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December 20, 2007

Christian Ethics for 2088

Would you ever baptize a robot? How about a human clone? How about some other form of bio-engineered human life-form?

Last week I taught the first-ever "D-term" December class here in Southern Seminary's School of Theology. The course, Introduction to Christian Ethics, ended with a reflective analysis examination required of all of the students. They are working on them now, but I thought I would post the question here.

For the exam, I chose a deliberately outrageous example, an ethical and theological dilemma none of them would have ever faced. The reason for this is that I wanted them to think through issues that are not standard boilerplate ethical questions in the evangelical repertoire. The students are graded not on the final conclusion to which they come, but on how they get there. How they process the question through the prism of biblical revelation and a theology of the Christic mystery at the center of the universe, the coming Kingdom of Christ, the uniqueness and dignity of human beings in the image of Christ, the creational order, the conscience, and prudential wisdom in making hard decisions.

Question:

It is the distant future. You are 106 years-old, and in good health with a sound mind. Your great-grandson, Joshua, is a young pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention (now called the Galactic Immersionist Federation). He is seeking your counsel because, as he puts it, "I've got a question and there's nothing about this in the Bible."

Modern technology has enabled infertile couples to engineer what the press of the day calls "robo-frankenbabies." These babies' bodies are constructed partially with, as in the Frankenstein novel of old, body parts from human corpses and partially with body parts produced via human cloning. These children are real flesh and blood in every way, except with a robotic brain. This cyber-brain is programmed with advanced artificial intelligence so that the child is able to truly think on his own. He is able to express joy and sorrow, grief and gladness, the full range of human emotions.

At Vacation Bible School (now called "Reverb"), Aidan, age eleven, came to see your great-grandson, the pastor. Aidan's parents are unbelievers, but he has been moved by the Gospel presentation given at the end of Reverb week. He cries in Pastor Joshua's office. In fact, he is convulsing in tears.

"I know I'm a sinner," he said to Pastor Joshua. "And I know that I deserve to go to hell." He continued through his sobbing, "I love Jesus, and I want to know Him. What must I do to be saved?"

Pastor Joshua stepped out of his office to confer with his Associate Pastor, Caleb. Josh's first instinct is to lead the boy to Christ.

"Josh, I don't know," Caleb said. "Yes, he has a human body, but his mind and heart are artificial. His brain is that of a robot."

Joshua replied, "Yes, but he's human, too-at least it sure seems so. His blood pumps, his heart beats, he sweats-and he thinks, makes choices, and feels. He even feels guilty!"

Caleb said, "Yes, but he's programmed to feel and to make choices-even though those choices are random."

Joshua responded, "But isn't it the randomness of those choices, and the ability to long for communion with God, the ability to know the conviction of sin-doesn't that mean something?" Joshua said, "I've been told my whole life to offer the Gospel to every repentant sinner. In my office there is a repentant sinner, and I don't know what to do."

Pastor Joshua walked back into his study to see the trembling boy in his study. Aidan was reading Pastor Joshua's Bible, an old King James Version that belonged to Josh's great-great grandmother. Aidan looked up from the Bible and said, "Does Jesus love me, Pastor? Did Jesus die for me? Can I be saved from this guilt and, like you said in your message, from sin and death and hell?"

Aidan looked up and asked, "Am I a real boy? And can I be a real Christian?"

Pastor Joshua said to Aidan, "I want you to stay here with Pastor Caleb for a few minutes while I teleport over to the nursing care facility so that I can talk with some one I think might know the answer to this."

Joshua sits by your bed, asking for help. "Should I lead him to Christ?" he asks. "Should I baptize him?"

What do you tell him?

While waiting for you to respond, Pastor Joshua organizes the stuff he brought with him-hastily grabbed as he walked out of his office. In his hand is the King James Bible that little Aidan was holding. The Bible falls open to John chapter three. Joshua notices that the red letters in the middle of the page are smudged by something. In verse sixteen, the word "whosoever" is almost illegible. The page buckles underneath where it is printed.

"Something's on my old Bible," Joshua says to you, as you think of how to answer his question. "Some kind of salty water stain, I don't…."

Joshua stops and looks up at you, with realization: The stain is from the tears of a crying seeker. And they sure look human to him.

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Comments

When in doubt, dunk.

Posted by: DGus | Dec 20, 2007 1:13:08 PM

I came here to say what Dgus said, but probably couldn't have said it any more succinctly.

Posted by: James Quinby | Dec 20, 2007 1:27:36 PM

A while back, when reflecting on the account in II Samuel of David and Bathsheba, I was struck by David's continued intercession for the child born in iniquity. Though the child dies in the end, it is the nature of the king after God's own heart to see even such a wretched child - whose very existence is contingent on a horrible sin - as not beyond redemption. And so we pray in Psalm 51:

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

It is doubtless that the human efforts to alter the core human body and recreate himself is a grave sin - though efforts to heal genetic diseases we recognize as an act of healing and wholeness. But, even if we make monsters of ourselves, and alter our very nature - is it really so different than what our first parents did? Cursed is the ground because of them, and no doubt we can drink the cup of the sins of our father and mother, but does he not come to make his blessings known far as the curse is found? If the Lord can make man out of dust; if he can breathe life into dry bones; if he bids the stones to cry out; then he can do the same with even our misguided sub creations if they call upon him.

Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Dec 20, 2007 1:29:55 PM

"When in doubt, dunk."

'fraid so.

I find the question to be so easy I'm obviously missing something. What would be the other side of the argument?

Posted by: JRM | Dec 20, 2007 1:30:11 PM

"When in doubt, dunk."

'fraid so.

I find the question to be so easy I'm obviously missing something. What would be the other side of the argument?

Posted by: JRM | Dec 20, 2007 1:30:13 PM

Okay...

...he owes his existence to mankind, and is flawed like all of man's works - something very akin to original sin. Yet his personality is a created thing, a work of art and science; he cannot "sin" by following his programming - not even his programming to simulate independent thoughts and emotions. The complex interplay of biology and spirit which exists in a human, is only cleverly aped by Aidan's mechanical brain.

Should a dog which "believed itself human" have the power of speech, and express similar desires, I think we'd have to reassure the dog that it was not sinful! Rather than the Sinner's Prayer, Aidan ought to have a dedication ceremony, and be blessed to the service of God and the church.

If Aidan later married and had children with biological human brains via his "Frankenstein" biological components, they would need to undergo the usual conversion process.

Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 20, 2007 1:42:50 PM

I would say do not baptise. My first reaction would be to say that artificial intelligence does not equate with "in the image and likeness of God"...

Posted by: john | Dec 20, 2007 1:49:48 PM

I guess that this is the theological Turing test: Any computer that cannot be distinguished from a human through conversation can be assumed to have intelligence.

Would the pastor's response be a sort of Pascal's wager? If the child is a soul who can be damned or saved, baptizing him is the right thing and rejecting him endangers his soul.

If he is just a warm machine, the pastor's fault is only in his ability to identify a soul, not in his charity to the lost. The risk of refusing a genuinely repentant soul is much less.

(The presumption is also much less than those who today baptize unrepentant sinners, but that's a different topic.)

Posted by: Respectabiggle | Dec 20, 2007 1:51:36 PM

what Joe Long said...better than I

Posted by: john | Dec 20, 2007 1:51:40 PM

I would say do not baptise. My first reaction would be to say that artificial intelligence does not equate with "in the image and likeness of God"...

It is, however, in the image and likeness of something in the image and likeness of God.

Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Dec 20, 2007 1:56:31 PM

I think the answer is no, there should be no baptism in this case as this android (that what it is) is not sentient. Artificial intelligence is just adaptive programming responding to input.
I remember reading a sci fi story in the 60's about a man who discovered that he was an android and not human. He also discovered the programming source of his "life"; a very slowly moving punched tape (this was the 60's remember) in his chest. He experiments with his "life" programming by punching new holes into the tape and seeing how it alters his reality when the hole is "read". The new holes cause him to experience people & things that weren't there before. As I recall, he essentially commits suicide by slicing the tape and letting it run out.
For the "boy" in this case, it is a problem without a solution.

Posted by: Oldanglican | Dec 20, 2007 2:02:51 PM

I think the answer is no, there should be no baptism in this case as this android (that what it is) is not sentient. Artificial intelligence is just adaptive programming responding to input.

And human thought is "just" biological machinery which develops from a single cell, as far as the scientists will tell us. We know ourselves to be conscious before we know anything at all, but take the existence of other consciousnesses on faith. How do we know that our own creations have no ensoulment? We cannot say definitively based on empirical evidence, for empirical evidence is not enough even to confirm the existence of one's own soul. Does this creature not appear to be a son of Adam - made, not begotten?

Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Dec 20, 2007 2:08:56 PM

"Does this creature not appear to be a son of Adam - made, not begotten?"

Yes, he is carefully designed to appear so, to appeal to the vanity of man and fulfill the desires of his owner/hosts. In fact, it is distinctly possible that he is the highest imaginable product of the idolator's art - the best graven image so far!

Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord judges the heart.

Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 20, 2007 2:19:54 PM

"And human thought is "just" biological machinery which develops from a single cell, as far as the scientists will tell us. We know ourselves to be conscious before we know anything at all, but take the existence of other consciousnesses on faith. How do we know that our own creations have no ensoulment? We cannot say definitively based on empirical evidence, for empirical evidence is not enough even to confirm the existence of one's own soul. Does this creature not appear to be a son of Adam - made, not begotten?"

We are physical AND spiritual beings created by God. As for an artificial intelligence, how can it have "ensoulment"? It is simply executing its program and has no free will to do otherwise. It has no spiritual component.

Posted by: Oldanglican | Dec 20, 2007 2:22:49 PM

Mmm... Oldanglican, sentient simply means having the power of perception by the senses. Depending on your definition of perception... artifical intelligence could be considered to do that, even today - although it has an unusual set of senses. Beyond that, I think the terms of the question state fairly clearly that he is able to think on his own. Remember that it's a hypothetical question, based on hypothetical technology, so he hypothetically is "able to truly think on his own." How that affects the rest of the question I'm still not entirely sure - the ambiguities in "able to express the entire range of human emotions" (express meaning convery or represent?) are where I hit a wall - but if it's a matter of thought only, he can be considered a valid seeker by the terms of the question.

