Letter to the faithful on the Notification sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi

I have a confession to make. I am pro-choice!

Yes, it is true! I should have made this secret known sooner. I am FOR a woman's right to choose. Women have every right (in law and fairness) to choose what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, when to sleep, when to have sex and with whom, and even when to sin!

That said, I don't believe that women have a right to choose when or how to kill another human being who isn't threatening her life. Now, I'm sure our dear friend @Annie Grace would never intentionally or knowingly do such a deed, but I'm not so sure about a lot of other women on this planet. I mean, there are tons of women in the US alone who are clamoring loudly in favor of legalized abortion at any stage of gestation. They don't give a rip about our discussion of conception vs viability vs whatever else. They don't care about ensoulment, heartbeat, brain wave patterns, etc. Nor do they give a flip about God's will in all of this. All they care about is the sole control over the contents of their uteruses.

Let's be realistic. This latter mindset, "My body, my choice" regardless whether another human life is present or not, is the mindset Nancy Pelosi (Democrat Speaker of the House) supports morally and caters to politically. From the perspective of Christian faith, her stance is unconscionable and indefensible.

(Incidentally, most Democrat senators in 2019 even tried to pass a law granting a right to kill babies after they've been birthed. You can see why some people now refer to the Democrat Party as "the party of death.")

 

Wildly inaccurate take on the failed legislation. Of course, the link is to an ACLJ piece, so a loose relation to the truth is to be expected. Also, the word you’re looking for is “born”, not “birthed”.

 

Disagree. The humanity of Jesus demands that Jesus, to be fully human, must share the all the traits of human persons (except sin, of course). Among which are innate "personhood". Every human being is eternal; we live forever. Before we are born we are what you might call latent, and exist only in the potentiality of God's mind -- but he knows every person that was, is, and ever will be. By name. All humans are granted "personhood" from God himself from eternity because he created them so.

No person is ever conceived by accident, but by God's almighty design. How can it be otherwise? There is nothing in the Cosmos God does not know; no time in past, present, or future that he cannot see.

 

Thanks for getting those nits picked off of me.

 

One can say that Jesus shared all the traits of humans, but that doesn't mean humans share all the traits of Jesus.

I was replying to your post which stated this:

It seemed as though you were saying that this proves all humans are persons at conception. I do believe that all humans are persons at conception, but I can't see how Christ's personhood at conception proves the personhood at conception of all individuals, because (as you state) Christ was a Person even before conception and this fact (along with the fact that He is fully God as well as fully man) makes Him a unique, special case. We cannot draw inferences about when mortal human personhood begins by looking at an example of One who was not merely a mortal human; it's sort of like observing that oak trees grow from acorns and concluding, therefore, that all trees grow from acorns.

The concept that humans exist as spirits (somewhere in heaven?) prior to conception is a heresy that can lead to belief in reincarnation (it is also a precept in Mormon doctrine).
Gen 2:7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
This shows that Adam's spirit, soul and living body came to be at the same time; the spirit did not exist prior to the body. Although Adam's body was created whole and mature, nothing in the Bible suggests that anyone's spirit exists before some sort or part of the physical body exists.

1Co 15:46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.

Zech. 12:1 says in part, Thus declares the LORD, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him: God does not form the spirit of man outside of the body, but within the body.

 

You're misunderstanding. If God knows everyone from eternity (which he does) and it is his will for every person who ever is born (and it is), then it is in this sense that every person is eternal. We do not just emerge into being at some indefinite point in gestation when God decides the fetus is far enough along. Our person, our life, is known to God from eternity in detail. That is why we have personhood from conception -- the latent person becomes realized in the flesh.

Is it your position that God does not know who we will be prior to our birth? That we in some sense come as a surprise to him?

 

God does have foreknowledge of everyone who will be and everything that will be. In the same sense, God knew the earth before He created it; that doesn't make the earth eternal or preexistent of the material ball's formation. I think we have to be careful about equating God's "knowing" (i.e., foreknowledge all about) us with eternality. It is fundamental to our faith that God alone is eternal; all else had or will have a beginning, and much will also have an end.

 

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Eccl.12:7. How can the spirit return to a place it has never come from? I have yet to read a translation of this verse which just uses the word goes instead of returns.
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That is poetry, isn't it?

You make the human spirit sound like a shipped package that gets returned to sender. God doesn't need to ship spirits from heaven, He can create them in situ (on the bodily 'premises').

 

Of course we are creatures; I do not dispute that at all. But remember the point I'm making here: that our "personhood" does not happen at some point during gestation, but is inherent from conception because conception is just the actualization of a person that was already in God's mind fully-formed. We are created as persons, not born as persons. And this is so because the act of creation was completed in God's mind before it was accomplished in the flesh.

Consider this analogy: if I make a blueprint of a machine and then build it, at what point does "creation" actually occur? In the design, or in the actual construction? I argue for the former. God is our creator and therefore the designer of the blueprint; but being eternal his aims and designs must therefore be eternal as well. God does not learn or change or adjust -- he is perfect. His creations do not increase him one iota. God's creation of the heavens and the earth, and the creatures upon it, was a fulfillment of the divine Will. Design comes before construction. Creation was in the thought before the deed.

 

sociology!

