An excellent and well-researched blog-post, I think. Memorable are Mr. Shea’s assertions, “The Immaculate Conception is not a necessity in the sense that the Incarnation would be impossible for God without it. .... It’s a gratuitous gift, fittingly given to adorn the still more gratuitous gift of the Incarnation. .... And, like all God’s gifts, it is given to the chosen for the sake of the unchosen ....”
Yes: it’s my understanding that through Mary’s exaltation we too are all offered life more abundantly than we could have been offered had she not been so exalted.

The problem for “some dominicans” and Thomistic aristotelians in general was not that Mary was without sin, St. Thomas himself in his summa said as much, rather it was how Duns Scotus overcame the problem of an immaculate conception given the aristotelian (mis)understanding of biology which held that ensoulment happened at some point after conception. If Mary’s rational soul and so her capacity for sin was only infused into her body post conception on what grounds could such an immaculate conception take place? Duns Scotus used Franciscan voluntarism to ‘solve’ his problem where the will rather than the intellect takes precedence. Which taken to its logical conclusion causes all kinds of problems for the principle of non-contradiction [God could create a square circle if He wanted to, perfection could be less than perfect if He wanted to be. Etc.] If St. Thomas (and Dun Scotus) et al had modern biology to base their philosophy and theology upon then there would have been no debate at all. But then if we diden’t have franciscian voluntarism its unlikely we would have had nominalism, conceptualism and the general nuttiness of modern philosophy and theology. [i would like to point out that the church defining the dogma is good enough for me and indeed I’m glad She did, I just wish it could have been based on sound philosophy]

St Thomas Aquinas, St Bernard et al. Then there is Dun Scotus. Can someone explain why he is not Saint Dun Scotus? Tertullian, Origen ad nauseam. All heretics preach from a kernel of truth. At least that’s how I think St Jerome would have put it. Although he would not have been so subtle. “Steady as She goes, boys”

Cool stuff.  And thanks also Diffal for your interesting comment.

Still waiting for the views of the Fathers on the sinlessness, or not, of Mary; and if sinless, how it was understood that she came to be that way.  Yet to come?  Or did I miss that?

Yan, the sinlessness of Mary is understood throughout Christian history, and is attested to in the prayers of the Orthodox/Byzantine liturgy.  It’s just a question whether she was purified at conception or birth or so-called “quickening.” 
Now, one of Aquinas’s arguments against the Immaculate Conception is that the salvation of Christ could not have worked retroactively.

Please pray to Bl. John Duns Scotus to heal my aortic dissection so he can get canonized!

Diffal,
  But the Church does not hold ” in the first instance of her conception” to be an empirical statement on ensoulement at conception at least according to John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae, section 60:

  ” Furthermore, what is at stake is so important that, from the standpoint of moral obligation, the mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention aimed at killing a human embryo. Precisely for this reason, over and above all scientific debates and those philosophical affirmations to which the Magisterium has not expressly committed itself, the Church has always taught and continues to teach that the result of human procreation, from the first moment of its existence, must be guaranteed that unconditional respect which is morally due to the human being in his or her totality and unity as body and spirit: “The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life”.

    John Paul is saying that life should be treated from conception AS IF there is a person there because there might be.
But Catholic theologians at the periodical “Theological Studies” ( online by the way as to old issues) which the Vatican reads ( the Vatican recently supported Germain Grisez in an editing- debate dispute therein)....have pointed out that fertilization may not be conception since two fertilized fraternal twin ova can in subsequent hours merge and form what will become one chimeric individual which would not be possible if fertilization equalled conception.  The problem of identical twinning up to day 14 is similar.  There is no primitive streak of an individual person until the totipotentiality of the cell mass is over at around two weeks.  Twins are rare but what is not rare is the fact that modern technology can tease virtually all cell masses into twinning up til two weeks…and Aquinas held that the soul cannot divide.

Analyzers aren’t wrong, I think, to note in human gestation that the impossibility of twinning after about two weeks from fertilization is decisive evidence that at least from then on, the human embryo is a human being, a person. But it seems to me that ORDERLY and ever more intricate DIFFERENTIATION of the embryonic cells, first observable about four days after fertilization, is decisive evidence that the differentiating cell mass is from THEN on not just an ensemble of human germ cells heading toward forming a single human organism, but is already (along with accessory cell structures) a single human organism, which can’t be other than a human being, a person.

