratory test tube. (2) ICSI (Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection), it is a micromanipulation technique to help achieve fertilization for couples with severe male factor infertility, in which sperm counts or motility are low but there are enough to allow fertilization in the laboratory. The semen sample is prepared by centrifuging (spinning the sperm cells through a special medium), to separate live sperm from debris and death sperm. Then, the micromanipulation specialist picks up the single live sperm in a glass needle and injects it directly into the egg in the laboratory.

My question herein therefore is this: does this IVF or these IVF babies (IVFB) have the mark of God’s image and likeness? Does he/she have a soul? Or it would be better to ask first, is it unlawful to procreate by not having sexual intercourse or in scientific terms, if it’s done as artificial insemination?

I would boldly claim that the Scriptures never said that physical sex, no matter how good it is to experience, is the only and definitive way to procreate. Neither has it been declared by God that only through sexual act that his human creation may procreate. The church claims so. The Catholic Church is against this way of procreating and she says that what is technically possible is not for that very reason morally admissible. The Magisterial office gave the reason why it’s immoral. They said that from the moment of conception, the life of every human being is to be respected in an absolute way because man is the only creature on earth that God has "wished for himself " and the spiritual soul of each man is "immediately created" by God; his whole being bears the image of the Creator. Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves "the creative action of God" and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can, in any circumstance, claim for himself the right to destroy directly an innocent human being. Human procreation requires on the part of the spouses responsible collaboration with the fruitful love of God; the gift of human life must be actualized in marriage through the specific and exclusive acts of husband and wife, in accordance with the laws inscribed in their persons and in their union. [2]

And so, what about the IVF babies, don’t they have a soul. Would God not give soul to these babies that are actually living in this world right now? Are they not images of God? I believe that they are given and they do have a soul. And they continue to be images of God. IVF never alters God’s creating power, it only emphasize that we humans are co-creator of the Creator. It is just that it is hard to accept for the Catholic Church that there are other ways to procreate other than what the Medieval mind has conceived, other than what she has inherited from the Jewish traditions. The Catholic Church has stuck to this position and damned the destruction of an embryo after conception as murder and IVF as immoral. No distinction is made between embryos that are conceived naturally and those created through IVF or cloning.[3] Well, there are moral implications[4] on the left about specimens and those that are rejected or unsuccessful in vitro process just as masturbation is immoral. But, that is out of the scope and limitation of this paper.

Other religions on the other hand accept IVF as part of propagating life and moral implications are not so much of an issue. Buddhism does not give it a very opposing strike unlike the Catholic Church. This is mainly explained by Buddhism's view of the world and mankind's place in it, which is different from the view of monotheistic religions. There is no supreme or divine creator, whose plan might be distorted by human tinkering with nature. In addition, Buddhists believe that the creation of life is not a fixed or unequivocal process. "Buddhism teaches that life may come into being in a variety of ways, of which sexual reproduction is but one, so sexual reproduction has no divinely sanctioned priority over other modes of procreation.” Life can therefore begin in many ways and, theologically, cloning would not be seen as a problematic technology. Furthermore, in contrast to other mainstream religions, Buddhists regard human individuality as an illusion or mirage. Cloning would therefore not threaten or devalue the personality or character of an individual. [5] If cloning is ok, it is also true with IVF. For Muslim, IVF is also allowed.[6]

Going back to the issue of ensoulment, if the IVF baby has a soul, when does it acquire its soul? Is it when it is implanted on a mother’s womb? God creates and inserts in the human body an immortal soul as in regular fertilization, at the moment of conception, just when the nucleus of the egg cell joints the nucleus of the sperm cell. Would it occur as soon as the egg or the sperm comes out of the male and female respectively? Would each cell so placed have a soul? Would souls appear after the cells start of to divide? And a lot more questions would follow.[7] When the soul does becomes part of the body? Does it corelece into a body for a time. Is soul intrinsic really to life? Are they created in the image and likeness of God? Yes, God works through us and through our technology but what is his relationship to God?

Sperm and egg do not each contribute half a soul to form a baby's soul. Only God creates souls. If "creation by God" refers to "procreation via sex between parents" (since the difference between clones and non-clones is whether or not the parents had sex) and sex is thus a prerequisite for the creation of a soul, then those born via in-vitro fertilization should also be considered soul-less. IVFB have souls no matter how and when and how was it given by God or if not given how it came about in each person. The Sacred Scriptures tells a lot about man having a soul.[8] I presume that babies born of IVF are humans.