 

You have made some statements worth noting. I can agree that, even before the world was made, God sees the person who will be conceived, for He knows in advance that conception will occur and He knows in advance the person whose life potential will instantly indwell that conception. The caveat being that His actual creating of the person (bestowal of personhood), within the confines of His previous creations of time and space (to which we are subject), occurs not a moment sooner than conception. Because even though time is a construct and God is not subject to time, we are subject to it and we measure all occurrences within this realm by it. After all, we're discussing at what point in time a new person comes to be. Agreed?

Truly, it makes little sense to me why God would sit back and watch a human male embryo develop into a human male fetus, and then--suddenly--say, "Okay, that little one has developed far enough along now, so right this second I make him a person!" Why the wait?

 

Well, @Rexlion, AnnieGrace does believe in pro-choice for all women. One of the reasons is that I don't accept that the fetus has a soul at conception.

Thomas Aquinas said ensoulment occurs 40 days after conception. Today the RCC says it occurs at conception - they disagree with their own saint and Doctor of the Church. so how are us poor mortals supposed to know when? Oh right, we just accept whatever the church is saying these days. And as far as being a 'Christian' issue, not all Christians believe the same thing about this or anything else. Doesn't work for me. And what about those who aren't Christians? Why should they be forced to believe what you believe?

As for judging Ms Pelosi, despite all your wonderful quotes from the Bible, I choose the one that Jesus said,

Matthew 7:1-5
‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.


It is impossible for a man to judge a woman on this matter. And all the hyperbolic fear mongering doesn't work with me - I was in a cult so I know brainwashing a bit better than most - that's all this kind of scary stuff is. In order to win a point, it seems necessary to make out the opposing parties as monsters who eat babies, right? No, no, no. It's ok to have differing opinions, we don't need to resort to this kind of tactic.

 

God's ways are not our ways, right?

I actually am more inclined to think that we become ensouled at birth when we take our first breath. Our last breath takes us out of this world so it makes sense to me that our first brings us into it. Before that we exist, but not as souled humans. I can't prove this anymore than anyone else can prove that the soul enters at conception or 40 days after. God alone knows the answer to this one.

I like this description:

Consider the etymology (the origin) of the word “spirit.” It comes from the Latin word spiritus. Spiritus means both spirit and breath. It’s much like the Hebrew word, ruah. The first book of the Hebrew Bible, Genesis, describes life coming into being through the breath of the Creator. The narrative of Genesis conveys the image of sprit/breath of the Creator hovering over the void and calling forth creation, including the material and physical things. In a following section, the Creator breathes into the human being, infusing the human being with a spirit.

 

"and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it . . . " Eccl.12:7. The New Revised Standard Version even recognises the fact that the Hebrew word translated here actually means literally, breath, but the same Hebrew word is metaphorically or literally used also to describe 'spirit' in the scriptures.

Dictionary Definition h7307. רוּחַ rûaḥ; from 7306; wind; by resemblance breath, i.e. a sensible (or even violent) exhalation; figuratively, life, anger, unsubstantiality; by extension, a region of the sky; by resemblance spirit, but only of a rational being (including its expression and functions): — air, anger, blast, breath, x cool, courage, mind, x quarter, x side, spirit((-ual)), tempest, x vain, ((whirl-))wind(-y).

Frequency of occurrance in scripture: AV (i.e KJV) (378) - Spirit or spirit 232, wind 92, breath 27, side 6, mind 5, blast 4, vain 2, air 1, anger 1, cool 1, courage 1, misc 6;
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Annie Grace actually has a point here. If anyone is using scripture to either justify or condemn pregnancy terminations, (abortion) they must contend with the fact that scripture plainly shows that Adam had no 'LIFE' in him until God breathed BREATH (i.e. spirit) into him. It is clear that scripture also states that death occurs when we take our last breath and therefore tacitly implies life starts when we take our FIRST breath, unaided.

I am inclined to the view human life starts at conception, (that's my opinion), but scripture is generally contradictory about it because those who wrote scripture were expressing their opinions, as guided by their understanding and The Holy Spirit. Since our prophesy and knowledge is limited, (the entire human race that is, all have sinned), scripture will reflect that fact too, (no one's knowledge or prophesy was perfect, perfection is yet to come), so it can't be 'infallibly' used in the way 'Pro-Lifers' try to use it, to back up their particular opinion on the matter concerning WHEN we actually become a human being and therefore WHEN a medical procedure becomes murder. Even if scripture itself WAS and IS perfect, our understanding of it is not necessarily so, so it is not legitimate to impose OUR understanding of its meaning upon anyone else by implying THEY are wrong and only WE are right concerning fine nuances of its application in respect of National or International Law, which is intended to apply to everyone.

If Pro-Lifer USA citizens think it is right to impose Laws like this upon everyone in the USA then logically it must also be right for Muslim USA citizens to pass Shariah Law through the USA legislative process and impose it upon everyone including Pro-Lifer USA Christians. Presumably Pro-Lifers wouldn't object to all abortions being banned by Sharia Law.

That is why I think it is wrong for Pro-Lifers to want to force legislation based upon THEIR religious beliefs through the USA's legislative assembly, upon everyone.
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Right-- "Episcopal Bishop of California offers Nancy Pelosi Communion Denied by Catholic Church"
https://virtueonline.org/episcopal-...nancy-pelosi-communion-denied-catholic-church

 

That doesn't make much sense; are you sure you didn't tack the last 4 words onto the statement just to get it past the admins? So much for "perfect Scripture"!

 

One of the commenters wrote, "That's hellarious!" Definitely the right spelling under the circumstances IMO.

 

Wow. Well, that's your way, right?