First Of All Let Them Prove Their Theory

[suchandra 1]

Somehow the modern so called "scientific expertise" presented to us by so called "experts", that life is nothing but a combination of chemicals has brainwashed people in general so severly that hardly anyone even dares to speak up against the present establishment of material ignorance.

With establishment we can also mention so many big, big churches who preach conjointly every Sunday that animals have no soul, that animals are soulless biological life. But what actually is biological life?

 

Prabhupada: First of all let them prove their theory. Then we shall prove ours. We are proving. We have got our own way. But why they are speaking all this nonsense? First of all let him prove that he is genuine. Then our turn will be next. Ours is very easy. Krishna said to sun-god, and sun-god said to his son, his son, his son. It is coming like that. Where is the difficulty? Again Krishna says, "Now it is mismanaged. It is lost, so I am saying again to you Arjuna." So what Arjuna has understood, we are understanding the same way. How Arjuna understood it, that is written in the Bhagavad-gita. Where is the... We have no difficulty. But you jump over: "There is link," that "Once only from monkey came." What is this nonsense? We have to believe this? Has it any sense? And because Mr. Darwin is speaking we have to accept it? We cannot...

..So why now from gorilla the Africans or any black man is not coming? Then the question is the black man... We have got experience. The black man come. And wherefrom the white man came? Is there any white gorilla?

Pusta Krishna: No.

Prabhupada: No. Then white man, how did he come?

Harikesa: Well, sometimes there is a freak of nature, and the pigments that are in the skin...

Prabhupada: Simply it is for Darwin, "sometime." To support his rascaldom, nature has to serve him "sometimes. "Just see. We have to believe. Nature's law is the same, symmetrical.

Is there any scientist who can make an egg which is put in the incubator and gradually it comes to become ...'"

Harikesa: They will think we are completely crazy.

Prabhupada: Huh? Well, then kick on their face, on their nose, rascal. We are crazy or you are crazy?

Harikesa: But who wants to make eggs?

Prabhupada: Huh? No, no, it is an experiment. You say life comes from chemical. So by chemical combination make an egg and do it. Begin from this. Then we shall see others. This is very easy. If you have already analyzed the yellow portion of the egg, the white portion of the egg and that outer plastering can be done. Nowadays there is... What is called?

Harikesa: Plastic.

Prabhupada: Plastic. It can be done. Do it.

Pusta Krishna: Make a chicken.

Prabhupada: Yes. Make a chicken or so many birds. If not chicken, make a sparrow. Do something. Do something. Why you should be misled by them, these rascals? Challenge him. Challenge them publicly that "These rascals are misleading. Don't accept them. They're simply misleading."

Harikesa: Well, they're the best we have. They're the best we have. We have nobody. Who else is going to take care of us?

Prabhupada: No, at least... We ... just like we challenge, they cannot give answer. This should be proved. Then they will be proved that they are rascals.

Harikesa: The whole scientific craze seems to be settling down anyway. It seems to be dying down.

Prabhupada: It must die. The scientists, they admit now, "What we shall do? We have bluffed in so many ways. Now what is the next bluffing?" Their bluff, last bluffing, was going to the moon planet, and everything is failed. Then what is next bluffing? That is their problem, how to keep their big, big post?

Harikesa: There's nothing left to do.

Prabhupada: Yes. They have finished all their theories. Still, they could not do anything. This is their position. (break) Margarine is also another bluff. It is oil; it is taken as ghee, er, butter.

Harikesa: They say it's very healthy for you.

Prabhupada: They will say.

Harikesa: It doesn't have all those cholesterols.

Prabhupada: Otherwise how they will sell? They will say. They will present anything nonsense in flowery language, and people will be cheated. That's all.

Harikesa: Americans can't stand this butter and ghee. When we cook in these pure things like ghee, they become very upset.

Prabhupada: Because meat-eaters.

Harikesa: If it's not impure they don't like it.