JHM Ortiz,
  You are asserting two contraries…ie that twinning can happen up til day 14 but conversely that after day four, there is one person.  A person can’t divide into two persons at day 14.

On human gestation, I don’t claim I’ve expressed myself on this thread with as much clearness as I should have. However, I didn’t assert that there was necessarily and always ONLY one person between day four and day 14. Nor that between days four and 14 there couldn’t have become ensouled a second person (an identical twin). My point was that by about day four, there is evidently no longer a simple ensemble of self-replicating human germ cells, but rather is at least one unified human organism, human being, human person.

And thus, twinning would not be a matter of one person dividing into two—a notion admittedly absurd—but rather of a second identical twin created either several days after day four, or else of a twin having already been created by that day but unobservable on that day by science’s means at present.

J H M Ortiz,
  Go here for a summary of disputing high level Catholic authors on the twinning problem:

http://www.ts.mu.edu/readers/content/pdf/54/54.1/54.1.6.pdf

  You have also the chimera problem.  Two fraternal twin fertilized ova lay too near each other and later merge into one cell mass which still may split into identical twins days later.  Lots of ensoulment problems there.

John H: your point is taken as to history [although I had been hoping for some evidence of that from Mr. Shea]; however I thought some info was coming on the proposed theological explanation, if any, by the fathers, for the sinlessness of Mary.  But this has been a good series for me even without that tidbit of information.

Dr. Ortiz and Bannon: thanks for the fascinating discussion.  I previously cringed a little when I read that sentence in E.V., as it seemed to weaken the rationale for opposing stem cell harvesting and other ‘utilitarian’ uses of the very small.

Bannon, if you are right that JPII meant to leave open the possibility of positing a distinction between fertilization and conception, the latter referring not to the moment of unification of the germ masses but rather to a later moment in which the unity is ensouled, then I will cringe even more.

But I don’t see that in the text of E.V.  When the late Pope writes, “The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception,” it seems clear to me that he uses the word ‘conception’ to be synonymous with the word ‘fertilization.’

Thus, at least in the case of Mary, it seems to me that the Church has already committed itself to the view that ensoulment occurs—or at least, occurred in her case—at the moment of fertilization.

I suppose one could argue in response that the Church did not know enough biology at the time of the definition so that conception in the theological sense of ensoulment would have to coincide with how we understand fertilization today.  And that means we would have to be open to the possibility that ensoulment occurs after fertilization.

I personally don’t like the feel or the smell of that idea.  I think it ends with a utilitarian, scientific definition of personhood dependent upon the progress or regress of scientific thought and experimentation.  Dr. Ortiz says science shows that we MUST have a person at the latest by 14 days; but that is one scientist’s opinion today.  Tomorrow we may have [and no doubt will have] additional information. What if science tells us that personhood could first plausibly occur more than 14 days after fertilization? 21 days?  5 weeks?  Where does this end but in Peter Singer’s world?

Now, to argue, ‘if it justifies the holocaust, it must not be true,’ is bad logic.  But if something justifies the holocaust, it might be an indication that our thinking is going in the wrong direction.  If fertilization and ensoulment are separate events, then the Christian argument that we must respect nascent human life is greatly weakened.

But there must be other ways to look at these things.  As Dr. Ortiz says, twinning might be the addition of a new soul rather than the division of one.  As for the chimera/twinning problem posed by Dr. Bannon, I am going to have to think about that.  A lot.  But how about this idea for starters: the 2 fertilized ova are each a person; when they merge, both persons no longer exist.  They have both died in the unfortunate merger of their nascent bodies.  [The womb is not always a safe place, for many reasons.]  This merger however is a new conception.  If it twins, then a new person has been added.

Please hold off for a little bit before applying Occam’s razor.

Bill B, thanks for that link!  Very good stuff.  We have to think about these things if we are going to be able to keep debating and confronting the culture of death.

Yan,
  You’re welcome.  That site is known by the Vatican who intervened last year in one debate there on the side of Germain Grisez on the matter of marriage’s permanence.  Ironic because Grisez himself rashly perhaps married too quickly after his wife’s death and seems to have had an odd solution to the second troubled marriage which was posted on his website last year.  Separation is traditionally meant to lead to reuniting.

