An Ethic of the Heart and Faith in Jesus

Introduction

In Matthew 15, two adjacent pericopae (episodes) suggest an important theological relationship: the connection between ethics and theology or, more particularly, between an ethic of the heart and faith in Jesus Christ.  The first pericope involves an incident when Jesus’ disciples are criticized by the Pharisees for not washing their hands before they ate.  This allows Jesus to comment that it is not what goes in to a person that defiles him but what comes out of a person from the heart (Matthew 15.18-20).  The second pericope involves an incident with a Canaanite woman, who asks for help from Jesus for her demon-possessed daughter.  This allows Jesus to draw attention to the woman’s faith in him.  This essay will consider these two theological points in Matthew’s Gospel.

Reflect, for a moment, on what makes an act moral.  Immanuel Kant wrote on ethics at the beginning of the Enlightenment and suggested, as we might summarize, that a moral act: (1) must be universalisable (if it is right for one person or one situation, it must be right for all people or all situations); (2) must be intended (accidentally doing a good thing does not make the action moral); and (3) must relate to fulfilling one’s duty (i.e., actions are not focussed on outcomes or goals).  It would be interesting to compare and contrast this so-called ‘deontological’ ethical system with Scripture.[1]  However, for our purposes, note that the discussion of ethics is largely in terms of actions: right or wrong moral acts.  One significant difference between such an ethic and that which we find in Scripture, particularly in the New Testament, is the focus on character—the heart—prior to a focus on actions.  This goes far deeper than Kant’s discussion of intentions: it has to do with more than reason or planning.  In Jesus’ ethic in the Antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5.21-48), e.g., he challenges the sufficiency of fulfilling legal acts because the heart remains unchanged.

An Ethic of the Heart in the Old Testament

Old Testament ethics focuses largely on the Law and the acts that it forbids.  It has a considerable overlap with Kant’s ethics in this regard.  One might think of the specific laws of Moses, which rabbis at some point numbered as 613.  Or one might think of the sins that a prophet like Amos identifies as the sins of Israel, as the following table indicates.  Most of the sins are stated in terms of actions.

Israel’s Sins (Amos)

Sin of Israel in Amos	Reference in Amos
Unrestrained War Against Another People (war, destruction, enslavement), No Compassion	1.3, 6, 11, 13; 2.1
Enslavement	1.9 (of people with whom they had a treaty) 2.6 (of the righteous, needy)
Rejection of the Law of Yahweh	2.4
Idolatry	2.4, 8; 3.14; 4.4-13; 5.5-6; 7.9
Oppression of the Poor	2.6-7 2.7 (denial of justice to the oppressed) 3.9f (stealing from own people) 3.15 4.1 (women who oppress the poor and crush the needy) 5.11 (trample on the poor, force him to give grain while you live in stone mansions and have lush vineyards) 5.12 (deprive poor of justice in the courts) 6.4-7 (wealth and complacency amidst the ruin of Joseph--fellow Israelites) 8.4-6 (trample the needy, do away with the poor, seek gain through dishonest business) 8.6 (buying the poor and needy for nothing--a trapping of the poor in a cycle of poverty)
Sexual Sin	2.7 (temple prostitution)
Oppression of the Righteous	2.12 (oppression of Nazarites and prophets) 5.7 (turn justice into bitterness, cast righteousness to the ground 5.10 (hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth) 5.12b (oppress righteous, take bribes)
Hypocrisy	5.21-26 (religious feasts, offerings, worship from the unjust and idolatrous) 8.5 (eagerly await end of festival or Sabbath to get back to making money)
Pride	6.8, 13; 8.7

An action ethic, however, is not the only type of ethic in the Old Testament.  It is, to be sure, the focus in the ethics of the Pharisees (and the rabbis after them).  Yet the external acts are a symptom of a far deeper problem: a sinful heart.  This language of the ‘heart’ captures the bedrock of human identity, something deeper than acts.  It reaches deeper than intentions, which relate only to one’s reasoning.  It gets to character and, even deeper, down to desires and unreasoned motivations.  It touches on the affections of the heart, passions, inclinations, and appetites.  The distinction between acts and the heart is one that Jesus draws attention to in his opposition to the Pharisees in our lesson:

Matthew 15:17-20  Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?  ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.  ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.  ²⁰ These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone."

