Organism Cloning: Did Dolly Have a Ghost?

Do you believe that humans and animals have a soul?

Back in the 1990s, news had widely spread about Dolly, especially within the scientific circle.

She was a sheep that had been successfully made out of a cell from a body part, and not from the conventional birthing from the union of sperm and egg cell.

This was made possible by getting the nucleus (where DNA is located) from a body part of one sheep, injecting it into a developing egg cell with removed nucleus of another sheep, and inserting it into the womb of another sheep.

Yes, you can say that Dolly has had 3 mothers.

That cell was then jolted by electric pulses for the cell parts to attach to one another and interact (yeah, kind of like Frankenstein).

The process is known as organism cloning, where the exact genetic code in the DNA of one being can be transferred into another being.

It’s like printing two copies of one manuscript on a printer. Exact copies but printed in two different sets of paper.

When I wondered about Dolly’s life again, the thought crossed my mind: did Dolly have a soul?

I wasn’t the only one looking for an answer to this question, so I flipped through some knowledge and connected dots.

As a believer, I think we fellows have the notion that when we’re born, it was because God had formed us. He also breathed life into us to make us alive.

Not just alive but have a freewill of our own, and also instinct. This freewill and instinct are attributed to the soul component of an organism.

So how can Dolly have a soul when she was scientifically made?

Would it be possible that God granted life onto Dolly because He wanted her to live?

According to Scripture, we are composed of 3 parts: body, soul, and spirit (1 Thess 5:23).

The body is the physical component, the soul the mental, intellectual, and emotional, while the spirit is the spiritual aspect.

So I think the God-breathed essence is probably the spirit, while the soul is both the subconscious and the conscious aspect that let us move, think, behave, and feel.

Because the soul is defined as the immaterial part in a living being, whether man or animal, that keeps it functioning.

In which that immaterial part of a cloned organism can be physically and chemically explained, if a scientific standpoint should be applied.

Physical explanations such as the nature of interactions between two atomic/subatomic particles, waves, energy, and entropy (randomness).

And chemical explanations, like on a molecular level such as serotonin-dopamine imbalances that can cause behavioral changes (mood swings).

So from these information, I would think that, yes, Dolly indeed had a soul, else she wouldn’t be able to move, or even think and feel the way she does.

As the body component alone in a living being has limits in practically keeping himself/herself/itself alive. The individual needs to think, or act on instinct for him/her/it to survive.

So in short, based on Scripture, the soul and spirit aren’t the same in an individual. As I think, the soul is the conscious-subconscious mind, while the spirit is God-breathed essence.

But I think it’s up to the individual whether he/she thinks if the cloned sheep have a soul (per se) or if she's even a spirit being, because, apparently, the premise is deemed from having a spiritual belief.

What do you think about Dolly the sheep?

Disclaimer: this article is solely for expositional purposes based on opinion from gathered information. Should you spot some errors in information, please go ahead and do note them down. I’d appreciate it.

Thanks for reading.