The Origin of the Soul (2)

Last week we began looking at the origin of the soul. We're doing a study of what the Bible teaches about man, mankind, and sin. So we looked at the start of last week talking about the origin of the soul, and that may sound like some way out in left field. So we have a lot of doctrine that doesn't make any difference at all to the way we live. But this, as I said last week, is a very important truth to wrap our minds around because it touches on so much. It informs so many different areas of Bible doctrine and teaching. For instance, this topic will help us to understand better our sinfulness and gravity as people. How do we become sinful? Where do we get our sin nature, that kind of thing? It will also inform what we believe about the virgin birth. It will help us understand what we should believe about abortion. And it would help us even in the area of cloning. Is it possible or ethical to clone a human being? If so, what would the implications be regarding the soul? Well, we're going to get to that at the very end of this particular section of our study. But for now, we're just looking at three commonly recognized views of how we get our soul. We looked at the first one last week, which was the pre-existence view. And that's the idea that the soul pre-existed prior to us having a body. In other words, prior to our conception, that our soul existed sometime in the past, and it was joined to us when we were conceived in our mother's womb. Most of those ideas, and we saw a couple of spin-off variations of that view, most of those have to do with eastern religions, like various views in reincarnation and so forth, or cultic beliefs, like the Mormon belief, that souls are pre-existent and are united with a body. So there is nothing in Scripture to support that, and none of those views really appeal to Scripture for any support. They're just basically philosophical views, and so we kind of moved past that one fairly quickly. The next one, however, we're going to spend the rest of our time on this evening. It's called the Creation View. Now, this is the view that basically God creates our souls, and then the last view that we'll look at next time, is the fact that our souls are part of the procreation process. We receive them from our parents, like we do all of our other characteristics. And that, I believe, I'll go ahead and say, I think, is the most biblical way to look at how we got our soul. But this is a formable view, the creation view, and so we need to deal with that, see what its strengths and weaknesses are. By way of a definition, the creation view, and by the way, when I say that, when I talk about the creation view, I'm not talking about the creation God creating the universe, or God creating the earth, or even God creating man. I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about did God create the soul specifically? So this view basically says, the parents procreate or generate through procreation, the body of their children, but God directly creates the soul for each individual. So in other words, the body comes from the normal procreation process, union of male and female, but the soul is directly created by God. Some people say at the time of birth, most who take this view would say at the time of conception. Any questions about what we're talking about there? Is that clear enough? What we're talking about? So the idea that although the body comes from our parents, the soul is directly created by God at the moment of conception and placed in the womb. Now there are three lines of argument or support used to express and support this view. So we're going to look at those three tonight. The support from scripture is the first one. And so let's talk about that. There are certain, the argument is this. There are certain scriptures that that do seem to teach that God creates the soul. We're going to look at four of those verses. The first one is Ecclesiastes 12.7. This one is on the screen for you. I think we'll have all of them. Yeah, all of them will be on the screen. Ecclesiastes 12.7 says, and the dust returns to the ground that came from and the spirit returns to God who gave it. That seems to at least imply that God created our immaterial part called spirit or soul that God created that. He gave it. It came directly from him. Does anybody see a problem with that in this verse? Okay. I didn't hear what Blaine said, but Joe's got it. And that is that the first part of the verse doesn't make sense if you take the second part of the verse to mean that God actually individually created each spirit, then that means that each of you were formed from the dust of the ground too. Were you? Of course not. Your body came from your parents. Now God did form the first man Adam from the dust of the ground, but you weren't formed from the dust of the ground. If you were, I'd like to hear that story. So this is a general statement about death. Remember Ecclesiastes 12 is a description of the aging process. And the older I get, the more I enjoy that passage, or maybe don't enjoy it. It's becoming too real. But this is just a general statement about death. Our bodies decompose in death. That's what the first part of the verse is saying. And the spirit goes into eternity to meet God. It's not saying that God individually formed you out of dust or individually created your spirit. Okay, that's not the point of the verse. So it's a little bit of an overuse of that verse to say that this verse is supporting God creating the spirit. Any question coming about that? Okay, the second verse is Isaiah 5716. Isaiah 5716. I will not accuse them forever. Nor will I always be angry for then they would