The idea that the heart is the key issue, not merely acts, is very early introduced in the Old Testament.  It appears first in the assessment of the problem of the human condition prior to the flood of Noah’s day:

Genesis 6:5  The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.

After his own failing, David writes,

Psalm 51:17  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Israel’s own story is one of wrestling with obedience from the heart. The assessment of her relationship to God is found throughout the Old Testament, such as in a key passage in Isaiah (which Jesus references when explaining why he teaches in parables—Matthew 13.10-15):

Isaiah 6:10  Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

God’s challenge to Israel after her forty years of wandering in the wilderness because of her sins is given in the language of a ‘circumcised heart’:

Deuteronomy 10:16  Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

Deuteronomy 30:6  And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

After generations of failing in this regard, God says, with reference to this language from Deuteronomy,

Jeremiah 4:4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds."

This is, indeed, the basis of obedience in the Mosaic Covenant.  The Law can never be kept if the heart itself is not right.  Deut. 30.6, quoted above, repeats the words of the Shema at the beginning of Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 6:5-6  You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  ⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

It is this passage that Jesus quotes when asked which of the commandments is chief among them (Matthew 19.37-38).  Yet Israel failed to love God from the heart and therefore failed to obey God from the heart.  The promise of a new covenant, then, is for a transformation of the heart, as the key ‘new covenant’ passages in the Old Testament indicate:

Isaiah 59:12-13  For our transgressions before you are many, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions indeed are with us, and we know our iniquities:  ¹³ transgressing, and denying the LORD, and turning away from following our God, talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.

Jeremiah 31:33  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jeremiah 32:40  I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.

Ezekiel 36:26-27  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Jesus’ Ethic of the Heart

Thus, Jesus’ Kingdom ministry of restoring Israel from captivity in her sins is the establishment of a new covenant ethic of the heart. This is why the repentance of John’s baptism or the emphasis on forgiveness and mercy in Jesus’ teaching are the first steps to the righteousness of the Kingdom. This emphasis is not, by any means, a rejection of action ethics.  It is rather getting to the bedrock of the issue: the heart out of which flows sinful deeds.  The healing of the heart will mean obedience to the Law.  As Jesus says, on the two heart-laws of the love of God and the love of neighbour hang all the Law and the prophets (Matthew 22.37-40).  Fulfilling the legal demands of the Law depend on a transformed heart.

As a matter of fact, Paul, too, sees the central issue for ethics as the heart.  He recognizes that the promised new covenant has come through Jesus’ death to sin and resurrection to new life.  The big question behind Jesus’ ethic of the heart in Matthew’s Gospel is, ‘How do we receive the new heart indicated in the prophecies of a new covenant?’  Paul answers this by pointing to the work of Christ through his death and resurrection.  He says,

Romans 6:4-7  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  ⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  ⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.  ⁷ For one who has died has been set free from sin.

A few verses later, he speaks of this participation in Christ with the language of the heart:

Romans 6:17-18  But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,  ¹⁸ and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

This obedience from the heart is the end—the goal, the purpose—of God’s work in Christ.  While the focus of much preaching is on justification as forgiveness, Paul’s concern was with the deeper level of obedience from the heart.  Only then could we see the transformation of sinners in the new covenant.  This ethic of the heart, as we have seen, is present in the Old Testament, is pronounced as central to the promise of a new covenant for God’s people sent into exile for their sins, and forms the essence of Jesus’ ethic of the Kingdom.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we see Jesus repeatedly focusing on the heart in his teaching.  The following verses demonstrate this point, as well as the fact that Jesus’ teaching is also that found in the Old Testament, which he, at times, quotes:

Matthew 5:8  "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Matthew 5:28  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 6:19-21   "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal;  ²⁰ but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.  ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 12:34  You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Matthew 13:15  For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn-- and I would heal them. [This is a quotation from Isaiah 6.10.]

Matthew 15:8-9  'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;  ⁹ in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' [This is a quotation from Isaiah 29.13.]

Matthew 15:18-19  But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.  ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.

Matthew 13:19  When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path.