I would explode if I got this question on a test... it begs for clarifying questions. But I think my version of Pascal's wager here goes like this. If you baptize him and he doesn't have a soul, what's at risk eternally? If you dedicate him without baptism and he does have a soul, what's at risk eternally?

Posted by: NJI | Dec 20, 2007 2:34:16 PM

>>As for an artificial intelligence, how can it have "ensoulment"? It is simply executing its program and has no free will to do otherwise. It has no spiritual component.<<

I think those against are arguing on a false definition of "artificial intelligence." Insofar as I understand it through the science fiction genre, when one refers to "artificial intelligence," they are referring to machine code that is synergetic in nature, such that the emotion and logic is not simulated, but quite real. An AI construct, therefore, may cry at the death of a loved one, and a different AI construct may well be passive and stoic regarding the matter, not because of their construction--that would make them simulacra, not androids--but due to their own inherent personality. Artificial simply means "not biological" in this case.

Consider the first move in The Matrix trilogy: Agent Smith has a manifested desire to escape the Matrix construct, along with a pathological hatred for humanity, which he has defined as a virus, not an animal. The other agents, meanwhile, appear to be stoic, without rage, though it is demonstrated in the end that they have a desire for self-preservation, whereas following pure programming, that is the programming intended to maintain control of the Matrix, they would not have run away from Neo. This is a poor example because throughout the series we see inconsistency from the Wachowski brothers, but I am attempting to frame this concept that AI is not pure programming. (A better example might be Bicentennial Man.)

As such, though the underlying process of that intelligence is governed by physical constructs, as Wonders pointed out, so is, as far as science can tell, our own inextricably connected to our biological wiring. This enters the realm of metaphysics, just as our own ensoulment does. If the practical, observable manifestation of a soul is the range of human emotions displayed physically along with an ability to reason, then it will not do to say that these observable traits can only indicate a soul in biological beings, for that is presumption in saying what God can and cannot ensoul.

I do not believe Aidan has a soul personally, but I would take the analog to Pascal's wager. If a teacher is responsible for the souls of his flock (c.f. the letter of James), then he is responsible for failing to baptise that which is seeking sanctification.

"When in doubt, dunk."

Posted by: Michael | Dec 20, 2007 2:40:13 PM

Complications:

1. Aidan's hosts/owners (self-styled "parents") decide they do not like what he picked up at VBS (particularly the repetitive song with all of the hand-motions). They remove that week of his experience from his recorded memories, replacing it with another Aidan-unit's more acceptable memories of a summer camp.

2. The OTHER Aidan-unit's guardians, political activists for androids, choose to replace their 'droid's summer camp memories with Aidan's VBS conversion. Then they show up at your church where they want their Aidan to take communion...

3. Aidan's body is destroyed in a terrible teenaged car crash. His host/owners have divorced, and neither wishes to confront the Aidan-peronality in an unfamiliar body - besides, those brains are worth big bucks, and superficial damage to the Aidan-brain rendered his/its legal rights rather fungible. Elements of his brain and personality wind up driving a robotic tank in Iraq ("we're trying to pull out in time for the centennial of the original intervention by the second Bush", says the fifth Clinton), teaching Spanish in Japan, and servicing customers at a house of ill-repute (but perfect legality) in Las Vegas in a BuXXom 2098 unit.

Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 20, 2007 2:44:28 PM

Hmmmm NJI. I think my question is...how could he have a soul? How do you program a soul? I think this thing could not be considered human. It may be biological but it has not the "breath of life" which can only come from God.

Posted by: Oldanglican | Dec 20, 2007 2:44:43 PM

Anyone who says this is easy - "When in doubt, dunk" - isn't thinking about this hard enough.

Posted by: Daniel Crandall | Dec 20, 2007 2:51:25 PM

And if he had a soul...what redemption would it require? Animals have intelligence and emotions, but not sin. Animal behavior can be changed by training, mechanical "behavior" by hardware or software intervention (or for a sentient machine, by training); proclaiming the transforming power of Christ in the pseudo-life of a machine would be dangerous folly, I think.

Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 20, 2007 2:54:44 PM

Turn Pascal's wager around and say- If it would do harm to humanity to baptize a piece of soulless flesh- by perverting our understanding of what it means to be human and what baptism means, by validating the couple's delusions- is that worth the risk of offending God's sense of mercy by not baptizing an android?

I had the opposite reaction as those early on in the comments. Is this even a question? Don't baptize.

Posted by: Gina | Dec 20, 2007 2:56:30 PM

I'll close out my argument by saying...it may be able to sing the blues but it ain't got no soul.

Posted by: Oldanglican | Dec 20, 2007 3:10:23 PM

I don't really agree that animals have no sin. Jesus curses the fig tree and it whithers, and the Ninevites put sackcloth even on their cattle. The non-human beings of Earth are caught up in the story of fall and redemption of humanity. And the creation groans under a curse, and longs to be set free from its bondage to decay. How much more also a miserable creature like Aiden.

Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Dec 20, 2007 3:11:08 PM

Gentlepeople,
This is a false situation. First off, in 20 years, not to say 80, nobody is going to need cadaver tissue or organs--we'll just grow them (brains excepted). Trust me on this, I analyze biotechnology for a living.

As for AI, it's a pipe dream. I'm convinced that Kurt Godel's work shows you can't possibly achieve this (supplemented by philosophers such as John Searle and the physicist/mathematician Roger Penrose). I know some will take this as tendetious; so be it. We will never, ever be able to make something with a "soul". We know no programming language that will ever allow this. To do so, the materialist's view of reality would be true. (Their argument is that all we are is "meat". And we aren't. We are not just physical creatures, though we are certainly physical creatures, imbedded in and belonging to this wonderful creation. To anyone who doubts, go and wrestle with C.S. Lewis' argument in "The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism" in Miracles.

Posted by: W.E.D. Godbold | Dec 20, 2007 3:12:14 PM

As the ultra-contrarian here, I would cut the Gordian knot and not answer either "dunk" or "don't dunk." I would reject the so-called question as an unreal, preposterous waste of time, not to be taken seriously. NJI is right that it "begs for clarifying questions." It is crassly emotionally manipulative to boot -- the bit at the end about a tear obliterating "whosoever" in the KJV text makes me wretch in its slobbering sentimentality.

[This reminds me of a 12th grade English AP class I had, in which I had read "Gone With The Wind" as my monthly assignment. The exam question was a lengthy quote by Tolstoy on the criteria of true art, with the assignment being to decide whether the piece of literature I ahd read qualifed as art or not according to Tolstoy's criteria, and to explain why or why not. Instead, I wrote an essay critiquing Tolstoy's criteria. I did receive an "A", and high praise from my teacher for an unconventional but well-thought-out response. Perhaps Moore would have given me an "F" instead :-)]

And Michael, referring to a discussion on a previous thread, this is a prime example of why I *don't* like sci-fi/SF. :-)

Posted by: James A.. Altena | Dec 20, 2007 3:14:58 PM

Those who say this creature is soulless, let me respond by saying "how do you know with such confidence"? The confidence with which you dismiss such a notion reminds me of the confidence that materialists would dismiss our own souls - reducible to mere machinery. We know not how the spirit of God breathes life, nor whether he will do so even in the acts of our own misguided creation (still in his image).

Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Dec 20, 2007 3:16:11 PM

Gene,

As a computer scientist myself, I, of course, agree. But I took the scenario to be suggestive of any number of artificial tinkering we might indeed do with the human body. I can't imagine silicon being better than the materials we have for the brain, but I took it for sake of argument. And thus I argue that our altering of the nature of our bodies, while deplorable, does not put us outside the grace of God.

Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Dec 20, 2007 3:22:30 PM

James,
You're absolutely right and stories like this are why I've grown away from SciFi. ("No, no, let's pretend the laws of noncontradiction, don't apply. Get real.)

I've found the vast majority of Brother Moore's stuff extremely edifying, but this is a false situation and only bad answers will emerge from such a thing.

Wonders,
I've thought about this issue a *whole* lot. What makes you think this has the least possibility of happening? Have you seriously thought through the major implications that would be required for these events depicted in this story to happen?

Posted by: W.E.D. Godbold | Dec 20, 2007 3:24:49 PM

Gene,

Given another thousand years or so, I could see us seriously altering the human body through bioengineering. The nanotechnology of the cell is utterly amazing, but not, in my view, beyond our ability ultimately to comprehend. Thus we might make any number of changes to our body - and bring into life all sorts of wretched but recognizably human creatures based on our own architecture. I could imagine a human zygote cell created and implanted that is not the product of a sperm and an egg, but is manufactured from many, and even from other parts. This isn't silicon, I grant, but it is engineering rather than begetting.

Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Dec 20, 2007 3:30:51 PM

James - a mystery revealed. If I had been forced to read GWTW - in one month, no less - I might have occasional sneaking Sherman-sympathies, too. (No, I'm NOT re-opening that thread here, I promise!)

As for "slobbering sentimentality", it's all part of seeing whether these students can be easily jerked around by their emotions, so it was perfectly valid for inclusion in the question! Me, I'm just pleased to see that the Baptists will still be clinging to the KJV - in Vacation Bible School, no less - in 2088.

Wonders, the question of whether Aidan has a soul is separate from whether Aidan would have to be redeemed. If not mankind - doesn't need to be redeemed; soul or not, none of our business, religiously-speaking. C.S. Lewis worried that if we met intelligent life elsewhere, we'd prosyletize!

W.E.D., that's reassuring. But whether "real" A.I. or just such a clever simulation of A.I. that many folks can't tell the difference...we are going to be dealing with simulated personalities, eventually.

Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 20, 2007 3:32:05 PM

Joe,

If not human, it doesn't need redemption? The works of our hands, which we create from the works of God are none of our business?

How do you read Romans 8?