Yan,
  Go to very end of:
    http://www.twotlj.org/grisez_collaborators.html

@bill: the Church does hold that “the rational or intellectual soul is the form of the human body” - (Council of Vienne 1311/12 the 15th Ecumenical Council) and since our modern understanding of biology shows that Aristotle and St. Thomas, and Duns Scotus(which makes his philo problematic) were incorrect in their understanding of Biology, that we do not go through a kind of a plant stage, then fish, then mammal then human stag but have the complete genetic potential only to be come an adult human person from conception, From conception it (the human embryo)does things only a human being can do, it begins to grow a human brain and nervous system etc. then it stands to reason that the embryo is in-formed by a rational soul from conception. Although The Church, ever cautious, has not explictly defined such a principle it stands to reason. The priciple of “ensoulment” can never explained in a completly empirical manner as it is immaterial, however it can be explained philosophically. As for the Concepts of Chimeras or twins, it does not follow that fertilisation does not equal conception. metaphysically speaking the form(rational soul) informs the matter to make it what it is. in the case of twins prior to division, you would most likely have two substantial forms(two souls) informing their matter separately, yet at the same time this secondary informed matter would not be sufficiently distinguished to be able to tell the two subjects apart(the case of siamese twins comes to mind albeit by analogy rather than direct example, not fully seperated and yet clearly two persons) in a simiilar manner to that proposed by J.H.M Ortiz above. On this view only the Chimeric ‘twins’ which do not differentiate their secondary matter again pose a problem, as only one Substantial form can inform a particular set of matter at any specific time it would indicate that only one rational soul remains in a Chimera once differentiation is no longer possible, although I must admit I am far sketcher on Chimeric embryos than monozygotic twins.

Regarding the Council of Vienne’s declaration that “the rational soul is per se and essentially the form of the human body,” even the then-fanatical young Thomist Jacques Maritain pointed out (in his book *St. Thomas Aquinas*) that Pope Pius IX admitted that that Council’s declaration did not impose the specifically Aristotelian sense of the word “form”.

Diffal,
  I disagree that a totipotential group of cells can have two souls or one since there are no bodies or body until nature (or a lab) makes the twinning or more or individual…choice or decision.  That’s what totipotential cells are…uncommitted potential role players in a body or bodies of a future day.  Catholic tradition on delayed ensoulment goes from the fifth century til the 18th at which time Ligouri rejected the new tradition now prominent but certainly it is not a matter of the universal ordinary magisterium.  In short, delayed is longer as a tradition.  Here’s the Trent catechism noting that non delayed ensoulment only took place in Christ:
  ” That this was the astonishing and admirable work of the Holy Ghost cannot be doubted; for according to the order of nature the rational soul is united to the body only after a certain lapse of time.” ...on the Incarnation.
  Catechisms are not a source of infallibility but it inter alia shows this area has no slam dunk answers.

Above quote from Trent catechism: article three of the Introduction, 5th paragraph of ” By the Holy Ghost” section.

Regarding twinning and the problem this supposedly poses for the pro-life position:

http://www.abort73.com/abortion/monozygotic_twinning_and_abortion/

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-sum/q-life014.html

Bill, thanks also for the Grisez article.

Why would you rule out ensoulment for totipotential cells?  Is there a reason in philosophy or theology that proves that a soul can or must indwell only what science presently determines constitutes a ‘body’?  I am not aware of such a reason.

Dr. Ortiz: what other sense of the word ‘form,’ other than the Aristotelian, is ever used, or ever has been used, by the Church?  What other sense of the word is AVAILABLE to the Church, given past use?  Is the Church to adopt a new philosophy to explain what it now explains by reference to the concepts of form and substance?

The ramifications of doing so would be far-reaching.  The foundations for the explanations presently used to explain transubstantiation would be called into question.

Unless another St. Thomas is out there, we ought to tread very, very carefully in respect to fundamentally calling into question the Aristotelian formulation.

Of the Council of Vienne’s declaration, Maritain stated (on pp. 151 and 152 of the Meridian Book edition of his *St. Thomas Aquinas*): “This definition, as Pius IX explained in 1877, ... does not impose the philosophical sense, the strictly Aristotelian sense of the word *form*—although in fact (but this is another matter, which concerns our reason) we cannot find any philosophical doctrine except Aristotle’s which fully answers the truth defined.”
Notice too that the concept “substance” is not at all in question here (even though a substantial form be not really distinct from a corporeal substance).
At the same time, Pope John Paul’s encyclical *Fides et Ratio* (1998) has stated (in section 49): “The Church has no philosophy of her own, Suam ipsius philosophiam non exhibet Ecclesia, nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others, neque quamlibet praelegit peculiarem philosophiam aliarum damno.”
(BTW, I ain’t a “Dr.”, I’m just an opinionated old geezer.)