Matthew 18:35  So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

Matthew 22:37  He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' [This is a quotation from Deuteronomy 6:5-6]

Thus, the problem with the Pharisees’ ethic was not so much one of works righteousness but of a righteousness that did not penetrate to the ‘heart’ of the matter.  By focussing so much on actions, they failed to address the sinful heart that causes sin.  Also, they saw no need for a redeemer because they did not see the gravity of their sins.

Faith as a Matter of the Heart

This ethic of the heart is related to the teaching on faith.  The juxtaposition of the pericope about the disciples not washing their hands and the Canaanite woman’s faith brings out this theological connection.  One can see that Jesus’ teaching is no less focussed on faith as it is on the heart, and, like his teaching on the heart, Jesus’ calling for faith reaches to a level deeper than actions alone.

The words ‘faith’ and ‘believe’ (sharing the same root word in Greek) appear in the following, relevant verses in Matthew’s Gospel.  It is characteristic of the true disciple of Jesus for it is a trust in God to provide whatever is needed:

Matthew 6:30  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Matthew 8:10  When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith…. 8:13 And to the centurion Jesus said, "Go; let it be done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed at that very moment.

Matthew 8:26  And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm…. 9:28 When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to him, "Yes, Lord."

Matthew 9:2  And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven."

Matthew 9:22  Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." And instantly the woman was made well.

Matthew 9:29  Then he touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith be it done to you."

Matthew 14:29-31  He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.  ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me."  ³¹ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Matthew 15:27-28  She [the Canaanite woman] said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."  ²⁸ Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly.

Matthew 16:8  But Jesus, aware of this, said, "O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?

Matthew 17:19-20  Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?"  ²⁰ He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."

Matthew 18:6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Matthew 21:21-22  And Jesus answered them, "Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' it will happen.  ²² And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith."

Matthew 27:42 "He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.

The Relationship between the New Covenant Ethic of the Heart and Faith in Jesus

Faith (and doubt, as we also see) is a matter of the heart.  It is trust, and the object of this trust is not oneself but God.  For the disciple to have faith is to trust in God, to trust in God the Father’s provision of help in God the Son, Jesus Christ.  Where can we find the link in Matthew’s Gospel that is so explicitly stated in a passage such as Romans 6 (referenced above), the link between the ethic of the heart and faith in God to provide help through the dying and rising of Christ?  The demand for a changed heart, as we have seen, is related to the promise of a divine work in a new covenant in prophecies in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.  The restoration of Israel from her sins is a divine act that sinful Israel neither deserves nor can accomplish.  It is a work of God.  And so, in Matthew’s Gospel (as in all four Gospels), the new covenant is seen to be established in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  At the last supper that Jesus has with his disciples before his crucifixion, Jesus says,

Matthew 26:26-28  Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body."  ²⁷ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you,  ²⁸ for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

An ethic of the heart and a faith in God’s salvation are related in the new covenant.  In Matthew’s Gospel, the new covenant is taught in Jesus’ interpretation of the bread and wine at the last supper in terms of his impending death.  The faith that Jesus taught his disciples to have in him as God the Father’s provision of help comes to a climax in the trust that they will have in the help given by God in Jesus’ death for the forgiveness of their sins and in his establishment of the new covenant.  To have faith in Jesus is to have faith in ‘the God of our salvation’ (cf. Pss. 65.5; 68.19-20; 79.9; 85.4; 95.1; 98.3; cf. 1 Chronicles 16.35; Jeremiah 3.23).  The problem of the heart is, equally, overcome through Jesus’ death, which is the ‘blood of the covenant’.  Christian ethics is a matter of deeds, but it is first a matter of the transformed heart.  This transformation begins with a faith in Jesus Christ, the Father’s provision of salvation for a sinful people.

Conclusion

In this essay, I have explored two related theological themes that are brought together by the juxtaposition of two pericopae in Matthew 15: the disciples’ eating with unwashed hands, which allows Jesus to teach that what defiles a person is what derives from the heart, and the Canaanite woman’s request for help for her daughter, which allows Jesus to teach the importance of faith in him.  What brings the teaching on the heart (ethics) and on faith in Jesus together is the new covenant of Jesus through his death.  Disciples are called to put their trust in him as the one who deals with sin at the level of the heart.

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[1] Thomas Ogletree attempted this by finding various ethical systems in Scripture.  See his The Use of the Bible in Christian Ethics (Lexington, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 2003).  However, to associate the Mosaic Law with deontological ethics misses precisely the point made in this essay.