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Dec 20, 2007 3:37:24 PM

Wonders, I most certainly do NOT read Roman 8 as meaning that dolphins or chimpanzees (for instance) should recite the Sinner's Prayer, be baptized, receive communion, and hope for eternal life in the world to come. They shall not "be called the sons of God". If Aidan, a creature of man's folly, "waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God" as do the dolphins and chimps, so much the better for him; but while he might percieve, in his mechanical way, the flawed nature of creation under the Curse, he is surely not in danger of eternal hellfire for the sins of his creator-race. Obliteration and oblivion, perhaps. Or maybe all dogs and all androids go to heaven.

Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 20, 2007 3:54:11 PM

Joe,

I agree with you about the dolphins (except for the life of the world to come part). I am wary, however, of using materialist logic of declaring something non-human and soulless. The same things were said of the South Americans by the worst of their opportunistic conquerors, and while I grant this is different, the rhetoric still makes me shudder (would you object to Aiden receiving treatment analogous to them?).

I can't categorically say Aiden is human, but if he responded in every way imaginable like a human, and was brought about by the agency of humanity, I would want to proceed very carefully indeed.

But better not to do such folly to begin with.

Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Dec 20, 2007 4:09:20 PM

Wonders,
I'm a cell and molecular biologist by training. For fun and profit I've also dabbled in neurophysiology. Right now I'm pursuing a major project in microbial engineering. It wasn't the biology I was objecting to (which is actually very doable), it was the bad philosophy/theology that supposed it was possible to produce ensouled (human) life (Life! LIIIIFE!) by technological means. And you can't get there from here.

I also agree with Joe that Romans can't be read in that way, though I do think one of tasks in the *age to come* will be to carry out a divine project (authorized directly by our King) of raising certain of our fellow inhabitants of this planet to sentience (like dolphins, chimps, dogs, etc). I think this will involve genetic engineering. But I could be wrong.

Posted by: W.E.D. Godbold | Dec 20, 2007 4:22:32 PM

Gene,

I of course agree that ensoulment is not a product of technology. And I agree that the situation proposed is not at all feasible (though, again, we might create analogous ones with bioengineering). But the reason I hesitate in sending Aiden off to the meat grinder is that we have no objective way of detecting the soul, and thus cannot categorically rule out that God has given one to the miserable creature.

By the way, given your field, have you had a chance to read Mike Gene's The Design Matrix yet?

Posted by: Wonders for Oyarsa | Dec 20, 2007 4:39:02 PM

Adian, I'll tell you what. Your eternal life can be ensured if we just put aside some funds to buy you some warranty extensions every 5 years. But as for your sin, let's work this out through a process of elimination. We can examine your brain program. Either we can reprogram-away your present unreasonablness to which you so tearfully testify, or we cannot. In the first case, you will have a far easier time being saved than any of us sons of Adam. Even if it takes 100 years of research to remove it, it's still easier for you to be saved than us. Oh how we envy you! In the second case, we will know for certain that we cannot program away your unreasonableness. That means you really are a sinner and we should dunk ya.

But wait, there is a third case. Computer scientists might tell me that the removal of your sin is an undecided problem. We can't do it now, but we can't say whether it can be done or not with further study. It's like the NP-complete problem: it surely has a answer, but we do not know what the answer is, and it is even possible, kata Godel, that we will surely never know. In that case, "when in doubt, dunk." But we would say that we do not KNOW the efficacy of this baptism. It could, finally, turn out to be a baptism for courtesy's sake. We'd regard it like Baptists regard the infant baptisms of other churchs.

Posted by: Clifford Simon | Dec 20, 2007 4:47:45 PM

Hi, Mr. Adian's dad... what's that? I hurt his self-esteem by TELLING him that he's a robot? He was supposed to think he was a real boy, and I wasn't supposed to tell him who he was, because it'd hurt him to know? Gosh, I'm sorry. I really should stop thinking I have all these ethics worked out.

Posted by: Clifford Simon | Dec 20, 2007 4:54:09 PM

Is conditional baptism an option?

The old Catholic Encyclopedia, when speaking of the baptism of "newborn" tissue masses of doubtful humanity, says to append "If thou art a man..." before the typical baptizing formula. (Not to open the infant baptism controversy, but I found it relevant.)

Posted by: Kevin Jones | Dec 20, 2007 5:09:12 PM

This is one of the primary questions asked by the TV show Battlestar Galactica on SciFi. Not baptism per se, but the personhood of flesh and blood "machines." The final season begins in March.

Posted by: GB | Dec 20, 2007 5:11:55 PM

While not entirely identical to the issue at hand, I would like to recommend Michael Flynn's recent novel, Eifelheim, to any thoughtful readers who are not prejudiced against "science fiction." While it is indeed SF in its inclusion of aliens and interstellar travel and anachronistic technology, it is moreover a treatment of the Christian life in a fourteenth-century German village.

The question of whether one can baptize an alien comes up, at any rate, which is why I choose to mention it here.

Posted by: Nick Milne | Dec 20, 2007 7:21:15 PM

Dr. Moore, I nearly went to seminary instead of law school, but now I see it that it made no difference: I still would have been dealing with aliens pretending to be human....

Posted by: Bill R | Dec 20, 2007 8:13:09 PM

Mr. Milne,

Whereas I myself think, in regards to science fiction/fantasy, that Mr. Altena is a gravely misled--or is it miserly?--crank (no hard feelings, sir), I would not call it prejudice. Indeed, he explicity and categorically laid out a philosophical underpinning for his dislike of sci-fi on a previous thread. Now, I can of course reject his premises as wanting, meaning his conclusion is wonky, but they are the foundations from which he is working, and he is wholly entitled to his opinion when it is not blind emotional distaste. As such, you should apologize for the "prejudiced against 'science fiction'" comment.*

Mr. Godbold,

Whether there is a likelihood that 80 years hence we shall have produced for our consideration a bio-mechanical monstrosity (or "personhood"), to then reject the theoretical offhand fails to address the issue, which isn't about the timeframe. It is, granted, more hypothetical than theoretical, but it is "-thetical" all the same. As such, throw out Aidan...what if it were a clone, which, in the foreseeable future, is technologically possible--would it be ensouled? If not, why not? What do you say do that frankenbaby?

Mr. Long,

If the Space Trilogy bears any real-world truth, it is that the aliens will be doing the proelytizing. =D

*Mr. Milne, I hope you took this in the good fun that it was intended. As an added bonus, thank you for the book recommendation.

Posted by: Michael | Dec 20, 2007 9:24:23 PM

This is an interesting discussion. To those skeptical of the value of the question, I'd say it's not quite right to reject it merely because it is unlikely or impossible. The point of such flights of fancy isn't to resolve problems before they present themselves--they're supposed to stretch the moral imagination.

It seems to me that humility is the first requirement in any such situation. I agree there is a question about whether the boy is actually made in the image of God or not. But then again, the issue for us (and for his pastor) is not coming up with qualifications that can determine definitively whether the boy/android can be a sinner. The question is how we (or Pastor Joshua) ought to respond to him out of love for the Lord Jesus. This is true no matter what the spiritual status of the android, of course. But given both our limited ability to make judgments about salvation and Aidan's response to the word of God as a person and sinner, it's hard to see how we cannot take 'it' as a person. How would this pastor know otherwise? "When in doubt, dunk" seems like a properly generous solution to me.

'Generosity' may just sound like a euphemism for a theology of warm fuzziness, so allow me an illustration: there is a story from the life of Francis of Assisi, where he insists on 'saving' a lamb grazing amidst goats because it reminds him of the Lord. And, according to the story, the Lord blesses this endeavor by miraculously providing the funds to buy the lamb, which Francis then entrusts to local nuns. What doctrinal justification could there be for this? The sheep was in no danger from the goats, and there was nothing improper about its being mixed with them. But I would hold that in this story, Francis acts generously based on what he knows. He loves the Lord; the fact that his way of expressing this is a little odd--even a little wrong-headed--doesn't diminish the act's value. Similarly, I'd have to say that in baptizing this android one would be acting in hope (but not certainty) that this android who acts like a child of God has in fact been elected by the Lord before the beginning of time. And could not our God have done it?

I also would encourage anyone interested in this question to look at the fiction of Gene Wolfe. (I'd encourage everyone to read him regardless--he's a great author.) Here's a very short story that deals with a situation remarkably similar to the one presented by Dr. Moore:

http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/summer-2007/fiction-unrequited-love-by-gene-wolfe/

Wolfe often deals with similar questions--talking animals like the dog mentioned by Joe Long are a favorite of his. My favorite instance is that of the vampire-like animals who temporarily take on the characteristics of those they feed upon. When they prey on humans, they gain self-consciousness and a sense of morality. But the only way to sustain those is to kill (or at least attack) a human again, which for a moral being is clearly wrong. Is it fantastic? Sure. But I think it also provokes serious meditation on the gift of conscience.

Nice to read everyone's comments on this.

Posted by: | Dec 20, 2007 10:59:08 PM

Sorry, didn't mean to be so mysterious... I posted the above.

Posted by: Mark Gubbins | Dec 20, 2007 11:00:55 PM

One difficulty, methinks, with responding with "generosity" to an individual automaton like Aidan, is in the establishment of precedent; you are baptizing an idea, or several ideas really, as well as a creature. "Wise as serpents", remember - and that sometimes means making decisions which might appear to be rather cold-blooded.

Wonders, I would be agnostic on whether Aidan has a soul - but firm that he doesn't have a HUMAN soul. Not without a human brain, whether generated in the traditional way or through some perversion of biological science. Surrounding a computer with human tissue doesn't make a human, even if high-tech manages something that may or may not be a "person". It would be no favor to a non-human being to give him hope in the human salvation process, or to berate him with the illusory "necessity" for it in his own case. And if somebody hooks up an identical artificial brain, sans corpus, to a bulldozer - must we witness to it?! Is the "off-switch" murder? Do the master/slave New Testament texts apply to AI's and AI owners...?

If this sort of thing begins, the line should be drawn early and clearly.

Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 21, 2007 8:18:43 AM

Ishiguro's novel "Never Let Me Go" is worth a look if you're interested in fictional treatments of this type of issue. If you're unfamiliar with it, try to avoid reading online reviews or descriptions, as there are lots of spoilers out there on the net.

Posted by: Rob G | Dec 21, 2007 8:55:11 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the statement of the problem never identifies Aidan with certainty as a robofrankenbaby. It merely asserts that there are such beings, and that Caleb (and implicitly Pastor Joshua) assume he is such a creature. Perhaps this was intentional. In such a world, perhaps we are to understand that it is not likely that robofrankenbabies will differentiable (at least by the non-medical observer) from regular ol' babies.

It is not explained to us how Pastor Joshua or Caleb *know* that Aidan is a frankenbaby. Assuming a frankenbaby looks and acts just like every other regular ol' baby, we can only assume that the pastors know this only by the testimony of Aidan (who could himself have been lied to) or his parents (who may be lying).

Leaving aside whether real spiritual damage could be done by conditionally baptizing ("If thou art man...") a toaster, we (and the pastors in question) also lack any objective means (short of invasive surgery) of determining whether Aidan really is or is not a toaster. Are we really going to perform such an examination upon *all* candidates for baptism? After all, the "parents" of a different toaster might very well say that their "child" is "real". An adult catechumen might very well be a toaster and not even know it. This would seem to tip the balance so far in favor of baptism that I cannot imagine further argument.

When in doubt, pour!

Posted by: Steve Nicoloso | Dec 21, 2007 9:35:20 AM

I'm with Joe Long on this one -- how many heresies have been adopted for "pastoral" reasons, i.e., because it appeared to be the compassionate thing to do at the time?

Posted by: craig | Dec 21, 2007 9:53:03 AM

"How can it not know, what it is?" - Blade Runner

Steve - if an artificial intelligence has fooled you into believing it's human, you're surely not culpable. I approached the example assuming the identification of the automaton was clear and accurate - but if it should turn out that we can't tell toasters from humans, I suppose we must baptise repentent toasters. I would have to strongly suspect that at that point, the end of human history would be very near.

Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 21, 2007 9:57:16 AM

Conditional baptism. The rule for everyone who makes this cry is "Repent and baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit"--perhaps in this case meaning also the gift of full humanity, which is the first of these gifts, foundational to the others. But the pastor is not himself in a position to know, lacking revelation on the matter (which I would expect to be given to the Church in such instances, as Peter received with respect to the Gentiles) whether the person is a candidate for baptism, so he must baptize, but with a formula like, "If you may be baptized, I baptize you . . . ."

Although I am a Protestant, I would pay close attention to any dreams my estranged Bishop in Rome professed to have received on the matter.

Posted by: smh | Dec 21, 2007 11:06:16 AM

Parenthetically--I think God will have seen fit to destroy humanity before things ever reached this stage, but in case he did not, would make appropriate provisions for his people to live under the conditions he was allowing.

Posted by: smh | Dec 21, 2007 11:13:37 AM

Not meaning to go way off topic, but I disagree with the notion that animals do not sin. To use my own cat as an example, she has a tendency to eat my "lucky bamboo" plant and any other plant that happens to be within her reach. She knows she is not allowed to eat plants, and has been shouted at or smacked on the rear when she's caught. So she will sneak in the room when she thinks we are not looking and eat my poor plants. I have watched her misbehave and she acts like a child who wants to see if she can "get away" with it with glances to see if I'm watching. When she knows she got caught, she'll run away for a few minutes then come sulking back and start loving on me as if she's asking for forgiveness...

So I know she knows right from wrong (she knows it's wrong to bite and has only done so by accident, she knows she's not allowed on the counter or table and will act VERY guilty when caught), so does that mean she can sin? If so, is it different from how humans sin?

Posted by: Isamashii Yuubi (Courageous Grace) | Dec 21, 2007 11:15:34 AM

For your cat, it is not "wrong" to bite, it is "disobedient" to bite. A well-trained attack dog might be used by a granny in need of protection, a police department in its normal duties, or a totalitarian regime - the dog is a "good dog" insofar as he is well-trained and obedient; a perfect samurai, with no ideas of his own about the moral status of his master. And if he is a "bad dog", it's the trainer's fault. Dog punishment should always be "behavior modification", never moral. Even killing an apparent hopeless-case dog is euthanasia, not execution.

Cats, on the other hand - well, arguably they might "sin", but what else could a creature of pure evil be expected to do?

Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 21, 2007 11:32:27 AM

The question of the AI is what is at the core here. Baptising clones is a no-brainer, as twins are baptised all the time, and that is what a clone *is*.

Can an AI be saved? Christ died for those made in God's Image and Likeness, for as Deus homo factus est, that is who He -could- die for. Hence the apparently repentant demon that went around preaching that Paul had the words of eternal life, remained, so far as we know, unsaved.

But since we don't know what God -might- do, I think that we should baptize in that hypothetical situation. Did God give this AI a human soul? We could not know for certian.

Likewise, if we ever encounter alien intelligences (apart from the various species of angels, which the Bible already covers) we should err on the side of caution. Yes to baptizing the converted, but I'm not nearly so certain about the Sacrament of the Altar.

W.E.D. Godbold, it is exactly Penrose's point which leads me to err on the side of caution. Since an Expert System cannot truly have a soul, and this critter acts very much like it has a soul - and has repented and be saved - then if it has a soul, that soul could have been put there by God.

Think of the arguments over when a soul comes into a baby in the womb? We cannot see or measure the soul with our instrumentation.

If my pickup started talking to me and acting like it was alive, I would fear a demon, most likely, not assume that the engine produced an 'emergent intelligence' through complexity plus heat energy plus time.

Yes, this is a false situation. It was *designed* to be so, in order to induce thought - something extremely rare in today's university.

Based upon the experience and behavior of the Spanish in the New World, I say that we have cause to err on the side of caution. The hidalgos decided that the natives were not really human. The Church held that they were. I think that we can agree today that the Church was right.

If an alien, or an intelligent animal on Earth were to understand, repent and believe, we have to remember that apart from the grace of God, *repentance is impossible*. I would say that if they weren't Imago Dei, they would not repent and believe, but at most, like the demons, believe and tremble.

I would also like to remind people that self-altering code already exists.

Couragous, when I was growing up, we had a Scots collie, we left him in the "entry room" which also had the water heater. When we got back, we found the rug neetly dragged over a mound of softener salt pellets and the remainder of the bag, and a very puppy-eyed dog.

Joe Long, even the lions pray to God for their food, as it is written. I think your "theological animalogy" is partially inaccurate.

Posted by: labrialumn | Dec 21, 2007 12:29:00 PM

I think Steve Nicoloso is probably right, and find the "conditional baptism" answer appealing. Granted that it's a nasty situation to begin with -- but then, so is any result of human sin, from Adam and Eve eating the fruit on down.

What I'm really curious about is why everyone assumes that a human brain is the sine qua non of the Image of God. That may be true. The brain is the center of intellectual activity, memory, and so forth, at least as far as I know. But does this make it the seat of the soul? A newly conceived infant has no brain. A "brain-dead" person is... dead? Well, maybe. Sometimes they can be revived. A person in a "vegetative state," who apparently (I emphasize "apparently") has only "mechanical" brain functions -- the operation of the heart, lungs, etc. -- surely retains a soul?

Posit (though the phrasing of the original post makes this unlikely in the extreme) that Aidan has consistent genetic material -- except for his brain, which is silicon and whatnot. Is it impossible that he has a soul?

I'm open to be convinced, but I'm honestly not 100% sure.

This of course spins off into other related questions. Was Frankenstein's monster salvable? (Not according to the book, but according to right Christian belief?) What about "hybrids"? A dolphin cannot be saved and baptized... what about a "mermaid," artificially created from a combination of dolphin and human DNA? (Sorry, am I waxing too sci-fi here? If so, one of our biotechnologists will be kind enough to correct me.)

Posted by: Firinnteine | Dec 21, 2007 1:02:07 PM

An aside on self-altering computer progrmas. Labrialumn brought up this very interesting and relavant topic.

For both the computer and the soul, there are *infinte* possibilities of input. The computer's restriction (versus the soul) is as follows. Its program must specify all at once, using a *finite* number of words, what to do with *all* cases of input.

"Words" here can mean English words (perscribing what the program does) or bits (the physical implimentation of the program on an electronic memory device) -- it doesn't matter, because if one is finite, the other is finite as well.

Here we can allow the program to self-alter. For instance, the English perscription of the program might say, "If the input is case X, then make the following changes to Paragraph 3..." In any case, the number of words that make the program is still finite. If it weren't finite, how would we enter the program? It'd take infinite time to enter, and we'd never have it.

The tricky thing about a soul, though, is that it can CONCEIVE of mappings from input to output WITHOUT THIS RESTRICTION OF FINITUDE IN DESCRIPTION. Here's how: Conceive of infinite time. Once a day, somebody shows you an input possibility. You choose which output to return at the end of each day. You don't have to follow any perscription: just do what you feel like. Using this procedure, you make a mapping of input to output. The crucial point is this: Using this procedure, you can make a mapping for which *NO DESCRIPTION IN A FINITE NUMBER OF WORDS* can *POSSIBLY* exist. (Note that the infinite time, which it takes you to reply to *all* cases of input, is crucial.)

As the mathematitians say it, the cardinal number of descriptions is COUNTABLE, but the cardinal number of mappings from input to output is UNCOUNTABLE. This means that there fewer descriptions than conceivable mappings, and hence, mappings for which no description exists. We, as souls, can conceive of that which CANNOT POSSIBLY be even DESCRIBED for a computer to duplicate.

The upshot is that in this competition, the self-altering program performs no better than the non-self-altering program. And this is a THEOREM, not an opinion.

In fact, self-altering programs have no new properties, at all, that non-self-altering programs do not have. A view that is perhaps more modern and fruitful is the view that eliminates the distinction between "program" and "data." And all programs, you see, alter their data - including the ones that we would call non-self-altering (from the point-of-view that keeps program and data distinct).

