CMW-WB-CH13

What evidence is there for the soul’s existence? The soul is not a
physical thing and cannot be sampled and placed in a test tube for scientific
observation. It transcends the abilities of science to completely
study and explain. There is, however, considerable evidence for the existence
of the soul, even in unborn babies. Near-death experiences,
or NDEs, are cases where people clinically die for a time, and then return
to life. Thousands of NDEs have been well-documented and scientifically
studied. It is commonly reported in cases of NDEs that people
had conscious out-of-body experiences where they could still see
and hear what was going on around them despite lack of electrical brain
activity. They report the experience of moving outside their body, and
even passing through walls in the hospital and observing details in other
parts of the hospital, correctly reporting later the clothing or conversation
of relatives and friends in the waiting room and even of complete
strangers. One study showed that many continue to see for several
minutes after cardiac arrest, even though the brain shuts down within
30-seconds. Another study showed that many were aware of being
dead and felt positive emotions, met with a deceased person, experienced
moving through a tunnel and/or a celestial landscape, and had
an experience where they were moving separately from their physical
body. A further study of 31 blind patients who had an NDE found that
80% reported being able to see during clinical death. There are thousands
more similar cases that cannot be explained by any known physical
or physiological explanation. Taken together, the data shows the
very strong likelihood that there is something about our consciousness
that goes beyond anything physical. It lives on even when a person is
considered medically brain dead. We may call this non-physical element
of ourselves the soul. If this is the case, as the evidence shows,
and we do have a transcendent soul that will survive bodily death that is
self-conscious, can see, think, remember, move at will, and even transcend
physical laws (going through walls and defying gravity), then we
must ask when does a human being become ensouled? In other words,
when are our souls united with our bodies?
It would stand to reason that, because the soul is the lifegiving
principle of a living thing — that which makes a living thing alive — the
soul would be united with the person at the moment he or she becomes
alive. Since we have already established that the human zygote
is a living human person from the moment it comes into existence —
the moment of conception — then, it would also stand to reason that a
human being becomes ensouled at the moment of conception.
Near-Death Experiences:
Events where people undergo
clinical death and then
return to physical life, some
reporting afterward that they
maintained consciousness,
despite the absence of brain
function.
© Sophia Institute for Teachers Unit 5, Chapter 13: Abortion
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