Souls and bodies

I had a fascinating conversation with a visitor last weekend. He was writing a paper for a medical ethics class and he asked me what Unitarian Universalists believe about when the soul enters the body. I explained that Unitarian Universalists would have many different opinions about such things. Some of us would embrace the notion of a soul that exists independently of the body, others would not. Channing preached a famous sermon in an earlier century where he argued we are created in likeness to God and one might infer a soul from that, but it simply isn’t a debate in which we invest time or energy.

It turns out the conversation in his class was about euthanasia and abortion. Ah, I thought, perhaps I can offer him firmer ground here. I explained that we are a non-creedal tradition with a congregational polity and to find a common statement about what Unitarian Universalists think about those topics he would need to go to the statements of conscience from our annual meeting - the General Assembly. I was quite certain we had weighed in on both of these topics over the years, although our language for them would be quite different. We would talk about a protecting a woman’s right to choose and about supporting a person's right to a death with dignity. I don’t know if he ever found what he was looking for on the UUA website. I do know the conversation got me thinking.

I suppose I could have told him what I believe about souls and bodies, although that wouldn’t have been representative of all Unitarian Universalists by any means. I could have told him that I believe that just as consciousness requires the biochemical matrix of the body, the soul is also emergent from the body and does not preexist it. The soul doesn’t enter the body, it evolves from it. I think of God the same way. If there is a god that is more than a metaphor, that god does not preexist the universe or exist apart from it but arises from the cosmos the same way awareness arises from the body. Since we are a part of the physical universe we are a part of whatever consciousness, soul or divinity emerges from that universe …

I could have shared with him that I think that whole life/choice debate is the wrong question and the issue ought to be how to ensure that no woman is ever coerced into sexual activity, that every child is a wanted child, and that there are so many choices for avoiding conception and so many supports for raising a child or placing the child with an adoptive family that it would be rare indeed for a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy.

I could have told him that if I were living with a terminal illness and my pain was spiraling beyond the reach of palliative care I would want to have the choice to end my life. I have no idea whether I would avail myself of that choice, but I would want the option.

I didn't tell him those things mostly because he took me by surprise and there just wasn't time ...

In our faith tradition the minister has the “ freedom of the pulpit”, the responsibility to say what he or she believes is true. Members have the reciprocal responsibility, the responsibility to take what the minister says and think about it and decide for themselves if they find it reasonable and resonant and worthy.

What would you have said to our visitor?

Blessings, Gail