The foundation of many religions rests on the concept of the soul. According to some religions, the duration of one's entire life should be devoted to saving one's own soul, along with the souls of others, from eternal damnation. Other religious groups devote their lives to the hope that their soul will be reincarnated into a more desirable form in some type of after life. Members of a religious faith often lead their lives in accordance with their beliefs about what will happen to their soul upon death. Thus, when asked to determine the beginning of human life, these people tend to answer the question based on the concept of the soul.

    Richard Goss (1994) explains that many religious leaders mark the beginning of life to coincide with the development of the soul because one cannot be considered human unless a soul is present. Thus, the soul becomes the distinguishing feature between human and nonhuman. However, pinpointing the moment when humans are ensouled becomes quite problematic. Some declare that the soul is present in the fertilized egg, yet others contend that the soul does not make its appearance until birth.

    Some ancient writers have been known to favor the theory that ensoulment is delayed. The soul becomes part of the body once it has reached an adequate level of development (Cahill 1993). The specific time of development which would elicit the development of the soul remained ambiguous to the ancient writers. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic Church previously believed that ensoulment occurs 40 days after conception for males and 80 days after conception for females. However, the Church has revised its position and currently holds that the soul is part of the body from the moment of fertilization (Hansen 1994).

    In either case, Goss (1994) maintains that this discussion will remain undecided. He states that explanations of how and when souls develop are "scientifically ridiculous because they attempt to explain the extranatural in material terms, and they are theologically nonsensical because such nebulous concepts as spirit or soul were never meant to be subjected to rational explanations in the first place." While all people are free to hold the belief that the development of the soul marks the beginning of life, this belief cannot be proven scientifically. Even the Bible remains silent on the issue of when, during gestation, the body acquires a soul (Goss 1994).

 
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    This page was made by Christina Rutten, a student at  Wayne State College, on April 20, 1999. If you
                have any questions or comments, please e-mail me at c_rutten@hotmail.com.