Msg Base:  AREA 5  - ASK FATHER            CIN ECHO   AMDG
  Msg No: 320.  Tue  6-30-92 11:05  (NO KILL)  (MAILED)
    From: Father Mateo
      To: Martin Morrison
 Subject: Aquinas on life's beginnings

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³ I have several times heard that St. Thomas Aquinas indicated that
³ life did not begin at conception, but a few weeks afterwards.
³ However, I have not found such a statement in the Summa Theologiae.
³ Do you know whether such a statement occurs in any other work of
³ his, and, if so, what the citation is?
ÀÄ[MM=>FM]
 
 
Dear Martin,
 
You will recall that Aquinas teaches that soul is the form and first
principle of life in corporeal living things. (Summa Theol., I, 76,
4, reply 1).
 
In ibid. 118, 2, reply 2, he says: ``It must be said that the soul is
in the embryo: the nutritive soul FROM THE BEGINNING, then the
sensitive, lastly the intellectual soul.''
 
In animals and man, generation and conception are synonymous, and are
``the origin of a living being from a conjoined living principle''
(ibid., 27, 2, corpus).
 
From the moment of conception, the conceived is alive. It is not its
mother, nor part of its mother--it has a distinct and unique genetic
code, by which it is individuated.
 
St. Thomas taught a succession of souls in the developing baby:
nutritive, sensitive, intellectual. This is a weird notion, and
unnecessary to boot. One soul will do. It merely awaits the full
development of the body in order to achieve the fullness of its
operation. But the presence of the spiritual, immortal soul at the
moment of formation of the new genetic code establishes humanity and
personhood in the child and secures and guides its development.
 
                                        Sincerely in Christ,
 
                                        Father Mateo