When teaching the Bible, I enjoy pointing out that science is forever catching up with revelation. One example is the discovery of the remains of Lucy, a prehistoric “hominid” considered to be the “mother” of all humans. Sometime later, geneticists using mitochondrial DNA traced every human being to a single female they renamed “Eve”! Science caught up with religion. I chuckled when I read a report of how a team of scientists had discovered that there were real and significant differences between men and women! Since there is no intrinsic conflict between faith and science, honest science is bound to catch up.

An article that recently appeared in The Times of London is another case in point. The Times reported on a European study published in Current Biology (vol. 19 issue 20, 3 November 2009) which indicates that babies cry in patterns that reflect their mother tongues. Researchers studied French and German newborns and determined that their cries conformed to their mothers’ languages. The research led the scientists to propose that the basics of language are begun to be learned in the womb. So the child is beginning her or his orientation to verbal communication before birth!

The Psalmist sings movingly of the miracle of the creation and development of one’s life and personality before birth (Ps. 139) –

“For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

And Jeremiah says that he was personally known by God before he was born (Jer. 1:5); “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Being a prophet presupposes speech, so God already began forming Jeremiah as his spokesman while he was in the womb! St. Paul too was called before birth (Gal. 1:15).

A dramatic example of communications in utero is the Visitation of Mary with Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-44). Elizabeth exults in the encounter between the preborn John in her womb and the preborn Jesus in Mary’s (Luke 1:44) – “For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy.” Is it possible that the unborn Baptist heard the greeting of the Mother of God and responded? According to the French and German researchers it is indeed.

Fetal language development demonstrates the intelligence of the preborn child. Speech distinguishes humans from even the closest primates. Anthropologists point to the uniquely human capacity for speech as one of the most important features of human personality.

In 1973 Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in Roe V Wade that the life of the unborn could not be determined “at this point in the development of man’s knowledge.” The new research takes us beyond that point. In this respect, the French and German study once again helps science catch up.

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