faint away because of me the very people I have created. The word people there interestingly enough is the word Hebrew word nefesh which remember we saw was the word for soul. So literally if you're going to really just translate the Hebrew word literally it would be the very souls I have created. We'll get to this in a moment remember the Hebrew word nefesh or soul has a broad range of meanings. However, it doesn't always just mean the soul and the NIV has translated it. I think correctly here it's referring to living beings or people. So God created all people again does that mean you were instantaneously spoken into existence or formed from the dust of the ground like Adam. No, the Bible often talks about God creating man in the sense that he created the first man. And we are all his creatures but none of us have been directly created from the hand of God. God with the first creation put a process in motion whereby we all come into existence and it's not immediate creation where God speaks and you pop into existence or even forms you from the dust of the ground. So again, this is a very general statement about the fact that we are all God's creatures in the sense that he made mankind. It's not that God created you individually. Okay, the next one is Zechariah 12.1. The Lord who stretches out the heavens who lays the foundation of the earth and who forms the human spirit. There's an interesting statement who forms the human spirit within a person. Does that mean that God creates the human spirit? I want to come back to that one in just a little bit. But that's one of the verses that seems to imply or at least could be understood to mean that God creates each individual soul or immaterial parts called spirit here. The last one is Hebrews 12.9 and it's a little more general in statement. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit? Here it is to the father of spirits and live. Okay, father of spirits. Some take the mean that God created our spirits. That's a bit of a stretch on that expression, but that's the way some people take it. But those are the kinds of verses that are used for support of the idea that God creates each individual soul and unites it to your developing body in the womb. Okay, the weakness of this support from scripture. Let me give you a few thoughts here and then we'll discuss them if you want or have questions about them. First of all, remember this is kind of basic, but remember that soul has a variety of meanings and sometimes it can just mean person in the Isaiah 57 passage, for instance. It's clear that it just means a person. It's not referring to literally your soul. It just refers to people in the sense of mankind. God made the second important thing to note by way of kind of a rebuttal or a weakness of this this support from scripture is the the emphatic word for creation, which is used in Genesis 1. The Hebrew word barah is not used in any of these passages. So this is not talking about God creating people or spirits or souls in the same sense that Genesis 1 speaks of creating them. In other words, God does not speak and something pops into existence. That's not what we're talking about with the human spirit or soul. That word is not used in any of these passages. Third weakness of this biblical support for this view is that often the Bible speaks of God creating our bodies or forming our bodies, but we know that doesn't mean he created our bodies in the sense of Genesis 1. Again, you were not spoken into existence nor were you formed out of the dust of the ground. So when the Bible talks about God making us or God forming us, it's not talking about Genesis 1 or Genesis 2 kind of stuff. It's just talking about the fact that in general God created all mankind, all men in the sense that he created at him and then we came from Adam. It also is talking about the fact that God is active in the formation in our formation in the womb. The Bible does teach that that God is actively forming and shaping us as we develop in the womb. In other words, he is in control of that process, but he uses a normal process. He uses the normal biological process of sperm and egg coming together to create you and to make you and as you develop in the womb, God superintends that controls that. A couple of passages that are very clear on that and one is Jeremiah 1.5, this one's on the screen for you. God says to Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart. I have pointed you as a prophet to the nations. He speaks of Jeremiah being formed in the womb, not created in the sense of spoken into existence or shaped out of the dust of the ground, but God was active in the process of his formation in the womb. The clearest passage is the one that you're probably thinking ahead and remembering is Psalm 139. This one is not on the screen, so let's turn to it. Be good to open our Bibles, at least to this one passage this evening, Psalm 139. There are several words that are used here for God's control over the forming of our bodies and everything else, I believe, in the womb. One of them is the word creation in verse 13. For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth, in the other way, the depths of the earth, it's just a Hebrew poetic expression for me. For the womb, Hebrew poetry uses a lot of expressions like that. Your eyes, verse 16, your eyes saw my unformed body all the days ordained for me, were written in your book before one of them came to be. So this is not God speaking you into existence or forming you from the dust of the ground in the sense of Genesis 1, 2. It's not creation in that sense. It is, however, a superintendent, superintendent or a control of the process of