Prabhupada: Meat-eaters cannot digest ghee. Therefore in America, all of a sudden change of diet in our..., their stomach become upset. Just like animal, dogs, they cannot eat this ghee preparation.

Pusta Krishna: They can't take it.

Morning Walk -- Durban, October 13, 1975

 

 

[theist 1]

 

Somehow the modern so called "scientific expertise" presented to us by so called "experts", that life is nothing but a combination of chemicals has brainwashed people in general so severly that hardly anyone even dares to speak up against the present establishment of material ignorance.

With establishment we can also mention so many big, big churches who preach conjointly every Sunday that animals have no soul, that animals are soulless biological life. But what actually is biological life?

 

Here is where the focal point of the Vaisnava's argument with the materialists lies. Whatever other theories they may propose doesn't really matter much but how they define life as opposed to how Krsna defines life makes all the difference in the world.

 

By knowing aham brahmasmi even we as layman can challenge and defeat the greatest materialistic scientist. It is important to stick to this point or we run the risk of being drawn into their abyss of mental speculation.

[suchandra 1]

 

Here is where the focal point of the Vaisnava's argument with the materialists lies.

Good point, great post, go on with the good work! Yes, the functioning of just one living cell is ten thousand of times more complex than the functioning of a car.

 

Sadāpūta: So mathematics shows that chance alone would never begin to produce the things that go into life, because this, say, is just for one protein, but it’s estimated in the simplest cell that they experiment with that there are some three thousand proteins. This is what they estimate. And in a human, in a single cell of the human body, they estimate three hundred thousand, or even three million. It’s just an estimate. But it shows that chance is completely unrealistic. Now the scientists will say that both chance and natural laws somehow mysteriously go together in what they call natural selection to produce living structures. In the next slide, this is also a calculation, and it shows that that is not correct either, at least as far as the mathematics goes. What this says is suppose you look at the earth and you’re going to wait four point five billion years— that’s what they estimate is the age of the earth—and ask what is the chance of finding a given organized structure. And mathematically there’s a thing called information theory, and you can show that the chance of getting an organized structure with a high level of information goes down exponentially, so that for an amount of information higher than that of the laws that cause these things to move, the chance goes down practically to zero. So it wouldn’t happen. So this gets kind of complicated, but there’s a basic point behind it; namely it indicates that the natural laws that are causing things, like that list of those laws, must already have in them, built into them, whatever is going to be manifested. That is, if some given structure can be manifested in the material world, that means the laws that are causing things must already have at least that much built into them. But their understanding of natural laws, the laws are too simple, too short to have that kind of thing built into them. So there’s that argument. We’ll go on to the next one. This is some mathematical formulas related to that. I don’t think we should dwell on that. This slide right here gives an example of the kind of structures you find even in simple organisms. This is a bacterium. When they look at it under a microscope, they can see that this bacterium has a reversible motor built into it, and this motor spins a spiral flagellum, and by spinning it it propels the bacteria through the water, just like a submarine. So this very sophisticated motor is built into the wall of the bacterium. So that shows the kind of structures for which designs would have to be there. Actually, the scientific explanation, the way that they explain how this comes about, is completely impossible, because they would say that either by chance it came about all at once—and the chances are way too small, so that would never happen—or else it would have to come by small stages somehow. But what would be a small stage in the formation of a workable motor? Can’t even think of how that would work. So it doesn’t make much sense. So what we wanted to argue was that these living structures are very highly complex, they have a very great amount of information needed to specify them, and then mathematically it follows that this evolution process can’t happen, because the probability is way down, it’s something impossible. So we wanted to argue that. The next slide— whoops, we’re going the wrong way, there. We wanted to compare some structures. This is the chemist’s idea of what a diamond…, the top picture is a chemist’s idea of what the structure of a diamond looks like. It’s based on very simple repeating patterns. It’s reasonable perhaps that chemical pushes and pulls could produce a simple design like this just by pulling the molecules together. The lower thing is a structure for graphite, which is another simple design built on hexagons. But on the other hand, in living systems you have things like this. (shows slide) According to the