Yan,
  I follow Aquinas in believing that the soul cannot divide and it inheres throughout its subject body which must be apposite to receiving a “rational” or ” intellective” soul….not just A soul.  A mass of cells which may divide later into five identical people is not apposite to receiving a rational soul that inheres throughout the mass.  Aquinas held that it must be an individual body that had individual sense of feeling:

    ” I answer that, Since the form is not for the matter, but rather the matter for the form, we must gather from the form the reason why the matter is such as it is; and not conversely…But nature never fails in necessary things: therefore the intellectual soul had to be endowed not only with the power of understanding, but also with the power of feeling. Now the action of the senses is not performed without a corporeal instrument. Therefore it behooved the intellectual soul to be united to a body fitted to be a convenient organ of sense.”. ST,First Part,ques.76, art five.

Yan,
  Larger post seems to have been stopped….ergo wtch last four words from below:  ST, Aquinas
First part, question 90, article 4. reply to Obj.1:
Reply to Objection 1. “If the soul by its nature were a complete species, so that it might be created as to itself, this reason would prove that the soul was created by itself in the beginning. But as the soul is naturally the form of the body, it was necessarily created, not separately, but in the body.”

Old Geezer Ortiz, with your kind permission, I bestow upon thee, so far as it is in my power to do so, the honorific ‘Doctor,’ with all the privileges which that entails.

My understanding of the Church’s relation to the Aristotelian formulation is that it holds philosophical ‘pride of place.’  That means—though you more elegantly state the case—that the Church has plenty of wiggle room, if it wants it.

But I should like to point out that sometimes it not only doesn’t want that wiggle room; it is even loathe to admit that such wiggle room exists.  Most notably is this the case in reference to its use of the Aristotelian formulation in explaining, well, ‘transubstantiation.’  Do we ever dare call it anything else than that?  Do we ever permit a different philosophy to have a say in explaining it?

So while the dear late Pope is technically right, in being technically right he is very nearly substantially wrong; though, personalist that he was, he perhaps might have wished things to have been otherwise than they are respecting the relationship of philosophy and theology.

Anyway, me personally:  I’ve always had a nagging dislike of the Aristotelian formulation, and also been ashamed to express that dislike, since St Thomas and Aristotle are so many zillions of times smarter than me.  But there it is.

Dr. Bannon: thank you once again.  I will ponder it.

Drs. Bannon and Ortiz: It’s been delightful sitting at your proverbial feets and taking deep draughts of the mead of wisdom and knowledge.  Please do condescend to share with us the fruits of your reflections again some time soon.

Happy American Thanksgiving…

I must deny that the Magisterium’s use of the concept of “substance” is a formulation distinctively Aristotelian (tho it does not exclude a Thomistic interpretation, of course).  For the concept in question comes also in the “consubstantialem Patri, homoousion tôi Patri” of the Nicene Creed, applied to Deity. But the Thomist Jacques Maritain wrote (in his essay “L’Aséité Divine”, part II) “If one takes the word substance in its sense altogether strict and proper, ..., it can’t apply to God, it’s a division of created being, il ne peut s’appliquer à Dieu, c’est une division de l’être créé.” The Creed accordingly applies substance to Deity in an ANALOGICAL sense which Aristotle never envisioned.  As for Eucharistic transubstantiation (Greek “metousiôsis”), “substance” (Gk. “ousia”) is understood simply as a thing’s “being” or “essence” (Gk. again “ousia”) or nature, as what a thing really is—which is not necessarily the same as how it looks or feels or smells, or acts chemically. Nothing specifically Aristotelian about the notion of “what something really is”, is there?

Wow, this is deep stuff. As a recent convert, I am immensely helped by Mr. Shea’s instructional blog. God imparted the grace necessary to receive the teaching of the Church regarding Mary.  I have always wondered though why Mary had to remain virgin to remain sinless. God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth before they fell into sin.

Darlene:

Your wish is my command!  Search back through the archives of this blog to September/October and you will find a discussion of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary!