Sunday, October 08, 2006

A Question on Cloning

The poll is not functional right now, so vote here by commenting on this blog until I can get the poll up and running.

Supposing a human was successfully cloned, would the clone have an eternal soul and be made in God's image?

  • Yes: the clone would share all the attributes that all humans share.
  • No: the clone would have no soul.
  • Yes, I think so, but I'm not sure.
  • No, I don't think so, but I'm not sure.
  • I have no idea.
  • Whether or not is un-important, because they will never successfully clone a human.
  • I don't believe that ANY humans have souls or God's image.

~ Kingdom Advancer

P.S. Thanks for understanding that the "official" poll is not working.

5 comments:

Austin said...

None of those possible answers seem perfect to me. I would say that nobody has an inherently immortal soul. Nobody will become immortal until after God resurrects us. Therefore, no, the clone would not have an "eternal soul." However, the clone might very well have the image of God since he or she would be human just like us. I don't know for sure.

Kingdom Advancer said...

I know we have some disagreements on doctrines of hell and heaven, but what I meant by "eternal" was that it will go on forever: as in, heaven will be experienced by souls [in their resurrected bodies] forever, and--although I know you don't agree with this--conscious punishment will be eternal. Although no soul seems inherently "immortal" [the word you use] because the Bible refers to "eternal life" and the opposite--expressed in the Bible with terms like "the second death"--that type of death is different than physical death. It is not a ceasing of conscious existence, but rather a separation from God and all things good.

Therefore, I guess what I was getting at is would a clone be fully human, having such a soul? Would it be above the animals spiritually and physically? Would it be as purely made in God's image as all other humans? Etc., etc. As I said, the answers seem obvious and they may be obvious, but at some future date I'll write some things that show that if you believe either one thing or the other, we should regardless stay far away from cloning and/or we'd have some serious theological, biological, theoretical, and ethical issues to deal with.

Austin said...

You misunderstand me. I wasn't talking about heaven or hell. Let's assume that there will be people in both - after the resurrection.

Regardless, I still don't believe that we have an eternal soul. After the fall, man became mortal. We don't have some mystical other-half that lives forever when our bodies die. But praise be to God who will resurrect us from the dead!!! All things are possible through him.

Austin said...

To clarify, we become eternal after the resurrection, but if there was no resurrection, then we would die and remain dead forever with absolutely no consciousness. We would cease to exist. However, as we both know, death is not permanent because we will be resurrected and given immortality. As Paul says:

"For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality."
-1 Corinthians 15:53(NASB)

shadowsoflove.blogspot.com said...

1.
Yes: the clone would share all the attributes that all humans share.