On the Soul: A Dialogue on Abortion

Does the unborn child have a soul?  Let us imagine a conversation between Aristotle (the 4^th c. BC Greek philosopher) and some contemporary politician calling for abortion at any time up to the moment of birth.  We’ll call her ‘H’.  H. and A. are watching the recent news on television about abortion legislation in the United States.  During a commercial, H. turns to A. and begins the dialogue.

H: I believe that women have the right to abortion.

A: I do not dispute that you believe that.  If you say so, you most likely do.  But do you know what you are saying?

H: What do you mean?  Of course, I do.

A: Let us first consider what you mean.  Are you asserting something about the legal or moral right of a woman?

H: I am asserting that women have the legal right.  This is because the freedom of choice is a universal right.

A: So, if we for the moment allow that freedom of choice is a universal right, why would that make a particular choice a legal right?

H: We should not make laws that take away a person’s freedom of choice.

A: I think if we examine this contention of yours even briefly, you will find yourself in an uncomfortable position.  Let us take an example less contentious.  What if a woman chooses to kill her seven-year-old child?  Would you protect her legal right to do so based on her universal right of freedom of choice?

H: No, of course not.

A: Why not?

H: Because the child has been born.  It is no longer a fetus.

A: This is a true statement, but it has no relation to what you earlier said.  You did not base your argument on a universal right to freedom of choice just now but on whether the object affected by that choice was a fetus or a seven-year-old child.  How is freedom of choice related to the child?

H: Well, let me rephrase things for you.  A woman has freedom of choice to abort or not abort an unborn child.

A: So, the choice is qualified.  The woman apparently does not have a universal right to choice at all, since if choice were a universal right it would necessarily have to be accepted whatever the object of choice.

H: Ah, but I am saying that the woman has a universal right to choose what she would do to her own body.

A: Why?

H: What a person does to herself does not affect other people.

A: So, her right to choose is given to her in any case in which her choice affects only herself.

H: Yes.

A: I can think of a number of ways in which what a person does to his body will affect other people.  An alcoholic father certainly damages his own body, but his behaviour affects his entire family and, often, others as well.  Would you say that he has the right to choose to be a drunk?

H: Well, alcoholism may not be a choice.  It may be a disease.

A: But you would say that, in any case, he has the right to continue to drink alcohol and others around him have no right to interfere with his choice?

H: No, they should help him to recover from his alcoholism.

A: Why?  Out of compassion for him or out of concern for what he is doing to them?

H: Both.

A: Yet, in either case, his freedom of choice is limited by the actions of others.

H: That is because he really has no choice as an alcoholic: his sickness controls him.

A: He may, indeed, be driven to drink, and yet he still chooses to drink.  It is not his choice that determines what we do but his health.  You are arguing that we do not recognize choice as the issue but health, and we intervene in opposition to his choices when he makes the wrong choice, whether freely or because of his alcoholism.  Again, choice is not the issue.

H: But a pregnant woman does not make her decision to abort her fetus because she is unhealthy.  Health is not the issue: choice is.

A: Certainly.  But would you say her choice has no effect on other persons at all?  Is she the only player, just because she is the one carrying the child?

H: Her choice may affect other people, but she is the one who has to bear the child and give birth.

A: You like to speak of the woman having a right to choose to terminate the pregnancy.  In my day, women did abort their babies, but they also practiced infanticide.  Just-born children would be carried off to the hills and left to die on their own, unattended--unless some shepherd rescued the child and sold it into slavery for a little money.  But this was not the woman’s choice, it was the father’s.

H: I am not talking about infanticide but abortion.

A: I see, again, that you are not talking about choice, then, but about the right to put a fetus to death.  We shall have to explore that further.  But first, why do you not speak, as people in my day, of the father’s choice?

H: As I said, he is not having to carry the fetus and give it birth.  The woman should have the right to do what she wants to do with her own body.

A: And yet we were a moment ago exploring the thought that she is not an island but makes decisions that affect other people as well.  Could we at least say that what she does with her body has nothing to do with her husband?

H: No, it is her body.

A: So, a husband should not stop his wife from injuring herself?  Let us say that she decides to do a very dangerous activity on the grounds that it is her choice, are you saying that her husband has no right to intervene?