way they’ve analyzed it, there are chemical structures of this complexity. So we’d like to argue that this requires a very large amount of information to specify this thing, and so the simple natural laws couldn’t account for this. On the other hand, it’s very reasonable to suppose that an intelligent designer can account for things like that. These protein structures that Svarūpa Dāmodara was pointing out, it’s not just any old structure, but it performs a very specific function within the cell, just like a little automatic machine of some kind. So we’d like to argue that the chance and molecular forces theory won’t explain things like this, but to say that there is an intelligent designer would be a sensible explanation. The next slide, this shows some of the complexities of what goes on inside a cell, and it’s only a fraction of what is there. It’s hard to read, but each little bit of print refers to some very complicated chemical reaction involving big molecules like the one in the last slide. So there are hundreds of reactions like that on this one page, and this page is one out of four from a chart that we found detailing some of these things. This metabolism goes on even in the most primitive cells like this bacterium, and yet it’s only a fraction of the total of what goes on. The scientists will admit they’ve only made a fractional study of all that’s going on in these cells. So that kind of argument is one line of reasoning we’d like to present. (another slide) Now this refers to another thing. We’d like to describe the concept of consciousness as being something not material—nonphysical and nonchemical. And it turns out that actually in modern physics that’s already a basic principle, and it’s been that way for the last fifty or sixty years, but that’s not widely admitted or taught in the schools. But actually in modern physics, it’s called quantum mechanics. They realize that in order to describe physical processes you have to include the observer in the picture; you can’t describe these things without accounting for the observer, and so they made an analysis. This was done by von Neumann, who was one of these physicists. He analyzed the difference between the observer and the observed. So here we have a man looking through, say, a microscope at some object, and you can see that in this case you can draw the line between the observer and the observed. So the man is observing the microscope plus object. And physically there are, according to the physicist’s idea, there are these equations, represented by number one, equation number one, which describe all the molecules and forces of interaction on the observed side. But there’s another kind of equation that goes in quantum mechanics, which corresponds to the observer’s side, and this equation is completely different from the first equation. So this indicates that the observer must be something different in nature from the observed. Now the next slide shows here the boundary between the observer and the observed is moved. It’s kind of arbitrary. You can move the boundary back so now the observed becomes the eyeball and the microscope and the object, and the observer is still on the other side. And the basic idea is you can move this boundary back, step by step, and on one side you can put, at least in principle, more and more of the parts of the body into the observed system, but on the other side you still have the observer, and he continues to be described by an equation that can’t be reduced to the force laws that are used to describe the observed. So the conclusion is that the observer must be something nonphysical. He’s not actually part of that physical body at all. So that’s actually basic in quantum mechanics. So we wanted to present that. Now this slide… There’s another line of evidence here. It’s the inspiration, and Śrīla Prabhupāda has said that intelligence is the form direction of Supersoul. So it’s interesting, it’s really striking to observe how various people create things in mathematics and science and art, like that. It’s very striking. So we made two examples here. This one is a mathematician names Gauss. He lived in the nineteenth century, and his concern was to solve mathematical problems. The interesting thing is that in a very difficult mathematical problem, the person never solves it by figuring it out consciously, step by step. But what happens is that he tries very hard to figure it out for a long time, and nothing happens, and then all of a sudden the answer comes to him. So it’s hard to read that quote. This is a quotation by this Gauss describing how that happened to him.

 

 

“Life Comes From Life”

Slideshow Discussions

by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.

[theist 1]

Thanks. I wish I had the learning and intelligence to go deep into this subject but I don't. Beyond a simple example of change of matter through metabolism and the same I Am consciousness remaining I can't say much and my role then becomes something like a cheerleader for the educated devotees.

 

But this really is the dividing line between transcendent spirit and matter, between God consciousness and materialism. The spiritually immature religionists like the Christians for example try very hard to fight against the atheistic scientists but unfortunately despite their good intentions they lack the requiste knowledge. They also consider chemical combinations to make up life.