And that leads us right to another difference between computer and soul: Soul distinguishes soul from non-soul. With computer, the disctinction between program and non-program (i.e., data) is only a useful fiction, that arises from the natural thing to imagine, that there's a soul in the computer.

Posted by: Clifford Simon | Dec 21, 2007 3:18:51 PM

"Joe Long, even the lions pray to God for their food, as it is written. I think your 'theological animalogy' is partially inaccurate."

At the risk of being pedantic: the lion may well petition for his daily bread, and may do so with a clean conscience - even if he is employed by the Emperor Nero in the eating of Christians! He can think at some level, feel at some level, but his leonine nature (affected by the curse thought it surely is) is NOT human nature; he can't sin. (Again, unlike the housecat, a creature of unfathomable depravity.)

So with the automaton. The "law" programmed into him is not a law he will fail to live up to; it is a law he will carry out punctiliously, in accord with the laws of science. Thus, no need for grace. "Can an AI be saved...?" is a meaningless question until we establish what it is that an AI would need to be saved FROM. (Or unless the question means, "Can an AI be saved on a hard drive?", a seperate issue.)

That some Conquistadores willfully denied the evident humanity of South and Central American Indians is tragic and instructive, but entirely irrelevant to this case. I certainly don't think you can say it was an "honest mistake" based on careful reasoning. Paul made it clear that there is neither "male nor female, slave nor free, Greek nor Jew", but he blurred no species-lines.

Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 21, 2007 3:26:51 PM

WfO (and the "When in Doubt" crowd),

I'm disappointed with your responses on two levels. First, the idea that man would be able to create a being of such complexity that it would know itself and be able to judge itself to a higher standard than what it is given in man is just inconceivable. We would be Adrian's (g)od. By accepting the question at all you are turning man into something other. You can't make something greater in all aspects than yourself.

Second, even if we allow for the question (and James', good SciFi handles this much better(1)) then we still don't have license to baptize. Baptism is given to us under a certain formula. That is, you must say something, believe something, and use a form on a very specific target. Even if we disagree on the form, failure at any of those points prevents the baptism from occurring. The target that we have been allowed is something non-human. By defining that the brain is artificial we can no longer construct a human mind. Without a human mind there is no human. It matters not a whit if the soul can live without the body. You aren't human without one. Therefore there is no valid target. End of discussion.

That he is in the image of an image doesn't matter. We don't baptism cool figurines. Ever. Not once. Even if the cool figurine uses biological parts and can talk about Shakespeare. If it isn't human we do not have AUTHORITY to do anything with it. If God has ensouled it then God will take care of its special salvic needs. To propose anything else is to insert our authority in the place of God's. It is, in fact, to distrust God's mercy.

I should also note that such a willfully liberal reading of scripture as "when in doubt dunk a robot" is logically equivalent to women's ordination:
a.) Scripture does not say that we cannot baptize a non-human cyborg. It merely mentions "man" which must be treated in an inclusive context.
b.) Scripture does not say that we cannot ordain a woman. It merely mentions "man" which must be treated in an inclusive context.

Never mind that historically (T)radition has rejected invalid targets. For example, minus Mormons these days, we don't baptize the dead. Why? Invalid target. In fact, we can extend this portion of tradition to give guidance. While we don't baptize the dead we can pray for God's mercy (in most bodies). We can do the same for our young cyborg.

NOW WHAT'S MY GRADE?????

Posted by: Nick | Dec 21, 2007 5:19:16 PM

I also agree with Joe's argument. He cannot sin against his program. He would have to be ensouled to do so. To date I'm not aware of any revelation that says humans can or participate in ensoulment short of intercourse.

Posted by: Nick | Dec 21, 2007 5:24:50 PM

Courageous Grace,

Your theology needs some work. The Church has *always* held that animals do not sin, for the reason that animals are endowed with an appetitive soul, but not the rational soul created the image and likeness of God which is unique to man. The "disobedient" animal acts at the level of instinct and appetition. It is also disobeying a purely arbitrary human restriction that seeks to make the animal conform to human desires, often contrary to its natural (and God-given) impulses. It is not knowingly and willfully disobeying any divinely given commandment it has a capacity rationally to comprehend.

-----------------

Firinnteine,

"What I'm really curious about is why everyone assumes that a human brain is the sine qua non of the Image of God."

That's a somewhat distorted (if understandable) statement of the truth. The Church has always taught that man as being made in the image and likeness of God is the unity of a material body and an animating rational soul. As just explained, it is the rational dimension of the human soul that distinguishes man from the animals (not to mention plants). However, one must be careful not to think that "rational" here refers soley to capacities for intellection. It also embraces intuition (which is distinct from animal instinct) the will, and the passions (which again are not simply identical to animal appetition).

In the pre-fallen state, these aspect of man's nature as made in the image and likeness of God formed an integrated, harmonious, hierarchical unity. The will was subject to man's rational capacities, and the passions and physical appetites were in turn subject to the will. What happened in the Fall was the dis-integration of human nature. The physical appetites and passions became autonomous and have taken on a life of their own apart from, and often in opposition to, the will and reason (e.g., the physical desire for sex with someone not one's spouse). Similarly, the will, in concert with the fallen passions, now sets itself against the dictates of rightly ordered reason (e.g. the decision to have an adulterous affair even while recognizing how it will hurt one's spouse and children). Finally, reason itself is disordered and seeks that which is supposes to be rational but is instead the irrational satisfaction of the fallen will and passions (e.g. the justification of adultery by the hedonist as a positive good). [For all this, see St. Paul's lament of his inner warfare in chapter 7 of Romans.]

In short, the Fall meant that man lost the likeness to God (in that his dis-integraton diordered his nature so that it no longer was a fully correct created analogue) but not the image (in that nothing essential to man's nature was lost). The redemption of man is fundamentally his re-integration by grace, in the process that the Eastern Orthodox call theosis (deification).

We are aware of and understand all this because our capacities for awareness and understanding are (by divine design) located in the brain. But that does not make being in the image and likeness of God reducible to the brain, or spatially present only there (e.g. Descartes' misguided notion that the soul was located in the hypothalamus).

As much as I dislike and reject Dr. Moore's question, this is a good part of what he is trying to get people to put their finger on. One cannot rightly answer his question (if one thinks it worth answering in the form he posed it) unless one has a proper grasp of what it is to be human (divine anthropology), which is to say what it is to be made in the image and likeness of God; how that was disordered in the Fall; and how that is restored by divine redemption.

The problem in some comments here is an implicitly reductionistic approach (to which Firinnteine is properly reacting) tha tries to answer the question by analyzing Aiden in terms of an assembly of component physical parts that can produce certain non-physical functions and effects. (Please do not understand my discusson above of different aspects of man's nature as a reductive analysis into parts. Examining different facets of a gemstone is different from cleaving a gemstone into fragments and then gluing those back together.)

Of course, we also haven't addressed here the fact that a good many folks here (including me) would reject Dr. Moore's understanding of what baptism is and what it does or does not do. Given that the question is being posed at Dr. Moore's seminary by Dr. Moore, it presumably assumes the Baptist understanding of baptism as an ordinance and not a sacrament. Which is another reason I wouldn't answer Dr. Moore's question -- or be at his seminary. :-)

Posted by: James A.. Altena | Dec 21, 2007 5:34:56 PM

Michael (and Nick),

No offense taken; and referring Mr. Milne to my previous post is quite gracious on your part. (If Mr. Milne is curious to see it, it is my long post near the end of the thread "Top Ten Bad Books Everybody Reads" from December 4, 2007.)

I'm not sure that "wonky" is the right word to describe my approach or position to sci-fi/SF. I will settle for the title "Curmugeon ueber alles!" :-)

Posted by: James A.. Altena | Dec 21, 2007 5:42:18 PM

Ack! Forgot the note! We need to be able to edit!

(1) "Bicentennial Man" I think takes the right approach. It asks the question of what is legally required for "human rights". This is entirely different question.

Posted by: Nick | Dec 21, 2007 6:07:44 PM

Nick,

While it is true that "'Bicentennial Man' asks what is legally required for "human rights,'" it does not then follow that the story is not concerned with what is entirely human. The android protagaonist of the story has "known" from his very first power-up that he was unique, and he did not use an implanted personality chip. As such, his personality was not a technological construct. It would seem, rather, that his positronic brain performed above and beyond the machine code contained within it. This point is made in another of Asimov's short stories, I, Robot, that a brain capable of rationality--positronic or not--can have an evolved sense of, well, everything.

In regards to asking what is required for legal entitlement to "human rights," we must also ask "what is human?" It may be a different question, but it is inextricably linked, and close to, the question being asked here.

I am, quite honestly, not sure what makes someone uniquely fit for salvation, whether the manifestations of the soul are the soul itself. It seems to me that there are two positions here:

1) Any biological person of the species homo sapien with a biological brain is under the Law of God, and therefore under the Grace of God.

2) Any brain exhibiting unique rationality and emotionalism is, Q.E.D., exhibiting the manifestations of a human soul.

I don't think anyone is saying that Aidan without doubt is endowed with a soul, but rather affirming that all we know of the soul is its symptoms, and so we err on the side of caution. Perhaps the conditional baptism ("If thou art human...") is best for this, but, insofar as my limited intellect can reason, option (1) is presumptuous.

Posted by: Michael | Dec 21, 2007 6:52:37 PM

Michael,

A soul is only half of the problem. He has to be a soul and human. Not just human by reason of reason but human in fact. Adrian isn't. We therefore lack authority to baptize him. Anything else is to fall into the trap of doing things on emotion alone. We want to because he cried. That, however, isn't enough. We should instead trust in God to take care of the matter.

Posted by: Nick | Dec 21, 2007 7:08:35 PM

Joe Long,
1/3 of the Cheruvim and Saraphim sinned. They aren't humans.

Nick, that man could not do such a thing is precisely the point. It indicates that something else, beyond our ken, is going on.

We would not be Adrian's god. For there is only One who is Uncreated.

