Human-Animal Hybrids?

Adam naming the animals.

Materialism, being part and parcel of Atheistic Naturalism, produces scientists who deny the existence of God, and thus of the human soul. One of the tools used by Materialists today to cast doubt on the existence of the soul is to use genetics to establish that the only difference between man and the animals is genetic. On January 1, 2019, Science Alert reported that "scientists created the first interspecies sheep-human chimera...introducing human stem cells into sheep embryos, resulting in a hybrid creature.."

This disturbing news leads us to the question of whether it is possible to create something that is part human and part animal, and if this is indeed possible are they animal or human?

A similar question arose years ago in response to test tube babies. Many Christians then objected on the grounds that such a practice bypassed the sacred nature of procreation, ordained by God. At the time, some went so far as to suggest that test tube babies wouldn't have souls. The evidence is for all to see, since this is now common place. This incredibly immoral and revolutionary method of in vitro fertilization, in which man plays God, clearly produces human beings who have a soul. God infuses the soul when the scientist disposes the matter by fertilizing the ovum. 

We witnessed another challenge in cloning, in which an attempt is made to reproduce a new individual with the exact same genetic code as the one from which it is cloned. This has succeeded with animals, but has proven to be a dead end, as the animals created by this process suffer severe genetic defects. To date there hasn't been a known attempt to clone a human being, and even if it were somehow done, this individual would certainly have a soul and be a true human being, with a soul, for he would have all the genetic material and the organization of a human being, even if he had genetic defects. The soul is infused at such time as the material elements are given the organization needed to support human life, that is when the genetic material is incorporated into the cell to make a living being.

However, the same does not apply for hybrids. If a human-animal hybrid is created, it would be either human or animal. Either it would be principally an animal, with a few nominal human characteristics, and hence no soul, or it would be principally human, with some nominal animal characteristics, and would have a soul. A creature that would be equally both, half and half, would be physiologically and metaphysically impossible. The reason for this is that the principle of life, the soul, has to be either the immortal soul of the human who has the spiritual faculties of intellect and will, or in the case of an animal, it has to be the immaterial principle of a being that has no spiritual faculties, but only those that depend upon bodily existence, which includes the passions and feelings, but not free will.

One frightening possibility is genetic manipulation to produce an animal that can act and react in some ways like a human. Such an animal might even look human, but it would have no intellect, no free will, no judgment, but would act purely and simply out of instinct or emotion, which is a purely physical response. Another diabolical possibility is for Atheistic Naturalists to somehow engineer a human who is so defective and animalistic in his reactions that he is incapable of using free will. Such a being could easily be manipulated as a weapon, or for other nefarious purposes.

In the end the fact remains that science cannot play God without serious implications of both temporal and spiritual import. Christians should vigorously denounce such human-animal hybrid experimentation as a contravention of the sacred procreative act, an affront to human dignity and the image of God in man, and an attempted assault on the Creator of both man and animals.

Science Alert Article