 

Other vaisnava groups are not so interested it seems in taking up the fight.

 

Considering these things we can see how rare the mood of Srila Prabhupada is. He threw the gauntlet down to all the atheists without reservation.

[theist 1]

Now that is something from Sadaputa that I had never heard. Where is that from suchandra?

[suchandra 1]

 

Thanks. I wish I had the learning and intelligence to go deep into this subject but I don't....................

.........Other vaisnava groups are not so interested it seems in taking up the fight.

 

 

Don' t worry, the pope and Bush are doing this just right now. Pope Benedict is a professional preacher what we can do? You're right of not getting into this kind of too advanced preaching and staying back. Other Vaishnavas, well, so far I don't that think that presently there're any Vaishnavas who consider to preach, times have changed. Sometimes it's better sometimes it's worse. Maybe this kind of topics are anyway already too stereotyped.

 

 

Pope Benedict visiting Georg Bush

[theist 1]

 

Don' t worry, the pope and Bush are doing this just right now. Pope Benedict is a professional preacher what we can do? You're right of not getting into this kind of too advanced preaching and staying back. Other Vaishnavas, well, so far I don't that think that presently there're any Vaishnavas who consider to preach, times have changed. Sometimes it's better sometimes it's worse. Maybe this kind of topics are anyway already too stereotyped.

 

 

Pope Benedict visiting Georg Bush

 

For me and others like me it is best to keep it real simple. For those who are educated they should go full steam ahead as Sadaputa inn the above article.

 

Vaisnavism without trying to give Krsna and related transcendentasl knowledge to those suffering in illusion isn't much IMO. Maybe there are a handful of genuine babajis who don't preach but for the rest it is just apathy towards others. That means no developed Krsna consciousness.

 

The Pope and Bush. I don't expect much from that meeting.

[LoveroftheBhagavata 0]

In frankness, I am at a loss to explain the rationale behind this eternal Vaishnava fixation with trying to prove modern science wrong. It is a lost cause - face it! Religion exists because spirituality is an organic component of the human essence, and the multiplicity of paths that grace the current earthly mystical scene have very specific roles to fulfil.

 

Scientific paradigms, on the other hand, are rested on foundational premises that derive from totally different epistemic bases, and for the most part, it is nothing short of ludicrous to attempt comparisons between the two.

 

Religious methodologies are mainly concerned with the indefinable questions of existence, and more often than not, relate to an individual's inner experiences and evolutions, which are intrinsically subjective, and not amenable to objective empirical experimentation. For science and technology, it is the reverse that prevails, implicitly.

 

I do not hold that the professional practitioners in the numerous scientific fields are infallible, having said this. However, science remains by and large THE most reliable and tested means of accumulating knowledge about the phenomenal world in which we all dwell. And only someone in complete denial of this plain, stark truth would argue against the unquestionable usefulness and unimpeachable validity of the scientific method.

 

In conclusion, a much more intellectually reputable position of harmonising, as far as possible, science and religion, could be envisaged. Certain constituent characteristics and parts of the two entities are, admittedly, irreconcilable. My own proposal, in these instances, would be to consign such portions to well-defined but essentially relativistic silos, and I also imagine that some honesty in acknowledging the fact that no full nor even satisfactory solution is feasible in that regard, would be most reasonable, as well as welcome. This is predicated on the fundamental assumption that Existence (with a capital E, and in its potentially widest definition) is not something that either science or religion can claim to be capable of completely reducing to a set of formulae or mantras.

[theist 1]

Science is not the problem. The problem is in the materialistic theories of some scientists. In my view everything in existence points to Krsna if one knows how to read it properly. From the Krsna conscious perspective science is another form of scipture. Referrence Sadaputa's article above.

[LoveroftheBhagavata 0]

Yes, I do respect and appreciate Sadaputa's efforts. If you think about it, it is quite clear that his work does lean towards a variant of the kind of harmonisation that I mentioned above.