"appetitive" and "rational" souls are Greek philosophical concepts, so the Church cannot have -always- taught them. A simple remembrance of the cheruvim and seraphim will show you that there are other rational souls, which are not Imago Dei. Being aware that certain animals are known to be self-aware, and some can use up to 900 words correctly and grammatically, suggests that those might not necessarily be the only two species. There are a number of animals which display intuition, even culture. And even fish experience the same emotions that we do. At least on the physical level of the brain.

The Fall was a moral and covenantal change, NOT an ontological change! Adam and Eve chose to choose for themselves what to call good and what to call evil. That fundamental act of rebellion, and the real moral guilt that followed, is the problem.

Genesis 9:6 makes it plain that we humans are still Imago Dei, as does James' encyclical.

The redemption of man is fundamentally Christ's taking upon Himself our guilt and the curses of the covenant that are rightly applied to that guilt. We are forgiven, for our sins have been atoned for. An ontological concept of salvation would be a different gospel.

Michael 1) All that is, is under the Law of God. No one, no thing, is independent.

1b) Are you so sure that H. Neandertalensis, Heidelbergensis and Floresiensis are not human, ins pite of, in the first case, clear signs of religion and art?

Species is highly problematic. It is inconsistent, and the debate rages between the "splitters" and the "joiners". I tend to favor the joiners.

Whatever the Imago Dei is, it can't be reduced to either pagan Greek philosophy or claddistics.

I am confident that -God- knows what it is. I'm not so sure about any of us here, though.

Posted by: labrialumn | Dec 21, 2007 8:11:29 PM

First, the idea that man would be able to create a being of such complexity that it would know itself and be able to judge itself to a higher standard than what it is given in man is just inconceivable.

No. All we know is that man appears to have created such a creature. In fact, my main contention is that we cannot, given the givens of the problem, know with moral certainty whether or not this (or any other hypothetical) catechumen is a person at all. And the track record of predictions about what is or is not technologically possible ought alone give us pause. The future could be a very long time...

We therefore lack authority to baptize him.

Again, no. Catholic (and presumably Orthodox) rubrics allow conditional baptism even of miscarried material precisely because it just might somehow be a person or it just might somehow be alive. The burden to forbid baptism would be absolute moral certainty that this person was not a human person--a standard that is not met by the original statement of the problem. And it is not met in spades by the Cylon problem in the (excellent, if rather strong PG-13) reimagined Battlestar Galactica, where certain of the Cylon ("toaster" is an epithet in that imagined universe) cannot readily if at all be distinguished from a human, except by their own admission.

It is not a dogma of any Christian church or ecclesial community when ensoulment occurs. It is God's and not our business. If a creature made in the image of God were himself (advisedly or not) to make a creature in his own image, who are we to say with moral certainty that such a creature would not therefore have the image of God? Who are we to say that God would not ensoul such a one? Who are we to say that God would not ensoul an extraterrestial being, should such a being happen to exist? In the end, if it walks like a sinner and talks like a sinner, then our duty (without absolute moral certainty** otherwise) would be to treat it like a sinner... in need of repentance.

**And by absolute moral certainty I don't mean merely the certainty that a toaster is not a human person, but certainty that the catechumen in question is in fact himself a toaster.

Posted by: Steve Nicoloso | Dec 21, 2007 8:34:08 PM

As was pointed out by the previous comment by Labrialumn, did not certain angels (non-humans) sin? Also, when the argument that animals are only "disobedient" is used, it makes me ponder that our human sin is "disobedience" to God. So then I think, well, which definition of sin was meant by the original comment. Is it "to commit an offense" or "an offense committed against God's will" (specifically the "against God" part). To use the first definition, then using my original example, yes, my cat committed an offense, the offense was against me. To use the second definition, then no, she did not commit an offense against God's will (although I doubt it is "instinct" to give me an attitude).

This situation also brings up the topic of whether animals have souls or not, but I'm not going to get into that one again.

Anyway, let me just say that I am not insisting I'm correct here, I am willing to admit my understanding might be completely flawed. I did not mean in my first comment to say my disagreement with the original statement was an "I'm right, you're wrong", but rather I wanted to know what others thought. Also, could you please point me to a specific source that specifically states that the Church (sorry, I don't remember your denomination at this moment) has *always* held that animals do not sin? Not that I'm disagreeing with you, I've just never heard that before and would honestly like to know.

A note to Joe Long: I have always been a "cat person", but I can also appreciate dogs, in fact I've had several dogs as pets over the years and with one exception loved them very very much. While I realize you were likely posting with humor I found your insistence that cats are evil to be rather rude. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I don't appreciate my best furry friend being called evil. I used to have a shitzu-terrier that got into a wrapped box of expensive chocolate truffles (under the tree), individually unwrapped each one and ate it then hid the wrappers under the couch cushions, then didn't have the decency to get sick, so yes, dogs can be pretty "evil" too.

To end this ridiculously long comment, if I don't make a lot of sense, or sound like I'm rambling, I blame it on the pregnancy hormones...lol

Posted by: Isamashii Yuubi (Courageous Grace) | Dec 21, 2007 9:12:56 PM

No. All we know is that man appears to have created such a creature. In fact, my main contention is that we cannot, given the givens of the problem, know with moral certainty whether or not this (or any other hypothetical) catechumen is a person at all. And the track record of predictions about what is or is not technologically possible ought alone give us pause. The future could be a very long time...

Untrue. We've been given certain knowledge of this. There is nothing human in this monstrosity. It is composed of dead parts attached to a computerized brain. It is not human. What allows you, who don't create or declare categories to declare otherwise. We have no analogy that we can use to declare it human. If I take frog legs, in the old experiment, and wire it up to an electrode to jump, I do not have a new frog. I do not have any sort of frog at all.

Again, no. Catholic (and presumably Orthodox) rubrics allow conditional baptism even of miscarried material precisely because it just might somehow be a person or it just might somehow be alive. The burden to forbid baptism would be absolute moral certainty that this person was not a human person--a standard that is not met by the original statement of the problem. And it is not met in spades by the Cylon problem in the (excellent, if rather strong PG-13) reimagined Battlestar Galactica, where certain of the Cylon ("toaster" is an epithet in that imagined universe) cannot readily if at all be distinguished from a human, except by their own admission.

I tell you what. You cite anywhere in cannon law or Tradition where baptizing something that might not be human is allowed and I'll call the game. To my knowledge every Roman, Orthodox, Anglican, and orthodox Protestant document in existence that allows for this practice only allows for it if a previous baptism is in doubt. Again, your argument works just fine in the case of WO. After all, how can we prove otherwise outside of divine revelation? What does it matter that we all recognize man as something produced by the union of egg and sperm that reaches towards a known human form? We've got to evolve our understanding.

And while BG's a fun show, the day I take any sort of theological lessons from it is the day I'm in need of heavy medication.

Let us ignore again, for the sake of argument, that even proposing that we could do such a thing independent of God makes us greater than God. While no community has a formal statement of when ensoulment occurs (there are informal ones) your analogy doesn't hold. God made us. We made the monster. We know a lot about how the monster behaves even if it has emergent behaviors. In fact, we could probably exactly pinpoint the emergent behaviors. We'd know. So lets assume we have a soul. We pinpointed the behavior. We created the brain. Heck we effectively created the body, using God's parts of course. The things isn't human. It might even be a person, but sans being a human person we don't have the authority to do squat.

Do we have an example of any being other than a human being baptized? Even one? Nope.

**And by absolute moral certainty I don't mean merely the certainty that a toaster is not a human person, but certainty that the catechumen in question is in fact himself a toaster.

Prove that the toaster isn't human. And I'm dead serious. You have posited non-organic parts and dead people as comprising a human person. If you can do that, why isn't a toaster human? Right now your argument is based primarily on an emotional response to a corpse droid crying. For me that's not nearly enough. Nor, should this occur, do I have any doubt that God would provide the necessary information to deal with the problem. Assume otherwise and we slip into a sort of semi-deism.

Posted by: Nick | Dec 21, 2007 11:08:02 PM

Nick, read carefully the statement of the problem. There is no certain knowledge given to us that Aidan is a robofrankenbaby. It is 1) merely asserted that such beings exist, but it never identifies Aidan as one; and 2) the pastors in question believe Aidan to be one, but we have no idea why they believe so. My guess is that it was an intentional omission.

God made us. We made the monster.

This is not obvious. Who "made" Louise Brown? Ah, but that was nevertheless the union of sperm and ovum. But does anyone today doubt that some mad scientist somewhere in our lifetimes will in fact create a human person in a test tube while sidestepping the union of sperm and egg? Who will have "made" that child? What I'm getting at is that we, at this juncture, have no authoritative formula to determine what constitutes the human person. In 99.9999999% of cases, yes, it is obvious, and I've no wish to construct a theology out of exceptions. But we've got some folks playing in their Faustian sandbox with things they ought not. Will a Christian anthropology hold when (God forbid) they happen to succeed?

Will a human brain transplanted into an entirely robotic machine constitute a human person? If so, this would imply that humanity resides solely in the brain. If not, you're left with a person who (presumably) has real human consciousness, real capability to sin and repent, and yet who is somehow not human.

The simplest formula that I can come up with would be the Duck Test: if it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. Not foolproof to be sure, but it avoids these materialistic reductions of man, a la the image of God is seated in the brain, &c.

You have posited non-organic parts and dead people as comprising a human person. If you can do that, why isn't a toaster human?

I've taken no such position. I've merely asserted that the statement of the problem suggests that it is beyond the ability of non-experts of the future to discriminate readily if at all between the toaster and the human. And please understand, I'm using "toaster" in the BSG sense: They look and act human and (as far as anyone can tell) think human.

Posted by: Steve Nicoloso | Dec 22, 2007 11:51:41 AM

First, the scenario assumes Strong AI which I do not accept. Kurzweil and others who reduce consciousness to computational algorithms have some pretty huge philosophical hurdles to cross.

Nick, one could argue that the body and the patterns of consciousness are all made of God and this is very much "a clone" just as a somatic cell nuclear transfer clone would be. Just as twins have the same DNA as one another but are different people. The human person is made by God, despite the manner it which the patterns of matter (DNA in this case) have been created by man.

