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We may assume, I believe, that God would create souls for clones if technicians present viable biological materials. God does not usually stop evil by intervening visibly. He asks us to desist from doing evil in the first place. Dr. Luc Gormally, Director of the Linacre Centre, London, observes that when human biological materials are all in place, they are in a condition ready to receive a rational soul (Dolentium Hominum 28 (1995) pp. 27-31).

Cloners are technological rapists. Sex rapists seek gratification through brute force against hapless victims. Technological rapists gratify an irresponsible lust for power by manufacturing children who have no parents. It is impossible to clone in a manner by which they can give a father and a mother to the child. A cloned child would have no father, no mother. It would be an orphan. It is a product of technology. Microscopes and pincettes are not parents. But every child has a right to parents; it is a universal right.

...the cloner ...wrongs the child whom he manipulates to achieve a child clone. A cloned child is a slave produced for the good of others, not for its own good.

The procreation of a new human being is a partnership project; humans work in partnership with God. Unless God gives consent to the action, the human partners act against their divine Partner. God does not consent to human cloning. His rule is: "Thou shalt not bring children to life except through a father and a mother joined in matrimony." We believe this in the light of our own insight into what is right and wrong; we believe it also because the Church teaches this evident truth.

Whether cloning is right or wrong depends not on whether it can be done or undone. Cloners are subject to God just as every other human being is subject to Him. Because we are not God, we dare not defy Him by manipulating human life in a manner contrary to His will.

The Bible tells us how God created Adam: "The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being" (Gen 2:7). God created would-be cloners in the same way. They will all die tomorrow, as Adam died yesterday.

Even if cloning were 100% successful; even if cloners would not kill ten or a hundred or a thousand young lives in unsuccessful attempts, but would succeed every time; even so, cloning would always be a transgression against God's law. And whatever is done against God's law damages human society in the long run. All of God's laws undergird the welfare of the human race.

Pinging for continued discussion.

The idea of a soul for the clone seems to be like asking whether God creates two souls for identical twins, who are probably more identical than any clones will be.

It seems to me that anyone who participates in the physical creation of an "image of God" that God chooses to place a soul in, becomes ordained to the office of parent. This would include the "incubator", the source of the genetic material, and every person who assists in the process. I wonder if the real sin is not in the creation, for that is what we are commanded to do, but in the failure of all these people to live up to that office. Or perhaps the true sin is in those who set out to create the child, knowing that the divinely appointed father-mother-child structure will not be available. The real question is, if the cloners have provided such a structure, and can guarantee physical success, is there still sin? I don't believe so.

Great article.

For any group of individuals to sit around and rationalize that a cloned human being does not possess a soul, represents the absolute height/depth of man's arrogance.

If, on this basis, they feel justified in treating this unfortunate person as an underclass, nothing more than an organ slave, who will eventually be "harvested" for another's physical needs, they are dooming their own immortal soul to eternal damnation...

Is it worth the risk?

[1] The Bible does not teach the pre-existence of souls. Some cults, like the Mormons do, and some pagan religions, but not the Bible.

[2] Origen is quoted by so many people with equal fervency on opposing sides on scores of issues because the man was all over the lot. What he said 300 years after the canon of Scripture was completed is interesting, but without authority. Jesus faced the same mentality when scribes and theologians of his day would quote rabbis instead of Scripture as their authority.

[3] Cloning is not creating a human life out of nothing. And the cloning procedure involves DNA from someone who had a father and mother, so the seed of the man is involved in the process anyway. It is not another virgin birth, when a baby is cloned. Christ was conceived as a result of the creative activity of the Holy Spirit in the fertile womb of the virgin Mary. Science has never and will never created life.

[4]The belief in the pre-existence of souls gives rise to the pagan notion of reincarnation.

The human race is well on the way to trying to make itself equivalent to God - the ultimate evil. We already create human beings, not through the process that God provided for us, but through artificial insemination and other atrocious means - in the process deny children their real mothers and fathers. We are already well on the way to determining when someone is 'fit' to live, and denying life when our committees and doctors make their determinations. We regularly out life by ing unborn babies. And in but a few short years, we will be creating human beings, creating human beings according to our own (selfish) specifications, creating human beings with computer and machine appendages, creating human beings with 'super' traits, and creating human beings with inhuman minds. Truly we seek to take God's great and holy gifts and use them to redesign the creatures (us) made in His image. We are fools.