[theist 1]

Harmonization is there. Science and God consciousness are not at odds with each other. Religious theories clash with theories of materialistic science but the truth never clashes with the truth.

[krishnadasa 0]

 

In frankness, I am at a loss to explain the rationale behind this eternal Vaishnava fixation with trying to prove modern science wrong. It is a lost cause - face it! Religion exists because spirituality is an organic component of the human essence, and the multiplicity of paths that grace the current earthly mystical scene have very specific roles to fulfil.

 

Scientific paradigms, on the other hand, are rested on foundational premises that derive from totally different epistemic bases, and for the most part, it is nothing short of ludicrous to attempt comparisons between the two.

 

Religious methodologies are mainly concerned with the indefinable questions of existence, and more often than not, relate to an individual's inner experiences and evolutions, which are intrinsically subjective, and not amenable to objective empirical experimentation. For science and technology, it is the reverse that prevails, implicitly.

 

I do not hold that the professional practitioners in the numerous scientific fields are infallible, having said this. However, science remains by and large THE most reliable and tested means of accumulating knowledge about the phenomenal world in which we all dwell. And only someone in complete denial of this plain, stark truth would argue against the unquestionable usefulness and unimpeachable validity of the scientific method.

 

In conclusion, a much more intellectually reputable position of harmonising, as far as possible, science and religion, could be envisaged. Certain constituent characteristics and parts of the two entities are, admittedly, irreconcilable. My own proposal, in these instances, would be to consign such portions to well-defined but essentially relativistic silos, and I also imagine that some honesty in acknowledging the fact that no full nor even satisfactory solution is feasible in that regard, would be most reasonable, as well as welcome. This is predicated on the fundamental assumption that Existence (with a capital E, and in its potentially widest definition) is not something that either science or religion can claim to be capable of completely reducing to a set of formulae or mantras.

 

Mental speculation ; soul cant be seen through microscope!!

[krishnadasa 0]

 

Science is not the problem. The problem is in the materialistic theories of some scientists. In my view everything in existence points to Krsna if one knows how to read it properly. From the Krsna conscious perspective science is another form of scipture. Referrence Sadaputa's article above.

 

Thats right, science is another form of scripture, and its indeed deals only with material interaction and characterisation. And its hard to tell a so called scientist, about existance of higher nature without any 'tangible' proof!!

[krishnadasa 0]

 

Harmonization is there. Science and God consciousness are not at odds with each other. Religious theories clash with theories of materialistic science but the truth never clashes with the truth.

 

Yes, just like DEATH, guess this is the point where, modern material science meets spiritual science. However, it does differ in way it defines it.

[krishnadasa 0]

As matter of fact, if we seriously ponder over the answers for Yaksha Prashna (questions from Yaksha during dwapara to Dharmaraya), many similarities with science can be found.

[Kulapavana 0]

If we limit our criticism of science just to the theories of life origin it will go a long way towards more balanced attitude towards science among the devotees.

Srila Prabhupada used regular airplanes not Vedic vimanas to travel. One can easily say that this proves the value of science as we see it today.

[cbrahma 0]

The vedic scriptures are promoted as science. Religion without philosophy is sentimentality according to SP. But it is not empirical/deductive as natural science is. It proceeds more from authority than evidence.

When it comes to the origins of life/species contemporary science is all theory and very little conclusive evidence.

So the crucial distinction between the material vs spiritual science is that the former is speculative whereas the latter is authoritative.

Those are the standards of proof - sense data and math on the one hand,

authority and direct transmission on the other.

[theist 1]

 

If we limit our criticism of science just to the theories of life origin it will go a long way towards more balanced attitude towards science among the devotees.

Srila Prabhupada used regular airplanes not Vedic vimanas to travel. One can easily say that this proves the value of science as we see it today.

Yes this is my feeling also. Why should devotees not appreciate science? Afterall Krishna is the greatest scientist. How could the Designer, Architech and Builder of the material world not understand genetics, quantum mechanics and the rest of it?