Is soul then the only prerequisite for a person to become one with the Creator, or a person created in the likeness and image of God? I believe no. But I don’t agree that only through sexual intercourse (interpreted as “being in communion” just as the Trinity is in communion) that Love comes out and that new humans are born and marked as God’s own children. John Paul deduces that "man became the 'image and likeness' of God not only through his own humanity, but also through the communion of persons which man and woman form right from the beginning." This "constitutes, perhaps, the deepest theological aspect of all that can be said about man." And the Pope adds that on "all this, right from the beginning, there descended the blessing of fertility linked with human procreation."[9]

Nevertheless, an IVFB still caries the mark of God’s creation for he/she was not created out of nothing, but still out of something – sounds in tune with the continuous creation of God in the world. Then let us say that each IVFB has a soul and they inherit God’s mark, do they inherit or caries Original Sin too? If Original Sin according to the Catholic Church is that which is inherited from the first parents and that which is in and with each human persons, then, the IVF babies/persons are carrier of the Original Sin (for Catholics). Do they need to be baptized then?

The question now is it because of the soul given by God that makes IVF babies destined to also have Original Sin? Is it the soul that makes a person sinful? Because if the In Vitro Fertilization Babies (IVFB) are non-contaminated if it has no soul then it would be better that men chose to be born out of IVF rather than obliging Jesus Christ to continually save each and every born babies in the world. His saving act was then once and for all 2000 years ago. No need for continuous saving act.

IVFB do sin and theologians may argue and state that it is because he/she was also born in the sinful world or can be said that still he/she inherited it from the parents no matter the father is different from that who is canonically wed to the woman. Could they be considered as one of the “sins of the world” – the Catholic stand against IVF and cloning may and could imply that IVFB are one of the “sins of the world” but who are we to judge. Even though John Paul II or the church considers life or a new baby is a “gift” only given by God and is that “gift” is shattered in doing IVF," It shatters the "gift" between God and man, between man and woman, and between parents and child,[10] therefore making IVF an act against God. We all know that for Catholics, an act against God is sin per se. Poor IVFB then for he/she is born as a sin, out of sin, and in a sinful world. That would be too much for us to say. It would be a lot safer to say that they have sin rather than they are sin. It is better to say that they have concupiscence rather than saying that they are concupiscence. For me, there is nothing wrong in creating a human out of the ordinary. For what is wrong in promoting life or when you create a life.

If having IVFB is bad, and it is really against God and nature, why does God allow them to live? God do not intervene and stop these IVFB to live. After all, there are a million of IVFB now in this world. For the Catholic Church, it may be a sinful act but apart from purely miraculous interventions, which appear to be quite rare, God does not step in and break the humanly-initiated chain of causality which allows sinful actions and evil choices to play out with all their consequences. He invites us to make moral and upright choices ourselves, so that evil in our world might not spread further, but he doesn’t actively prevent us from doing evil by abrogating physical laws or refusing to “ensoul” embryos.[11] Rather, God continuously offer salvation to these IVFB just like us who commit sins in many ways. The saving power of Jesus, the second person of the Trinity for the Catholics, effects even to these precious ones in the eyes of the Lord. If the Catholic Church, claims that people of other faith or other religions would be saved including non-believers who have not heard of Jesus Christ and unbaptized because there is no available baptism for them, then the IVFB whether they would have a soul or not, they too will be saved. But a question arises if IVFB doesn’t have soul because what they do only have is body, it is out of the context of what is bodily resurrection mean. Does it mean then that it would only be the body that will be transformed and continue to live? But nevertheless, I believe that it would not be the case just as I have already pointed out that IVFB has a soul.

It is not just the body, nor just the soul that is saved by Christ. Humans, whether ordinarily or in vitro born, are not dualistic or divided in nature. They are not tripartite nor of one part only. The body and soul makes the person one and the same, a unique person. We speak of a soul as an “it” as we are to treat persons as biological objects. Soul does not exist as an “it,” apart from personality. Rather, the soul consists of content, the totally unique creation -- truly the image of God -- that we call the person.[12]

The soul is not the reason why men are saved. Because if it is the only reason why men have to be saved by God, then there is no need for the body to be resurrected in the end of the end times. There is no need for a transformation of the body, no need for a bodily resurrection. Good if the IVFB is a Hindu, it would not be a problem if his body is IVF made for the body is just a vessel and the soul seek for purification by reincarnation. How about if he is a Catholics or the Christians?

In the final analysis In Vitro Fertilization babies/individuals are bearers of the image and likeness of God. They are gifts from God. They are born body and soul. They are not sin per se, but it is a fact that they too have sins as they live in the world. If we follow the Catholic Church, and the thoughts of the “situationist theologians” they do acquire, inherit Original Sin even though they were not born through sexual intercourse. Neither this is the case or the other, they are saved by the saving grace of God, buy the loving mercy of God, whether they may have soul or not or have sinned or not. IVFB will also enjoy the resurrection in the end of the end times just as we justify the resurrection, salvation extended to our non-Catholic believers, just as Rahner have said about salvation. In Vitro Fertilization Babies are God’s Children too. They deserve to be treated as we wish to be treated. They share in the sinfulness and the grace in the world. Christ’s image are in them, the spirit dwells in them, God loves them.