7th Son: A Theological Perspective
Jan. 18th, 2010 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianI've been giving my favourite podcasts a re-listen, and while listening to 7th Son: Descent (first of a trilogy, which is now available for purchase in paperback), I had a few thoughts on the religious aspects touched on in the work.
Quick summary, very little that you can't get from the back blurb: the US president is murdered by a four-year-old boy. Three weeks later, seven men are pulled out of their varied and more or less normal lives and thrown into a room, where they discover that they have, essentially, the same name, the same face ... and the same childhood memories. It turns out that the seven John Michael Smiths are part of an experiment in human cloning, a 'nature versus nurture' thing. Now they have been brought together to help apprehend the man who orchestrated the president's assassination: John Michael Smith Alpha, the man from whom they were cloned. Over the course of events, they uncover a deadly global conspiracy and not a little about the real reason behind the '7th Son' experiment. I highly recommend the entire trilogy as a very intelligent sci-fi-ish thriller, just to say right up front.
This story is interesting because of how it deals with nature versus nurture and how certain traits can potentially vary even amongst genetically identical subjects - things like hairline recession, eyesight degradation, mental illness and sexual orientation are touched on in the course of the first book. That all bears discussion at some point or other, but the bit I'm focused on right now is the theological issue brought up by one of the clones being a Catholic priest.
Father Thomas, the priest in question, has some serious issues when he finds out that he and his ... well, umsiblings ... have not only been cloned from another man, but were given the first fourteen years of this man's memories. He begins to question the existence of his own soul - apparently, he thinks that a clone cannot actually have one. On one level, I can sort of understand this. I may not be entirely au fait with the Catholic views on such things, but I gather that, in the eyes of the Vatican, there is no conception involved in cloning, and thus there can be no moment of conception, and as the soul exists from that moment of conception...
On the other hand ... see, this is all assuming belief in an all-loving, all-forgiving, all-powerful God. It also assumes that said God would allow humans to wander the earth without souls. Is that even possible in Christian doctrine? Can a person exist without a soul? I know the Buffy take on it (no; demons haven't got souls, humans do, that's the end of it), but personally, I'm of the opinion that the soul is sort of a combination of personality and essential life force, and without that, you're basically a cabbage. Looking at the rest of the clones, there are no signs that the seven are without that essential anima that to me says 'soul'. God gave man free will - while they were all nudged into a particular path by their respective foster parents after their introduction into society, one of them did break out of the mould established for them, thus proving that they are more than intellectually active automatons. I'm not sure where the paranoid schizophrenic clone falls in terms of soul-versus-none arguments (on the one hand, there's got to be more to him than cold thinking if he went that passionately crazy, and on the other hand, there had to be something wrong with him somewhere along the line or he'd be healthy now, and maybe that's a sign). As for the gay man ... I doubt anyone nudged him into that, so there's free will again, which I don't think God would have bothered with if they hadn't been ensouled. A soul's a part of humanity, a part of passion and drive and life. Now, it's possible that the seven are being run by demons somewhere along the line, but that part never seemed to occur to Father Thomas - he seemed to think that he was utterly without soul-essence, human or demon; that he was destined for an atheist's death. Surely if he was being run by a minion of the Adversary, he'd be destined for hell?
Then there's the whole thing about how the clones were not technically conceived. Conception can be more than sperm-meets-egg; Christianity knows all about that, given the whole immaculate conception thing. Okay, this was the hand of man rather than the hand of God, but if God didn't want alternate ways of humans reproducing ... surely those methods would not be possible. Cloning is a tricky process and a lot of times it doesn't work out very well, but it's possible. Hell, identical twins are more or less the result of natural cloning - a fertilised egg splits in two and two genetically identical children are born as a result. Does that mean that one of the twins in question has no soul, as it was never truly conceived? I doubt Catholic doctrine would say that. So why can't 'conception' mean something to the order of 'when that one individual cell starts the process of living'? Or something - when we're talking on a cellular level, all that business about ensoulment gets complicated.
I don't know when I think the soul actually becomes a factor in human development. Somewhere between conception and birth is my best guess. However, I honestly think that in the case of multiple human cloning, a less shell-shocked priest might consider the 'mysterious ways His wonders to perform' clause at some point. But then, maybe not. I am not now nor have I ever been a Catholic, and certainly not ... well, they wouldn't let me be a priest anyway, but maybe a nun? ... so I really don't know the viewpoint very well. However, 'mysterious ways His wonders to perform' does seem to cover a multitude of ... *ahem* 'sins'.
Quick summary, very little that you can't get from the back blurb: the US president is murdered by a four-year-old boy. Three weeks later, seven men are pulled out of their varied and more or less normal lives and thrown into a room, where they discover that they have, essentially, the same name, the same face ... and the same childhood memories. It turns out that the seven John Michael Smiths are part of an experiment in human cloning, a 'nature versus nurture' thing. Now they have been brought together to help apprehend the man who orchestrated the president's assassination: John Michael Smith Alpha, the man from whom they were cloned. Over the course of events, they uncover a deadly global conspiracy and not a little about the real reason behind the '7th Son' experiment. I highly recommend the entire trilogy as a very intelligent sci-fi-ish thriller, just to say right up front.