 

We worship Krsna the greatest scientist. Isn't there a verse in the Gita "Of scientists I am Einstein."? Or was it Newton, the father of Intelligent Design theory?

[suchandra 1]

 

Yes this is my feeling also. Why should devotees not appreciate science? Afterall Krishna is the greatest scientist. How could the Designer, Architech and Builder of the material world not understand genetics, quantum mechanics and the rest of it?

 

We worship Krsna the greatest scientist. Isn't there a verse in the Gita "Of scientists I am Einstein."? Or was it Newton, the father of Intelligent Design theory?

 

But this is what seems presently missing in applied knowledge/science - a big style spiritual project that actually is a release from being caught in the treadmill of material frustration. Wherever you look people are unhappy, don't see light at the end of the tunnel.

 

"So Nityānanda has no unhappiness, but He was passing on the street, there was a crowd, and Nityānanda Prabhu inquired, “Why there is so much crowd?” So somebody informed that “There are two brothers, Jagāi and Mādhāi, and they are very fallen souls, although they were born in brāhmaṇa family, very nice, rich family. But being addicted to drinking and prostitution, they have become now rogues, thieves, this way. So they are disturbing the whole neighborhood.” So Nityānanda Prabhu considered, “So these two brothers are so fallen? So why not deliver them first?” This is Nityānanda Prabhu. “Then My Lord…” Nityānanda Prabhu considered Caitanya Mahāprabhu as His master. So “My master’s name will be famous. Because the master’s propaganda is ‘Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa,’ so if I can induce these two brothers to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, they will be saved. So why not try?” This is Nityānanda Prabhu, that para-duḥkha-duḥkhī. He is happy personally, but because He knows that “These drunkards, woman-hunters, prostitute-hunters, will suffer very, very severely, so why not deliver them?” This is Nityānanda Prabhu, Vaiṣṇava. Vaiṣṇava, you will find so many others also. In your country there is Lord Jesus Christ. When he was being crucified, still he was saying, “My Lord, excuse them. They do not know what they are doing.” This is Vaiṣṇava. They are not unhappy, and they can tolerate any unhappy position. But they are… Therefore they come to deliver so many fallen souls."

 

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.1.6

by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

Honolulu, May 7, 1976

[LoveroftheBhagavata 0]

 

Mental speculation ; soul cant be seen through microscope!!

 

If you had properly grasped the meaning of my post, you would've deduced that this is precisely my point. Regrettably, you don't seem to have - ask Theist if you want. From his response, it is crystal clear that he knew what I was talking about.

[theist 1]

Yes harmonization is there. All types of knowledge point to God but not all to the same aspect of the Lord. We wouldn't approach a scientist engaged with microscope and telescope to learn rasa with the Lord nor would we approach a rasika guru to learn how the Lord's intricate material energy is working in terms of cell divison.

 

So there is relativity of interest even concerning the Absolute. Absolute Relativity. As long as Krsna is acknowledged it's all good.

[suchandra 1]

 

Yes harmonization is there. All types of knowledge point to God but not all to the same aspect of the Lord. We wouldn't approach a scientist engaged with microscope and telescope to learn rasa with the Lord nor would we approach a rasika guru to learn how the Lord's intricate material energy is working in terms of cell divison.

 

So there is relativity of interest even concerning the Absolute. Absolute Relativity. As long as Krsna is acknowledged it's all good.

It is also the common understanding of Western religionists that there's "biological life", i.e. life without a soul. Therefore you find almost all leaders of present religions eating meat of killed animals, they advance the view that animals have no soul but are "alive" by chemical interaction. Next when it comes to the human soul, almost all religions in the West say, the soul began at birth and when you don't join their religious believe your soul is destroyed when you die. All this cannot be proven are claims that cannot be verified and completely contradict the teachings of the Vedas. But still people accept.

