January 26, 2015
Living Soul
The sidebar in a newspaper
column on faith said, “Catholic teaching may not yet grant animals souls, but
priests and monks of the Franciscan order have a long tradition of blessing the
animals on…” Really, Catholic teachings have the power to grant animals a soul?
The power of creation, who knew? I’m sure animal lovers have good intentions
when taking their pets to be blessed, but I wonder if they extend those same
good intentions to their friends, family or neighbors. The Bible says, “And the
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen
2:7 KJV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I consider it a bit unfortunate the Bible presented man’s becoming a living soul as connected with God breathing into him the breath of life. An ignoramity (don’t look for it in the dictionary, it’s just the stuff of ignoramuses) arose from this concept far surpassing in presumption that of Catholic teachings granting to animals a soul. For nowhere in the Bible is life stated to be in the breath. Yet, amongst the early “moral” underpinnings of abortion was the concept that the child is not really alive until it has drawn breath of air. I can see the beauty in life entering the human race through the breath God breathed into Adam’s nostrils, and specifically into Adam’s nostrils, particularly at that one moment the entire human race became living in Adam’s becoming alive.
-----After that, life of the rest of us (except Jesus) came through the fellowship of one of Adam’s sperm and one of Eve’s eggs. There is no other way life came to the next human being than through that (again, except for Jesus.) The great mental geniuses of our day do not appear too smart before such a simple truth, insisting a child is not a living human being till it is out of the womb. And it is not so much they are not geniuses as it is they ignore evidence they do not like. Even fools can be extraordinarily intelligent, for it's cherry picking which makes a fool. Yet those of us who may be lesser the genius and more the wise can not say life is in these two fellowshipping “seeds”. They transform immediately upon conception.
-----Life might be in the DNA. Certainly it is scripted there. And script is important when it is followed. But script is merely script. It must be acted upon to produce what it defines. The mechanisms of the transforming “seeds” certainly are acting upon the script to form growing, maintaining, living bodies. And that is the process of life. But the script is no more life than your KJV Bible is life. Certainly your KJV Script produces life when enacted by a process, and particularly so when God is being the processor. Yet, He has processed enough of His Word for us to know that life ends at death without a process in addition to that one DNA scripts.
-----Indeed, all vital parts of the body must function for life to animate it. But the Script about life chose one body-part to pronounce as the container of life because its fullest process effected life entirely (as in eternally,) not just life temporally. In our bodies, blood effects temporal life. It did in Christ’s, too. But the giving up of His blood for us effected the connection of His Spirit to us who accept that blood. Therefore, from the earliest of the story, the Bible proclaims life to be in the blood. That is why the Bible proscribes eating or drinking the blood of our food. This is God‘s regard.
-----Within days of conception the growing human has blood. And it is his own blood, too, not mommy’s. Certainly his blood flows through the same placenta that does mommy’s also. But the two do not mix there. Materials of life are merely transferred. The child’s blood remains the child’s life as much as the mommy’s blood remains the mommy’s life.
-----We think God gave the Bible to us to figure out. He didn’t. He gave the Bible to us to figure us out. Wherein is life is simple. It is in the blood. The Bible says. To refuse acknowledging the life of what has blood is to refuse acknowledging the Word of God. And this is only one facet of the giant, temporal life about which the Bible brings us many revelations over which to identify ourselves through our acceptance or denial of them. We will have His life by accepting His blood through accepting His testimony about who and what we and He are.
-----Therefore, be nervous about mommy’s power to pronounce life or not life upon what her womb bears.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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