I Have No Idea How Many Children I Have

Friend:  How many children do you have?

Me:  I have no idea.

Friend:  That's disgusting! 

Me:  How so?

Friend:  Well you claim to be a Christian!  And you have a wonderful wife!  And now I find that you have been sleeping around with so many different women that you have no idea how many children you have.

Me:  I'm sorry, but you must have misunderstood me.  Whatever other flaws I do have, and they are legion, I was a virgin on my wedding day and have never been with anyone other than my wife.

Friend:  Then why don't you know how many children you have?  Did you fail basic arithmetic?  Do you pay so little attention to your wife and family that she could have babies without you even noticing?

Me:  I believe that I have both noticed and remembered each pregnancy and birth.  If memory serves there were two of them.  But I still don't know how many children I've had.

Friend:  How is that possible?

Me:  Well, I guess the root of the problem is how babies are made.  Perhaps if I knew how babies were made I would know how many children I have.

Friend:  Wait, don't tell me, you slept through health class.  Well, have I got exciting news for you!  Prepare yourself for a shocker!  You know that whole sex business?  That's where babies come from!  There is a direct cause and effect relationship.

Me:  Well I already knew that!  I did not sleep through health class.  The problem I have is that health class only taught me where bodies come from and how they are made.  What I don't know is how people are made.

Friend:  Now you're just babbling.  People or bodies.  What's the difference?  Do you know any people that don't have bodies?

Me:  Lots and lots of them, actually.  And the older I get the percentage of people I know who are no longer living in their bodies seems to be expanding at an alarming rate.  Of course I am no longer in touch with them.  Their cell phones, if they have cell phones, don't seem to share the same service areas with mine.

Friend:  So you're talking about dead people.

Me:  No, I'm talking living people with dead bodies.  As far as I know, I don't know any people who are "dead" in the sense that an atheist would use that word.  And if it sounds like I'm splitting words here, I'm not.  I have come to discover that the way we think and talk about death make the grieving process harder or easier. See "The Vocabulary of Death 1-3" if you want more details.

Friend:  So what does this have to do with babies?

Me:  I first started thinking about this the morning after my first child was born.  Nancy was still in the hospital and I was at home getting dressed so that I could rush back to the hospital to see her and our new daughter, Joy.  And I got to thinking about what it all meant.  God had somehow managed to use us to collaborate with Him in the creation of an immortal being.

Friend:  An immortal being?

Me:  Yes.  Other people may give birth to a few pounds of squalling, bawling, pooping, adorable protoplasm, but in my family we gave birth of squalling, bawling, pooping, adorable immortal beings.  When the universe has been reduced to ashes and replaced by a new creation my adorable 2-3 immortal beings will still exist.

Friend:  No, wait!  Now we have a number?  Two to three immortal beings?

Me:  Yes, I would guess that there are the two I know about but I suspect there might be one more that I haven't met yet.  I'm just not sure.  I could be more definite if I had a clearer understanding of how babies are made.  As it is, I just don't know, but I think I may have a spontaneously aborted child waiting for me in heaven.

Friend:  I thought you were pro-life.  What is a spontaneous abortion?

Me:  A spontaneous abortion is a miscarriage. Studies show that 30% - 50% of all fertilized eggs are never successfully implanted.  The woman has a miscarriage that she never even knows about.  So if we have two children who made it to the point where we knew Nancy was pregnant, then there might be one or two more who were conceived that didn't make it to birth.

Friend:  So how many miscarriages did Nancy actually have?

Me:  None that I know of, but there might have been a fertilized egg or two that that spontaneously aborted.  And were those fertilized eggs people?  I think so, but I'm not sure. 

Friend:  Why wouldn't they be people?

Me:  Well, it all goes back to how babies are made.  Nancy and I contributed the physical part, but where does the spiritual part come from?  And when is it attached or when does it come into being?

Friend:  You lost me there.

Me:  Look, if we live on after we die, what lives?  How does this all work?  I like to think of it this way.  The real me, my personality, or my soul if you will, is like a computer program.  It's an incredibly advanced, self aware computer program.  But computer programs have to have something to run on.  They need a machine in order to be "alive."  I happen to have two machines.

Friend:  You have two bodies?  Then why in the world are you using that one?

Me:  Ha, ha!  I'll have you know I just lost eight pounds.  So there!  Anyway, my other "computer" isn't a physical body at all, it's a spirit.  So when I die the software, my soul, just switches to its back up system, my spirit, and it keeps running.

Friend:  I don't think I've ever heard of anything like that in the Bible.

Me:  Well, it's just an illustration.  Remember, computers hadn't been invented in Biblical times.  But there is this one passage that sort of hints at something like that.  Paul had a vision one time during which he found himself in heaven.  And he says something very interesting about that experience.  During that brief period of time, Paul said that he didn't know if his body was present in heaven with him or not.  (2 Corinthians 12:3)  Ordinarily I would think you would notice whether or not you were in your own body, but Paul was having an experience where it must felt like he was in his body, but he wasn't sure if it was actually there or not.

Friend:  Is this like those near death experiences?

Me:  Probably.  We have stories of people who almost died and who record an awareness of being outside of their physical bodies for a time.  During that time they felt like they were still in a human type of a body even though they could see their physical bodies lying there on the hospital bed.  So, you can forget the whole computer illustration if that confuses you, but the bottom line is there is something about human beings that is not physical and I don't know for sure when it gets attached, or installed.  The majority of Christians argue that life begins at conception which would mean that when little Sammy sperm burrows his way into Eidth egg the spirit and the soul are installed or attached or whatever.  I would put it this way.  The soul is born and the spirit is attached.

Friend:  But you're not certain when this happens? 

Me:  No.  I don't know how or when.  It is possible that when a man and wife come together physically that their spirits somehow come together as well and that each baby gets part of its spiritual life from the mom and part of it from the dad.  It is also possible that God directly imparts it to the baby.  I'm just not sure how it works.  If the spirit comes from the mom and dad then life definitely begins at conception.

Friend:  So if life begins at conception and your wife had one or two spontaneous abortions where the egg didn’t get implanted then …

Me:  … I may have a child or two out there that I have never met.