This discussion of Alabama’s ruling triggered a deeper theological thought about the Bible and creation. Much of the Bible is metaphorical or the reëmergence of ancient stories and myths. Jesus taught using parables with underlying truths that had to be parsed. Most hearers didn’t understand the spiritual dimension of the parables.
Going back to Genesis, what does the text tell us about the creation of a human? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We are in the Lenten period and recently, in liturgical churches, believers had ashes imposed on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday. We now know from science that all planetary bodies in the universe coalesced from particles in the cosmos. We can think of earth as being made from stardust that through eons compressed into a rotating ball of matter in the universe.
The text tells us that God formed a human form from the stardust of earth. That act alone did not create a living being just as machines molding plastic into Ken and Barbie did not create living bodies as depicted in the metaphoric movie. The lump of clay became a living being when God breathed life into that madman.
The translations of the Bible refer to this breath as the Holy Spirit. In Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma) the words for spirit also mean breath or wind. Properly understood, when the fetus develops sufficiently to be born, it is the first breath that brings life to the newly born. It is no accident that the lungs are the last of the major organs to be fully developed.
Taken into this context, when human infants take their first deep breath, the mystical spirit of God is imparted by the holy breath of God. That is the moment the human becomes a living being.
For reference, read THE BODY OF GOD by Sallie McFahue (Minnesota: Augsburg Fortress, 1993).