formation in the womb. God is sovereignly controlling that process as you develop. God is in control of that process. He is very active in your formation in the womb. So the Bible speaks of making or creating of our bodies, but it's obviously not Genesis 1 kind of creation. This is a God forming and shaping us, working through the normal process of procreation to shape our bodies. Now my point is this, if that's true of the body, could it not also be true of the soul? When the Bible talks about in these verses that we saw, God making our spirit or forming our spirit or giving our soul, could that not also be the same thing as what he means when he says he made our bodies or created our bodies or knit us together. It's the normal, using the normal process, he is in control of the formation of body and soul, but using the normal process of procreation. So I would submit this kind of as a summary of the weakness of this view as supported from scripture. Neither the body or soul is an immediate creation in the sense that God speaks into existence, Genesis 1 kind of stuff. Nor is it shaping from the dust of the ground like each of you individually were formed by God in that sense, like Adam was. That's often called immediate creation. What we're talking about here is the fact that God made us in the sense of immediate creation, not immediate, but immediate. And that means he used the normal means of procreation of your development in the womb to shape and form you, but not in the sense of Genesis 1 or 2. So God uses the normal process that he put in motion when he created man and woman, he uses the normal process of procreation to form the body. Could it not also be said he uses that same process to form the soul and I believe both can be seen as we'll see more support of later. One other passage I'd like to mention, the same idea, and this may help to understand it a little better, same idea is found in John chapter 1 and verse 3. Through him, through Christ, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. Obviously speaking of Christ as the creator, he made all things. But no, wait a second, everything in creation is made by Christ. Does that mean the tree that you see across the road when you walk out tonight was spoken into existence by God? Immediately like Genesis 1, he's spoken it popped into existence? Of course not. You know that that's not the way he created that tree. He made all things in the sense that he spoke the original creation into existence and set in motion the processes which would then regenerate or procreate and continue to bring about other trees and other plant life and so forth. So that tree across the road was not directly spoken into existence by God. It came from a seed or a nut that in the ground worked itself into a tree. That normal process that God built into creation is how he made that tree. So the Bible speaks of God making all things that we see now, but not in the sense of Genesis 1 creation. And so to use those verses to say God instantaneously spoke the soul into existence, that's not what those verses are talking about. Any more than God individually spoke into existence that tree across the road. Sometimes the Bible uses those terms, God made, God gave those kinds of things, God knit together, all those to describe his sovereign control of the normal pride of God. So God is still very active. This is not theism. This is not theism which says that God started everything and then backed away from his creation at all and had nothing else to do with his creation. He's still very much involved in his providence and his sovereign control. Okay, so those those verses really to be used for God creating the spirit or the soul. That's a lot of weaknesses there. It's not really what they're talking about. Questions or comments? Okay, God God is in control of all that happens in the womb. Now there, there are malformations and deformations because of the curse. That was not God's original intent, but God is still active in shaping everyone in the womb and has a purpose for everyone who comes into this world. Every human life is valuable. So it's very tricky what you're getting at. I mean, you're right that God does not sit up and have an insane. Okay, it's time we have another deformed child. Let's I'm going to do this. All of the deformations, whether it's a human life or a plant life are a result of the curse. Yes. But still God is able to take that and sovereignly, providentially use even that for his glory. And yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Phil, you're 16. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Okay, I'd have to look up the original. I don't know why both of them translated that, but yeah, I just have to look. I don't know how to answer that. I have to look it up and see why. Why it was translated that way in King James. I think most every modern translation translates it days. And I don't know what the Hebrew word is there. So I don't know why in either King James would have said members. Yeah, the first part of the verse does say unformed body or frame in the in the NIV. All the this verse 16. Yes, your eyes saw my unformed body. And then all the days ordained in IV King James has all the members. It make members is in italics, which means it's not in the original Hebrew to start with. Okay, I really need to get out my Hebrew text and see what's what's there. And get out a couple good commentaries. If I can be understand what is written there. I'm not sure why the difference in translation to be honest. I do believe God has a specific pattern for each of us in the sense that he's in sovereign control over everything that happens in the universe. But