The question in play is "What is a human person" - biblically, I see the answer as "body and soul in the image of God" - the body is a material substance, the soul a non material entity made by God which operates embodied (save perhaps an intermediate state). Is the soul the conscious/spiritual principle that exists as a pattern in matter, but as a non material pattern, which persists beyond matter? This particular configuration of matter begs the strong AI question, but the real difficult question is if we create a replica of a human person (either through cloning, DNA engineering etc.) in which consciousness emerges, one must ask if God has not ensouled that being and it may very well be human. I think our theological thinking has to deal with such different body/soul realities. But if we see humans as body/soul image of God - there may be beings that are just that which do not come by the way of gamete cell sexual reproduction.

Now to the question of Baptism? For this robot you do not baptize as it is a computer...and dunking a computer would kill it. This would not be a nice thing to do and PETR (People for the Ethical Treatment of Robots) would get really pissed.

Posted by: Reid Monaghan | Dec 22, 2007 12:00:16 PM

Labrialumn simply does not know what he is talking about, as he uncritically embraces the strawman of Christianity vs. Greek philosophy invented by liberal theological revisionists to discredit the historic faith. Once again, referral to H. A. Wolfson's "The Philosophy of the Church Fathers" (mentioned on another recent thread) is the proper antidote to such errors.

The angels have always been recognized in Christian theology to be pure spirit, which is why their fall was fundamentally different than the fall of man.

The claims about animals with 900 word vocabularies and fish experiencing the same emotions as humans are pure hype and not to be taken seriously. Moreover, orthodox Chrstians believe that emotions are something other than just biological brain activty.

"The Fall was a moral and covenantal change, NOT an ontological change!"

Such hyper-Pelagian heresy (whatever Pelagious himself thought) was completely rejected by the patristic fathers. While the Eastern and Western fathers disagreed significantly about the exact nature and extent of that change, none doubted that such had occured. However, an ontological change is not necessarily an esssential change. It can be instead a change in a property, or (as I explained in my last comment) in relations between properties.

St. Augustine wrote of the first sin, and how it changed human nature by effecting the disintegration I cited between body and soul, in "The City of God" as follows:

"The fact is that the soul, which had taken perverse delight in its own liberty and disdained the service of God, was now deprived of its original mastery over the body. Because it had deliberately deserted the Lord who was over it, it no longer bent to its will the servant below it, being unable to hold the flesh completely in subjection as would always have been the case, if only the soul had remained subject to God. From this moment on, then, the flesh began to lust against the spirit. With this rebellion we are born, just as we are doomed to die and because of the first sin to bear, in our members and vitiated nature, either the battle with or death by the flesh."

The current RC "Catechism of the Catholic Church" also speak of this disintegration (sections 385-421), e.g.:

". . . the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered. . . ." (section 400)

"Genesis 9:6 makes it plain that we humans are still Imago Dei."

I specifically affirmed that in my previous comment, where I distinguished between retention of the image and loss of only the likeness. Apparently Labrialumn can't read.

------------------------

Courgeous Grace,

Since angels are not animals but rather pure spirit, they but not animals are capable of sin.

And, yes, sin is indeed not just disobedience, but disobedience to God. That disobedience may be indirect or derivative -- e.g. a child who disobeys a proper command of a parent is also disobedient to God, even if the parent's command cannot be proof-texted from Scripture, because the Scriptures grant the parents such authority over the child. But even though man has dominion over the animals, the relation is not the same as the parent-child relation, because animals do not have immortal souls made in the image and likeness of God such as man has, and hence are not capable of sin. As theologian Philip E. Hughes wrote in his book "The True Image":

"Only of man is it said that God created him in his image. It is in this charter of his constitution that man’s uniqueness is specifically affirmed as a creature radically distinguished from all other creatures. In this respect a line is defined which links man directly and responsibly to God in a way that is unknown to any other creature. Nothing is more basic than the recognition that being constituted in the image of God is of the very essence of and absolutely central to the humanness of man. It is the key that unlocks the meaning of his authentic humanity." (p. 30)

You might also consult Question 74 in section 1a2ae Aquinas' "Summa Theologica," titled "On the Subject of Sin", wherein he discusses such topics as the appetitive and rational aspects of the body and soul, and explains that sin is not found in aspects of human nature that are common to man and animals.

Posted by: James A. Altena | Dec 22, 2007 12:24:30 PM

To me, the question seems to be not so much about whether such a creature could exist, but what the appropriate response to it is. One need not imagine the quasi-robotic creature described in the original exercise to see the problem; one could hypothesis a sapient species created by adding a pair of chromosomes to the human genome. Having a different number of chromosomes than humans, such creatures would not be able to interbreed with the human race, but it is quite plausible they would still be as sapient as human beings.

In a case such as this, it would, perhaps, be easier to argue that they, like their human forebears, would be living souls and would have inherited our fallen nature from us, being themselves products of original sin. It would then be easier to argue that they should, in fact, be baptized. A more difficult—but perhaps not—question, it seems to me, would be whether they should be ordained as priests. This could be muddied a bit by supposing, for the sake of argument, this new species has been designed so as not to have sexes in the way we understand them. Suppose this new species to come in three denominations: Yin, Yang, and Uterii. The Yin and the Yang each donate quasi-sperm and the Uterii are non-sapient entities who purpose is to create un-nucleated ova which receive the genetic contributions of the others, fuse them into an egg, and gestate the product. (As the Uterii are brainless, they would only be fit for administration. ((rim-shot)) ).

Posted by: Bobby Winters | Dec 22, 2007 12:55:59 PM

To me, alleviating Aidan's very real distress would take precedence over theological issues of valid baptism. What harm could possibly result from baptising him? I say baptise, and let God sort out whether or not Aidan is ensouled.

Another question that would arise would be whether a "robo-frankenbaby" has civil rights. Could he or she vote, be enslaved, or be used for medical experimentation?

Posted by: Francesca | Dec 22, 2007 1:30:49 PM

"What does it matter that we all recognize man as something produced by the union of egg and sperm that reaches towards a known human form? We've got to evolve our understanding."

I can't judge the science, but a recent BBC article (I think?) claimed that creating an embryo just from an egg (or eggs? anyhow without sperm) would soon be possible. A child born from this particular test tube could only be female, of course, but if you don't need sperm....

Posted by: Firinnteine | Dec 22, 2007 4:44:13 PM

I too am extremely skeptical of strong AI, but it is moot to the question. To take the question at face value is to accept hypothetically strong AI. Does Christian anthropology come unhinged or not? If so, then the impossibility of strong AI rises to the level of dogma. That is a corner into which I don't want to be painted...

Posted by: Steve Nicoloso | Dec 22, 2007 4:56:23 PM

From the question:
body parts from human corpses and partially with body parts produced via human cloning. These children are real flesh and blood in every way, except with a robotic brain.

Did anyone read the question? This is not a person. It is dead parts and a robotic brain. Humans get baptized. We don't baptize primates, no matter how smart they may be. We also don't baptize our toasters. Christian anthropology doesn't become unhinged because its not even a question, AI or not. We don't baptize dead people and we don't baptize robots. We also won't be "painted into a corner." For heaven's sake people have you no trust in God at all? You actually don't believe he would have foreseen such a situation and provided for it?

I was reading the introduction to my brand new "Ancient Christian Commentary" on the epistles. Those silly old folks thought God had foreseen the Arian Heresy and provided 1 John. Of course, God gets fuzzy once 2100 roles around and provides us with nothing. Are we trying to write a Pullman novel here? Could someone point out in either Tradition or Scripture where their is an example of us baptizing a non-human? I asked this before and no one has volunteered such a thing.

Francesca,

His feelings don't amount to a hill of beans. We don't elect presidents because they're feelings might otherwise be hurt. You can't get baptized unless you qualify. Others should note that our resident liberal is using very liberal reasons for the dunk. This should give us a moments pause.

Now cloning is a real question. Firinnteine correctly points out that, unfortunately egg and sperm aren't always required. However, not being dead parts with a toaster for a brain does make it an entirely different question.

Posted by: Nick | Dec 22, 2007 6:40:43 PM

Dr. Altena,

So, this conservative, Biblical-inerrancy believing M.Div. doesn't know what he is talking about, and has uncritically embraced liberalism as defined by Machen. It was not a liberal who asked "what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" Neither were the Reformers liberals.

An interesting way to propose that the Gospel presented in the Bible is false.

But not a convincing one.

I would have expected better from you. Much better.

Perhaps you can show me where Scripture teaches that there is an animal soul and a rational soul.

That is no hype about the recently deceased African Grey parrot with the 900 plus word vocabulary. That is documented. As is the use of grammar. Further, I myself witnessed an African Grey tell two yippy dogs to "shut up", and they did.

As to the emotions, all of these animals have the same portion of the brains that deal with emotions in us. Further, not being at all unfamiliar with animals, having grown up on a farm, I can assure you that the placental mammals at the very least, do have emotions. They have souls, as the Bible says, though they aren't human souls. They are what they are. They are not organic robots.

Next, you accuse me of a hyper-Pelagian heresy for simply saying what the letter to the Hebrews says. I assure you, that is not pelagian in the least. Nor was it pelagian when Francis Schaeffer taught it. Or O. Palmer Robertson, or any of the other covenant theologians who did not reject the Cross in favor of fiat. Again, while we are indeed damaged by the curse of the Fall, the problem is our real moral guilt before the Holy God, not that we are damaged by the curse of the Fall.

I was not aware that the Summa Theologica had been added to the canon of Scripture by a genuine ecumenical council of the Church.

Again, the reason Men are sent to Hell is because of real moral guilt, not because of the damage caused by the curse of the Fall.

Nick,

Because we did read the question, we know that the parts are not dead, they are in fact alive - else they'd rot.

You are presupposing your answer in your analysis of the problem. The question is "does Adrian have a human soul" not "should we baptize doped silicon?"