H: Yes.

A: While I would disagree, I think in our situation there is more to consider.  In this case, the husband is also the father of the child.  When you say that a woman has the right to do what she wants with her own body, you seem to be playing with words.  While her arm is not her husband’s arm, the fetus is not her body in the same sense.

H: Why not?

A: Well, her arm will not someday be delivered from her body, will it?  It will never have an independent existence from the rest of her body, but the fetus will.

H: I suppose you are right.

A: Moreover, the fetus is not something her body simply grew without the seed of the father.  In fact, what is in her womb is a combination of herself and her husband.

H: You are talking basic biology.

A: And that biology shows that the fetus is not her body at all.  It may be in her, but it is not part of her body.  And so, we cannot say that aborting the fetus is a choice to do with her own body.

H: I see what you are saying.  And yet I believe she should have the right to choose.

A: We do seem to have gotten somewhere.  You originally said that the woman ‘has’ the right to choose.  Now you have come to say that she ‘should have’ the right to choose.  We have also gotten away from saying that her choice is to do with her own body, since the fetus is, as basic biology teaches us, not her own body.  I think we might need to turn to the next subject.

H: What is that?

A: Whether the fetus has a soul.

H: Oh, what nonsense.  I do not believe in souls at all.

A: Perhaps we should define the soul.

H: You cannot.  It is a made-up idea that does not exist.

A: We might be talking across the centuries here.  By ‘soul,’ I mean what distinguishes lifeless matter from matter that is alive.

H: So, you are using the word ‘soul’ to mean ‘life’?

A: Yes.  I suppose I should say that I have a slight disagreement with my teacher, Plato, on this matter.  Plato thought that the soul existed apart from the body, but I believe that the soul does not exist apart from the body.  In my view, the soul is what makes things alive.

H: The fetus, I would say, is not alive.  It starts to live when it is born, when it is able to survive on its own—when it is viable.

A: We should be able to proceed, then, since what I mean by ‘soul’ is essentially what you mean by ‘life.’  If I may, let me offer some further thoughts on the soul.  Plants can have souls since they are living things.  Animals are a higher life form.  People are even higher.

H: I must say, this is a new use of the term ‘soul’ to me.

A: And yet it is not merely my own notion.  Often, our Greek word psyche, translated ‘soul’ at times, makes better sense in your language when translated with the word, ‘life’.  And yet we can also agree that there is something different about saying that a tree has life and your cat has life, isn’t there?

H: Yes, that is obvious.

A: So, the lowest form of life can be said to have life because it takes in nutrition and grows and decays.  A rock might change because of the external forces that act on it, but a tree will also change because it has these life characteristics within it.  That is why I would say it has a soul—nothing more.

H: Alright.

A: Yet, would you not say the same thing about a fetus?  Is it any less alive—does it have any less of a soul—than a tree?

H: Well, by your definition, it takes in nutrition and grows and is, therefore, a living thing like a tree.  I still can’t call that a soul.

A: Very well.  But now, let us consider animals.  What characteristic of ‘soul’ do animals have that plants do not?

H: You mean, what characteristics of life do they display?

A: Yes.  I’m wondering if you can come up with some things that I taught on this subject in my On the Soul even if you have not read it!

H: Well, animals are different from rocks in that they are alive, and from plants in that they not only take in nutrition and grow but they also move.

A: Very good.  A tree may sway in the wind—that is, it has movement when acted upon.  But an animal can move itself.  It can slither, hop, walk, fly—even an amoeba can move itself.  What else?

H: Animals have sensations.  They have the five senses of hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling, and seeing.

A: And would you say that these characteristics of animal life are present in the fetus?  Is the fetus only like a living plant, or is it also alive—have a soul!—like an animal as well?

H: I know that a fetus can move in the womb, and it certainly at some point shows signs of the senses.  We have studies that have been done on this, but anybody knows that a fetus will respond to noise and feelings.  Tasting, smelling, and seeing are not likely applicable in the womb.

A: And yet, immediately upon birth, a child shows it had the capacity to taste, smell, and see and continues to respond to noises and touch.  Surely you would say that, just like movement, the womb is what restricted the fetus’ all five senses and not its own capacity?

H: This seems obvious.  But we do not know when the fetus develops its first sensation.