 

Soul and the Person: Defining Life

by Richard Gist

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1701

Mr. Gist (second from left) is pastor of the United Methodist Church in Corcoran, Minnesota. This article appeared in the Christian Century, October 14, pp. 1022-1024. Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation; used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.

<hr> On an issue as important as abortion, I want a definition of life that includes the wisdom and understanding of my Christian faith. So far, I have been disappointed. I doubt that I am the only one. Life is being defined biologically, in terms of beating hearts and pulsing brainwaves. Cows, too, exhibit these requisite energies, and in some sense bovine life is sacred, possessing that unfathomable plus that nudges protoplasm and electrical energy into life. Yet I enjoy a good steak, and even more frequently, a hamburger.

Someone will respond, "The issue is human life. People have souls; that is the big difference." But what is soul and what is the difference? In Genesis 2:7we read of Adam’s arrival, "and man became a living soul" (KJV). The Hebrew term, nephesh chayyah, translated "living soul," is the same expression used of the animals in 2:19.The life principle, the nephesh chayyah, fills all of the life. All creatures have soul.

If a steer defended himself -- and when you are arguing the value of your life, you must -- he might point out that we are kindred souls of the sixth day of creation; that, justly or not, his kind were drawn into "the fall of man" (Jer. 12:4);that we share a common fate (Eccles. 3:9); and that his family, quite appropriately, will be drawn into the coming salvation (Isa. 11:6-7).

Then is the soul a "special blessing"? Is it a human given? And is it given at birth or conception? Such discussions reduce the soul to an "it," an impossible to define something installed by God. I am unable to conceive of a soul as an it, even though my religious training has nudged me in that direction: "What happens to my soul when I die?It goes to heaven." We are as misguided to speak of a soul as an it as we are to treat persons as biological objects.

The popular argument defines soul as indestructible, and so, curiously, beyond considerations of death. If the soul is eternal, what violence is done to it in abortion, war and murder? We are right back to the level of other creatures: what is terminated is animal life. Soul so defined takes us nowhere.

Further, while some contend that the soul sanctifies biology, thus delineating the uniqueness of human life, the simple presence of the soul fails to engender life as the Christian faith understands it.

For instance, as a minister I on occasion sit with lonely people who are praying to die -- a common situation indeed. The heart still beats, the brain continues to function, the "soul" remains intact, and yet life -- life meaningful enough to make it worth the effort -- is missing. Neither biological life nor the presence of the soul is a given that enhances human existence. But what does?

A Relational Embodiment

One of the few things I really know is that my state of being takes form and definition, and therefore meaning, only in relationship, as my body and soul take on the mystery of personhood. From the inside I call this molded peculiarity "me"; those on the outside call it "Dick" -- not a biological procedure baptized with the theory of soul, but rather an exciting and excitable, knowing, sensing, responding, growing and relational embodiment called person.

Not only does relationship give definition and meaning to life; it ensures biological survival itself. Newborn animals die without the stimulation that comes from parental licking, and human infants perish despite food, shelter, prayers and all else if they are not carried, cuddled and caressed -- in other words, given tender, loving care.

The importance of relationship is obvious in the story of the Garden of Eden. There the man was created full-blown, with form and personality. He alone of all the creatures was addressed as "you": he was created for communion with God. Relationship set him apart from the other creatures. But he was given no name, which in biblical understanding signified that he still lacked his essential nature. God’s creation was not yet finished, and remained unfinished until the arrival of Eve. Only with her presence, and the relationship it promised, was the human phenomenon complete.

Then what happened? "The pair partook of the apple," and the three primary relationships of life collapsed. Adam and Eve felt alienated from God, and hid; Adam blamed Eve, fracturing their special oneness; and both turned against themselves, their minds rejecting their bodies as shameful. And closely following these came the fourth broken relationship: the world itself became inhospitable, and man and woman were no longer in harmony with their surroundings. All this God defined as death (Gen. 2:17).

Does not death also define life?