This story is interesting because of how it deals with nature versus nurture and how certain traits can potentially vary even amongst genetically identical subjects - things like hairline recession, eyesight degradation, mental illness and sexual orientation are touched on in the course of the first book. That all bears discussion at some point or other, but the bit I'm focused on right now is the theological issue brought up by one of the clones being a Catholic priest.
Father Thomas, the priest in question, has some serious issues when he finds out that he and his ... well, umsiblings ... have not only been cloned from another man, but were given the first fourteen years of this man's memories. He begins to question the existence of his own soul - apparently, he thinks that a clone cannot actually have one. On one level, I can sort of understand this. I may not be entirely au fait with the Catholic views on such things, but I gather that, in the eyes of the Vatican, there is no conception involved in cloning, and thus there can be no moment of conception, and as the soul exists from that moment of conception...
On the other hand ... see, this is all assuming belief in an all-loving, all-forgiving, all-powerful God. It also assumes that said God would allow humans to wander the earth without souls. Is that even possible in Christian doctrine? Can a person exist without a soul? I know the Buffy take on it (no; demons haven't got souls, humans do, that's the end of it), but personally, I'm of the opinion that the soul is sort of a combination of personality and essential life force, and without that, you're basically a cabbage. Looking at the rest of the clones, there are no signs that the seven are without that essential anima that to me says 'soul'. God gave man free will - while they were all nudged into a particular path by their respective foster parents after their introduction into society, one of them did break out of the mould established for them, thus proving that they are more than intellectually active automatons. I'm not sure where the paranoid schizophrenic clone falls in terms of soul-versus-none arguments (on the one hand, there's got to be more to him than cold thinking if he went that passionately crazy, and on the other hand, there had to be something wrong with him somewhere along the line or he'd be healthy now, and maybe that's a sign). As for the gay man ... I doubt anyone nudged him into that, so there's free will again, which I don't think God would have bothered with if they hadn't been ensouled. A soul's a part of humanity, a part of passion and drive and life. Now, it's possible that the seven are being run by demons somewhere along the line, but that part never seemed to occur to Father Thomas - he seemed to think that he was utterly without soul-essence, human or demon; that he was destined for an atheist's death. Surely if he was being run by a minion of the Adversary, he'd be destined for hell?
Then there's the whole thing about how the clones were not technically conceived. Conception can be more than sperm-meets-egg; Christianity knows all about that, given the whole immaculate conception thing. Okay, this was the hand of man rather than the hand of God, but if God didn't want alternate ways of humans reproducing ... surely those methods would not be possible. Cloning is a tricky process and a lot of times it doesn't work out very well, but it's possible. Hell, identical twins are more or less the result of natural cloning - a fertilised egg splits in two and two genetically identical children are born as a result. Does that mean that one of the twins in question has no soul, as it was never truly conceived? I doubt Catholic doctrine would say that. So why can't 'conception' mean something to the order of 'when that one individual cell starts the process of living'? Or something - when we're talking on a cellular level, all that business about ensoulment gets complicated.
I don't know when I think the soul actually becomes a factor in human development. Somewhere between conception and birth is my best guess. However, I honestly think that in the case of multiple human cloning, a less shell-shocked priest might consider the 'mysterious ways His wonders to perform' clause at some point. But then, maybe not. I am not now nor have I ever been a Catholic, and certainly not ... well, they wouldn't let me be a priest anyway, but maybe a nun? ... so I really don't know the viewpoint very well. However, 'mysterious ways His wonders to perform' does seem to cover a multitude of ... *ahem* 'sins'.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 01:48 pm (UTC)So I assume the writer took poetic license with that, like he probably did with the schizophrenia. According to the numbers they've gathered from studies done on twins/triplets/etc., where schizophrenia occurs in one genetically identical person, it has a 50% chance of occurring in the other(s).
Sounds like a nifty book, though. I'll have to put it on my reading list.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 01:59 pm (UTC)Hmm. Wonder what the Vatican feels about cloning seven human beings, artificially accelerating their aging processes and then downloading the childhood memories of the 'original' into the resultant clones' brains. I mean, sure, they're ensouled, but there are ... well, Issues there.
Yay for JC Hutchins love! He was only optioned for one book in the trilogy - the publisher is holding off on the others until they see how well the first book does - so every little helps in getting the entire thing published. But if you like it, want to know more and don't mind podcast, the next two books ('Deceit' and 'Destruction') are on free-listen podcast, same as 'Descent'. (Pitch over now, I swear.)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 02:09 pm (UTC)Hey, I never mind getting recced a good book. :) I don't listen to podcasts enough to know where to find them, though. Where should I look?
no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 02:14 pm (UTC)If you do end up liking the podcast thing (I know a fair few people who don't, which I kind of get, though it's great way to kill a commute), let me know - I've dug around for so many podcast promos for my own podcast novel that I have many, many recommendations. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 02:22 pm (UTC)I don't listen to podcasts much, but it's not that I mind them. I just don't use my mp3 player much. However, I'm going to be spending a lot of time driving next month, so this is perfect timing!