Presumably my views would fall under theistic evolution. I don't have a particular problem with the soul-insertion scenario. The physical evidence supports physical evolutionary continuity between humans and non-humans. Lacking a "soul-o-meter", I'm not sure how we can assess the presence of a soul in other organisms, unless they can communicate religious beliefs to us. The association between man's uniqueness and becoming a living soul in Genesis 1 might favor a novel infusion view. On the other hand, man could be simply more soulful or have some distinctive feature about his ensouledness that makes his condition different.
Both the emphasis on bodily resurrection and the close connections between the physical state of the brain and presumably soul-related activities suggest that we cannot really separate body and soul. However, exactly what the soul is remains somewhat unclear.
This seems to be almost the same question as how do babies get souls. Do their souls derive from their parents, or does God give them souls at the right time? I don't know.
Dr. David Campbell
"Old Seashells"
Biology Department
Saint Mary's College of Maryland
18952 E. Fisher Road
St. Mary's City, MD 20686-3001 USA
dcampbell@osprey.smcm.edu, 301 862-0372 Fax: 301 862-0996
"Mollusks murmured 'Morning!'. And salmon chanted 'Evening!'."-Frank Muir, Oh My Word!
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Bjoern Moeller <dj_mic20@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 10:20:26 -0700 (PDT)
>David wrote:
>
>two major categories of explanation. One is that the
>soul
>did not evolve. God took a body He created via
>evolution and stuck a
>soul into it when the time was right.
>
>I say:
>
>Isn't that similar to saying that God 'suddenly'
>created man along the history of natural evolution,
>which is tantamount to saying that evolution did not
>produce man - God did?
>
>If it isn't, it is yet not very plausible that any
>evolutionist, theist or atheist, would hold to this
>explanation.
>
>Bjorn.
>
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