For instance, the pain of losing a loved one consists largely of the irreversible separation from that person; the broken relationship is the essential meaning of death. Right now in this country there are "people" who, through the awesome capabilities of medical science, have hearts that refuse to stop beating, although all relating has ended. We hesitate, rightfully careful, before the conclusion that because the heart is human we must preserve its functioning. If life is defined in biological terms, that is the only defensible course. But it does raise the question "Is this really what we mean by human life?" Is not the severed relationship what we normally experience as death?

Promise Denied

When a fetus is destroyed, I moan, "Life has been taken," and feel a troubled regret. I do not like it. But I also recognize another truth: real life has not been taken. Rather, promise has been denied; the vehicle of life has been aborted; an individual will not be realized.

That is no small thing. I recall the sorrow of standing beside a small casket containing a still-born nephew. Our family’s grief was real; the baby had been wanted and planned for. But the pain was not for a person; none yet existed. We grieved over the loss of precious promise, and the denial of the human drive to nurture life, to participate in its becoming -- dare I say, its creation? These feelings run very deep, and the emotional appeal made in arguments over abortion is very strong indeed. I know it. I feel it. And still I sense an important distinction between biological life and a person’s life, though admittedly, at the point that one flows into the other, I am sometimes emotionally ill-equipped to distinguish between them.

But when I read about and see young, emerging lives being destroyed by neglect, hunger, war and enraged parents, the distinction refocuses, and I say, "Life, real life, is being not only destroyed but twisted, deformed, ‘unholy’ life is being created." The real "abortion" takes place after birth.

John Powell, S.J., tells of an insight given him by a psychiatrist: when you are hurting, your thoughts are only about the pain and your hurting self. Healthy relating ceases; meaningful life is interrupted (Free to Be Me: Transcript and Study Guide [Argus, 1978]). We live in a world in which for some, misery is the only reality of existence: people starve to death, live in abject poverty and know unrelieved distress and isolation all their days. The vehicle of body, blood and "soul" has transported them into a living hell, where life remains almost totally biological: physical pain and suffering, biological need and finally, mercifully, biological death. It is indefensible to insist on existence where we cannot offer LIFE.

Clearly, biological presence can be more curse than blessing. Anyone who has ever prayed, "Lord, please take him," or who has uttered or concurred with the words, "It’s a blessing that he finally died," knows that truth. Why, then, does this recognition not influence our definition of life? Don’t we trust our instincts? Is biological life an absolute value to be defended at all costs?

Jesus came offering life to the living. As Paul said, he was God’s answer to Adam (Rom. 5:12.22).To the pain and sorrow and separation -- death -- so well known in this world, Jesus brought the possibility of life with meaning, life reconciled, that is, brought back into right relationship. The marvelous message of the Christian faith is that we come to God only hand in hand. As we love one another, as we forgive one another, as we relate to one another -- that is the form of our relationship to God.

Jesus declared that he came for those who needed his healing (Luke 5:31.32). He did not come salvaging souls, but the life experience. That is fundamental, because I was conceived full of promise; my potential far exceeded my achievements. Indeed, I could convincingly argue that 90per cent of my promise has been "aborted." Some of the painful moments I cause for myself swirl around "what might have been." But what isn’t clearly isn’t. And God’s concern in Christ is for the leftover "is" of my life.

I had no control over being born, and have no power to prevent my eventual death. Where I happen is "in between." Any salvation has to be of me and the muddle I make of the middle, or it has no meaning. If anything other than the me I know is the object of God’s concern, if anything other than the person is the object of divine intention, then we are speaking of inanities or mysteries beyond knowing, and entertaining arguments that have no real focus in experience. And experience has everything to do with the definition of life.

I am my soul, and I am the real mystery called life. Soul does not exist as an "it," apart from personality. Rather, the soul consists of content, the totally unique creation -- truly the image of God -- that we call the person.

Amid all of the stress caused by our uncertainties and conflicts over the abortion issue, I want the church to influence more surely the definition of life. We too have something important to say about it. I don’t believe we have yet done so.

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