Bringing St. Augustine to Secular Conceptions of Personhood: On Three Stages of Fetal Development
Trevor Bibler, Ph.D. MTS, Postdoctoral Fellow, Baylor College of Medicine
This paper is an exploration of St. Augustine’s views on fetal development and personhood. It serves as a corrective to the secular-scientific assumption that Christian theologians have always held and argued for notions of personhood that begin at conception. I argue that Augustine did not associate the moment of conception with full personhood. This argument dissolves the association between this early Church Father and the position that personhood and conception go hand in glove.
I also hope to show how the Saint’s thoughts on fetal development remain inextricably linked with his conceptions of personhood and resurrection. I will concentrate my analysis on Augustine’s discussion of fetal development by examining Enchiridion (421-23 c.e.). In this text, Augustine explicitly claims to be ignorant (ignoro) of any sufficient answer to the query, “When does a fetus gain life in the womb?” I explore Augustine’s discussion of fetal development, and suggest that Augustine’s struggles with understanding fetal development are indicative of his more general inability to account for the relationship between the individual soul and its embodiment.
The question of bodily resurrection provides the context for Augustine’s comments on abortion in this work. In Enchiridion 84, he makes it clear that the bodies of all people will rise up during the general resurrection. In the next section, Augustine appeals to the language of “form” and introduces the language of a “birth” that occurs in utero—before the fetus is born of its mother. He says that, “Hence in the first place arises a question about abortive conceptions, which have indeed been born in the mother's womb, but not so born that they could be born again. For if we shall decide that these are to rise again, we cannot object to any conclusion that may be drawn in regard to those which are fully formed” (Enchiridion 85).
Augustine proffers three stages of fetal status: (1) the fetus that has been conceived, (2) the fetus that moves toward birth (but has not been born/formed), and (3) the fetus that has been fully formed. The fetus that is moving toward formation, but not yet been formed (de iis qui jam formati sunt) becomes Augustine’s primary concern in Enchiridion.
Augustine’s goal in Enchiridion does not involve directly condemning contraceptive methods; instead, his interest lies in how the differently developed fetuses might receive bodily resurrection. He wonders, “Now who is there that is not rather disposed to think that unformed abortions perish, like seeds that have never fructified?” (Enchiridion 85). Some scholars suggest that this as a merely rhetorical question that does not necessarily reflect Augustine’s position. While I agree that such questions needn’t convey an author’s position, if we accept that Augustine did not equate an unformed fetus with a human, then his position, in Enchiridion at least, may be that pre-vivified fetuses would not have bodies, therefore, they would not be resurrected.
This paper is an exploration of St. Augustine’s views on fetal development and personhood. It serves as a corrective to the secular-scientific assumption that Christian theologians have always held and argued for notions of personhood that begin at conception. I argue that Augustine did not associate the moment of conception with full personhood. This argument dissolves the association between this early Church Father and the position that personhood and conception go hand in glove.
I also hope to show how the Saint’s thoughts on fetal development remain inextricably linked with his conceptions of personhood and resurrection. I will concentrate my analysis on Augustine’s discussion of fetal development by examining Enchiridion (421-23 c.e.). In this text, Augustine explicitly claims to be ignorant (ignoro) of any sufficient answer to the query, “When does a fetus gain life in the womb?” I explore Augustine’s discussion of fetal development, and suggest that Augustine’s struggles with understanding fetal development are indicative of his more general inability to account for the relationship between the individual soul and its embodiment.
The question of bodily resurrection provides the context for Augustine’s comments on abortion in this work. In Enchiridion 84, he makes it clear that the bodies of all people will rise up during the general resurrection. In the next section, Augustine appeals to the language of “form” and introduces the language of a “birth” that occurs in utero—before the fetus is born of its mother. He says that, “Hence in the first place arises a question about abortive conceptions, which have indeed been born in the mother's womb, but not so born that they could be born again. For if we shall decide that these are to rise again, we cannot object to any conclusion that may be drawn in regard to those which are fully formed” (Enchiridion 85).
Augustine proffers three stages of fetal status: (1) the fetus that has been conceived, (2) the fetus that moves toward birth (but has not been born/formed), and (3) the fetus that has been fully formed. The fetus that is moving toward formation, but not yet been formed (de iis qui jam formati sunt) becomes Augustine’s primary concern in Enchiridion.
Augustine’s goal in Enchiridion does not involve directly condemning contraceptive methods; instead, his interest lies in how the differently developed fetuses might receive bodily resurrection. He wonders, “Now who is there that is not rather disposed to think that unformed abortions perish, like seeds that have never fructified?” (Enchiridion 85). Some scholars suggest that this as a merely rhetorical question that does not necessarily reflect Augustine’s position. While I agree that such questions needn’t convey an author’s position, if we accept that Augustine did not equate an unformed fetus with a human, then his position, in Enchiridion at least, may be that pre-vivified fetuses would not have bodies, therefore, they would not be resurrected.