Soul of the Embryo

Christianity and the Human Embryo

David Albert Jones

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781441159762
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Theology

We are delighted to announce that this book has been short listed for the prestigious Michael Ramsey prize for the best in theological writing. For more information please visit: www.michaelramseyprize.org.uk A radical examination of the Christian tradition relating to the human embryo and how this relates to the debate today.In recent years, the moral status of the human embryo has come to the fore as a vital issue for a range of contemporary ethical debates: concerning the over-production, freezing and discarding of embryos in IVF; concerning the use of 'spare' embryos for scientific experimentation; and finally, concerning the prospect of producing clone embryos. These debates have involved not only general philosophical arguments, but also specifically religious arguments. Many participants have attempted to find precedent from the Christian tradition for the positions they wish to defend.It is therefore extraordinary that until The Soul of the Embryo there has been no significant work on the history of Christian reflection on the human embryo. Here, David Albert Jones seeks to tell the story of this unfolding tradition - a story that encompasses many different medical, moral, philosophical and theological themes. He starts by examining the understanding of the embryo in the Hebrew Scritpures, then moves through early Christianity and the Middle Ages to the Reformation and beyond. Finally, Albert Jones considers the application of this developed tradition to contemporary situation and questions which contemporary Christian view or views are best regarded as authentic developments of the tradition and which should be regarded as alien to the tradition.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Moulded in the Earth: The embryo in the Hebrew Scriptures: creation, providence, calling
• 2 Curdled Like Cheese: Ancient embryology: Hippocrates and Aristotle
• 3 Discarded Children: Exposure, infanticide and abortion in ancient Greece and Rome
• 4 Grieving in Ramah: Jewish attitudes to infanticide and abortion
• 5 Medicinal Penalties: Early Christianity and abortion: Celtic/Anglo-Saxon penances, Greek/Latin canons
• 6 Soul Talk: Soul as the principle of life, body and soul, the spiritual soul
• 7 Whence the Soul? The Church Fathers on the origin of the soul: pre-existence, traducianism, creationism
• 8 The Timing of Ensoulment: Immediate and delayed animation from the Fathers to Thomas Aquinas
• 9 The Embryonic Christ: The conception of Jesus, Chalcedon, Maximus the Confessor on the embryo
• 10 Imputed Dignity: Luther, Calvin and Barth: from essential to relational categories
• 11 Embryology through the Looking-glass: Ovists and animalculists, preformation, epigenesis, embryology and ensoulment
• 12 Probable Sins and Indirect Exceptions: Casuistry, therapeutic abortion, probabilism, application to the embryo
• 13 The Justice of Miscarriage: Abortion law from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century
• 14 The Embryo in Isolation: In vitro fertilization, personhood, identical twins, stem cell research
• 15 The Least of these Little Ones: The theological status of the embryo
• Bibliography
• Indexes
• Scripture Index