A: I will grant you that—although those studies you mentioned from your era have increasingly shown how early a child has some sensations.  But would you not agree that, what the fetus is is represented in its capacity?  A sleeping person has the capacity for sight.  A person may lose hearing for a while and then regain it but be no less alive when it has lost its ability to hear.

H: Agreed.

A: And what of a person who is blind from birth? What about a deaf person?  Are they less human?  Are they less alive?

H: I would not say so.

A: Even if they have no ability to gain their sight or hearing?

H: Yes.

A: And yet, a fetus, because it is human, has the capacity to develop these sensations even if he or she does not have those sensations from the moment of conception but later in the pregnancy.  If the person who never develops those sensations is alive and human, surely the fetus that is growing in the womb and developing these sensations is equally so?

H: It would be difficult to dispute that.

A: And some animals display some other aspects of the soul, such as perception and reason.

H: Ah, there is something that the fetus does not do.

A: You mean reason?  Of course, if an animal responds to even just one of the senses, we would have to say it has perception.

H: Yes, I mean reason.

A: Of course, some higher animals demonstrate the ability to reason, although humans are decidedly different from the animals precisely in its far greater capacity to reason.

H: Agreed.

A: And we must also say that the fetus differs from animals in this regard as well.

H: But an advanced animal—a chimpanzee, for example—can reason better than a newly born baby.  Surely this is even a greater discrepancy in the case of a fetus.

A: We seem to have covered aspects of this matter already.  Are you saying that a chimpanzee operating at the height of its capacity in reasoning is a higher animal than a newly born baby that is still developing its capacities?  I wonder if you would shoot the baby that falls into the cage of a chimpanzee that attacks it or let it kill the baby because it is a higher life form by virtue of more developed reasoning?

H: I would save the baby.  Perhaps I would do so because it is my own kind.

A: And your own kind is a higher life form than a chimpanzee.  You recognize that the baby will keep developing into a highly rational human being because you are such a person yourself.

H: Yes.

A: And you can imagine someone making the other decision about you.  Let us say that you suffered a terrible injury in an accident and lost major reasoning abilities for nine months while you were recovering.  You would not want that person to save the chimpanzee over you because you were not functioning at full capacity at the time, would you?

H: No, I would not.

A: Then, we seem to have come to the position that the fetus has a soul—or life—in every sense of the word.  Have we left any definition of life out of the discussion that could change this?

H: No.  I think you have mentioned all the ways in which something could be said to be alive.

A: And we have concluded that a fetus either has or is developing its capacities to exhibit all these features of life.  And, where it possibly lacks some capacity, such as advanced reasoning, it is not a diminished form of life any more than a person with a concussion is.  Being human as opposed to being an animal is in the ability to develop its capacities, not in the demonstration of those abilities at some time in its life.

H: And yet, it seems that there really is a difference between a fetus that does not have the ability to reason and a seven-year-old child in school who is using her reasoning.

A: Let us, then, consider an adult who has lived a life of advanced reasoning.  Let us say that this person was a physicist restricted to a wheelchair, unable to speak, but capable of advanced reasoning.  You know the person I have in mind?

H: I do.

A: Now, let us say that he developed Alzheimer’s toward the end of his life.  The person we have in mind did not, but let us say he did for argument’s sake.

H: Alright.

A: Would you reason that he should be put to death because he has lost his ability to reason?

H: I might.  I am not sure about euthanasia.

A: I thought you might say so.  But what if scientists discovered a cure for Alzheimer’s.  Would you still advocate euthanasia?

H: No.  The hope of recovering reason should rule that out.

A: And yet, we know that the fetus will recover—that is, develop reasoning and maybe even become a famous physicist.  If you knew she would, would you not want to stop the mother from aborting the child just as much as you would want to stop the family of the physicist with Alzheimer’s from euthanizing him?

H: I find it difficult to argue with this point.

A: I appreciate your willingness to put your contentions to the test.  Neither the claim that the freedom of choice is a universal right nor the claim that the fetus is not a living human being can be defended.  I suppose the argument against abortion would be even stronger if we were to subscribe to something like my teacher said about the soul—that it might live apart from the physical world.  In that case, we would not limit ourselves to the biological characteristics of living things.  Yet, on a purely biological level, the fetus is a living human being.