Posted by: labrialumn | Dec 22, 2007 7:23:38 PM

Labrialumn,

You have still failed to show that he is human, which would be the qualifier to the human soul. Until then we are baptizing a toaster. While your right that the parts may indeed be alive, they are still dead since they come from a dead person. The word has been used that way for awhile. Couple of hundred years at least.

We don't baptize toasters. We don't baptize dead people. We don't baptize parts. We don't baptize parts sewn together and rigged to electrical conduits. The list of what we don't baptize is too long to enumerate. We baptize humans. Until you demonstrate that Adrain is a human this doesn't work. Crying and speaking, as you have conveniently pointed out, isn't enough. African Grey's don't get baptized either.

Posted by: Nick | Dec 22, 2007 7:35:44 PM

Earlier in this thread, Nick, someone pointed out that the Catholic Church baptizes matter expelled from the womb with the rubric "if thou art man"

Likewise earlier, it was pointed out that Adrian passed a sort of "theological Turing test"

In like fashion to my reading your posts. Art thou a man? Or are you a rather sophisticated development of the old AI program Eliza? I don't -know-, but by the unconscious Turing process we all use, I assume that you are in fact, a human being.

It seems to me that you are interpreting the question quite differently from how I and several others, have read it.

How could I prove Aiden to be human or not human without a sufficiently accurate and complete definition of what is human, which is, I suspect, the point of the exercise in the first place. "A featherless biped" is insufficient. So is Aristotelian philosophy, as we know rather more now about nature and the human than he did. A rational animal is insufficient. A definition of death that covers living tissue is insufficient. We must reflect, and think.

Posted by: labrialumn | Dec 22, 2007 7:47:13 PM

Still going with the premise, which I agree is absurd, I disagree that Aiden's emotions "amount to a hill of beans," while still vehemently holding that baptism should not be extended to any but a human person. However you can show compassion on a creature regardless of whether it is human. The more human-like, the moreso that holds. It is how we respond to animals, isn't it? At least how we should respond.

I think of the film "AI," where the mother abandons the child android. I found that scene wrenching, even if I had no qualms about considering the android a machine. How we respond to dependent creatures says more about us than them. The person who moves away and simply abandons the pet to the street when they go is proving himself to be the animal.

Someone early on said that he should be dedicated to God. This would be my response. You can comfort and respect and still preserve the holiness of the sacrament.

Posted by: Gina | Dec 23, 2007 12:09:41 AM

"So, this conservative, Biblical-inerrancy believing M. Div. doesn't know what he is talking about, and has uncritically embraced liberalism as defined by Machen."

I don't know about Machen's particular definition, but to the remainder, yes. And many M. Div. degrees are of the same value as B. Ed. degrees -- printed on Charmin.

"An interesting way to propose that the Gospel presented in the Bible is false. But not a convincing one."

Ah, the typical question begging and circular of the self-proclaimed biblical inerrantist. "My view of the Bible is true and yours is false because I say so." Never mind that you've not presented one scintilla of evidence for your position, just empty assertions.

"I would have expected better from you. Much better."

On the other hand, I expected from you exactly what I got -- bupkes.

"Perhaps you can show me where Scripture teaches that there is an animal soul and a rational soul."

If ou're going to play the proof-texting game, show me where Scripture denies it. Scripture speaks of the soul, but does not define it in detail. The latter came from Scriptural exegesis by the patristic fathers. But I forget -- as a self-styled modern bibilcal inerrantist, whose method of exegesis bears no relation whatsoever to how the early Church read and understood the Scriptures, you only have contempt for those.

"Nor was it pelagian when Francis Schaeffer taught it. Or O. Palmer Robertson, or any of the other covenant theologians who did not reject the Cross in favor of fiat."

I did not invoke fiat. But you did, because your self-proclaimed bibical inerrantist coventant theology is simply fiat in another guise, so you wish to attribute your mindset to me.

"I was not aware that the Summa Theologica had been added to the canon of Scripture by a genuine ecumenical council of the Church."

I was not aware that Francis Schaffer, O. Palmer Robertson, or covenant theology had been added to the canon of Scripture by a genuine ecumenical council of the Church. Not that you have any use for the ecumenical councils anyway. And tell us -- do you think that Aquinas was a heretic unfaithful to Scripture, compared to whom Schaffer and Robertson are inerrant and theological giants?

"Further, not being at all unfamiliar with animals, having grown up on a farm...."

Well, whoop-de-do. What makes you think that anyone here is unfamiliar with animals?

"I can assure you that the placental mammals at the very least, do have emotions."

Previously you were evoking supposed emotions in a fish -- now you're jumping tracks. And your assurance and $5.00 will get a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

"They have souls, as the Bible says, though they aren't human souls."

As to souls, the difference between animal and human souls is exactly the difference between appetitive and rational souls. With this sentence, you just in effect agreed with what I've been saying all along but you've previously denied. Can't you read?

"Again, while we are indeed damaged by the curse of the Fall, the problem is our real moral guilt before the Holy God, not that we are damaged by the curse of the Fall."

"Again, the reason Men are sent to Hell is because of real moral guilt, not because of the damage caused by the curse of the Fall."

Once again, after violently criticizing me, you suddenly in effect agree with me. I never said or implied that "Men are sent to Hell . . . because of the damage caused by the curse of the Fall"; I was explaining precisely *how* "we are damaged by the curse of the Fall," how we are made suspectible to sin and what needs to be healed within us by Christ to restore us to his likeness as well as his image. Of course we go to Hell for actual sins; I never said or implied otherwise. Again, can't you read? Is an inability to read properly what other people write the primary skill you acquired in getting an M. Div.?

As to emotions, with the possible exception of certain higher (placental) mammals, animals do not have emotions. And even those do not have them in the same way as human beings do, as such do not inter-relate in animals with the unique cognitive functions that man has (such as the capacity for logical abstraction and universalization). More interestingly, for someone who publicly advertises himself to be so opposed to anything connected with evolution, you uncritically accept claims regarding animals that are advanced entirely by certain evolutionary biologists whose agenda is to deny any distinction between human and animal natures.

As for your African Grey parrot, that is a subject of considerable dispute, to say the least. Researchers are sharply divided as to the degree of any actual comprehension this displayed by the bird, as opposed to being behavior learned and applied by mimickry of observed behavior and/or response to visual and auditory cues. Your observed instance about the yippy dogs is easily of this type. Try being less credulous about sensationalistic media claims in such matters. (But then, you've already amply demonstrated how little understanding you have of science on certain other MC threads.)

The parrot and yippy dogs remind me of an anecdote about a famous German opera conductor who was at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus (the Wagner opera shrine) in the 1930s under the Third Reich. At a party, he met a woman who had a large iron Maltese cross strapped to the back of her hand, held in place by chains that wrapped around the palm and through the fingers. "Why are you wearing that?" he asked. "*This*," she replied grandly, "is where the Fuehrer kissed me!" The conductor replied, "He should have kissed you on the mouth!"

Labrialumn's preferred presidential candidate Ron Paul has now publicly defended keeping campaign contributions from a white supremicist, neo-Nazi source. So he now has a ready source for a Maltese cross. He just need proper instructions for where to put it.

Posted by: James A. Altena | Dec 23, 2007 6:28:05 AM

>>>How could I prove Aiden to be human or not human without a sufficiently accurate and complete definition of what is human, which is, I suspect, the point of the exercise in the first place.<<<

If there is any reasonable doubt, then prudence dictates that one should extend the presumption of humanity. One cannot see, or in any way test or measure for the presence or absence of a soul; therefore, if there is the possibility that a being could possess one, one is obligated to act as though he did. This is precisely the logic i use in regard to abortion, particularly with those who take the line, "You cannot prove a fetus is human"--neither can they prove it is not, threfore, better safe than sorry.

In the (rather absurd) case under discussion, I am drawn back to the Prayer of Cheirotoneia in the Byzantine rite, which begin, "The divine grace, which heals all that is broken and supplies that which is deficient. . . "

Posted by: Stuart Koehl | Dec 23, 2007 7:50:15 AM

Did anyone read the question? This is not a person. It is dead parts and a robotic brain.

Yes, Nick. And that's what I'm asking you to do. The question describes what a robofrankenbaby is but never directly asserts with certainty that Aidan is one.

Humans get baptized. We don't baptize primates, no matter how smart they may be. We also don't baptize our toasters.

But would we baptize sentient extra-terrestrial life? This is not a species of being that can be ruled out by mathematical speculation or proof (as plausibly have strong AI beings). What conditions, therefore, would such beings have to meet? (As an aside, we might very well baptize our "toasters", even if merely by accident, if our "toasters" were indistiguishable from human persons.)

We also won't be "painted into a corner." For heaven's sake people have you no trust in God at all? You actually don't believe he would have foreseen such a situation and provided for it?

I believe God has provided for it: Scripture; nature; human reason; and an authoritative magisterium, which may, when necessary, define dogma in such manner as to be binding upon the consciences of the faithful. I may and do hope that God would prevent such a paradigm-shattering development from occuring, but he has from time to time refused to do so in the past. He may however prevent it during our lifetimes, and should we fail to deliver to our children (and theirs and so on) an anthropology that will not crack under the pressure of mere technology (or alien visitations), then what good will we have been to them?

Mr. Altena, that was a low blow to Labrialumn (if not Dr. Paul) and you know it.

Posted by: Steve Nicoloso | Dec 23, 2007 1:46:00 PM

I'm going to make a comparison that may not hold, but seems appropriate to me. People ask the question why conservative Christians object to homosexuals "marrying," because it is the compassionate thing to do and because it doesn't have any bearing on marriage for anyone else. But of course it does, because it represents a fundamental shift in the definition of what marriage is.

Baptizing a machine would represent a fundamental shift in the definition of what a human person is.

Posted by: Gina | Dec 23, 2007 4:26:28 PM

>>>Baptizing a machine would represent a fundamental shift in the definition of what a human person is.<<<

And, supposing one is finally produced, a human clone? What about a cyborg? We're already going down that road, with increasingly sophisticated cybernetic prosthetic devices. Eventually, we will be

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