there God God works in two different ways. First of all, he creates. But that was done after the first six days. God has not created anything since then. And we're going to get to that later. But God is also providentially and sovereignly in control of everything that happens after that. And so although the normal means of procreation is used to generate our bodies. And I believe also our souls. God is still in control of that. But he's using the normal means he built into creation to accomplish that. So what I am saying is I do not believe the Bible teaches God individually created your soul at the moment of conception. And we're getting a little ahead of ourselves because we haven't gotten to the third view yet, which is Seminole Headship or Seminole Reproduction Theory. We'll get to that later. But one of the reasons for what I'm saying is God has not created anything since day six. He's not creating anymore. He's sovereignly, providentially working to fulfill his plan in his creation. But he's not creating anything anymore. Okay, let's move on to the next support for the creation view. And that is the support from the nature of the soul. And I'm going to have to ask you to think theologically with me a little bit here. And we'll see if we can can sort this out. The argument from the from the nature of the soul is this. Those who believe the soul was created specifically by God at the moment of conception say that if you receive your soul from your parents. Then it must have been divided out from theirs. You got part of your soul from your mother, part of your soul from your father. So your soul must have been divided out from theirs. And they say, well, a soul is not a material substance. Therefore it's indivisible. It can't be divided out. Your mom's soul could not be divided out to give you part of her soul. Your dad's soul could not be divided out to give you part of his soul. Okay, that's what those who believe the soul must be created say they also say how can a material substance sperm and egg coming together be responsible for bringing into existence and immaterial substance. Okay, so those are the that's the argument to support the creation view from the nature of the soul. Now please stick with me. I know a lot of you were up very late last night. And you're swooning on me. I can tell, but hang with me here for a minute. We have to think theologically there are a couple of serious weaknesses with that line of argumentation. One is this. There is no division involved anyway. Nobody on the view that I would take is saying that anybody's soul gets divided. Nobody's saying that the soul is generated, not divided. You don't get part of your mom's soul and part of your dad's soul. The soul cannot be divided. The soul is generated or procreated just like the body is. You don't get part of your dad's body and part of your mom's body in the sense that their body gets divided up and a little bit goes to you a little bit. I know there's genetic stuff going on there, but you don't your parents body don't they don't get divided. They still keep their whole body. Well, in the same sense, the soul is not divided. Nobody is saying the soul gets divided. So that's a moot argument. The second weakness of this argument is can material substances, egg and sperm coming together to start you at the moment of conception, can material substances produce an in material part? Well, think about that for a minute. It seems to be apparent that other immaterial functions are passed down to us from our parents, right? Intellectual abilities, personality, certain ways of thinking, looking at things, acting, personality traits are inherited from our parents just like physical characteristics are. So there are other parts of our immaterial part that we obviously receive from our parents. So if it's possible to receive those, then certainly it would be possible to receive a soul passed down through our parents through the process that God has ordained the procreation process. I don't know how I got my dad's personality, but I did. I don't know how the I don't biologically genetically, I don't know how that happens, but it does. And so if that's the case, which seems apparent, then it would also seem possible that the soul another part of our immaterial being could be generated through procreation. So the support from the nature of the soul that the soul can't be divided so you can't get it from your parents, that just doesn't make any sense. That's not a valid argument. I don't believe. Okay, comments your questions, Steve. It does say that God breathed into Adam and he became a living being or a living soul, but from that point on, nobody else that is said of them, you're right, which is basically the whole point. God does not produce, give, create that soul for anyone other than Adam. And from that point on, it seems to be passed down to everybody who comes from Adam. Yeah, that's the point. Okay. All right, we've got 10 minutes and we're going to need it for this last one because this is where we get into the virgin birth. So let's let's talk about this. There are those who believe those those who do believe that the soul is created at the moment of conception, draw support from the doctrine of Christ. And here's the argument. If Christ received a soul from even one parent, if Christ's soul was passed down through Mary, then that would cause Christ to inherit a depraved human soul. So they say his soul had to be created. Now what's wrong with that? Okay, that's the whole point. We may not need 10 minutes on this. The weakness of this point, let me explain it this way by solving the problem, what is perceived to be a problem for one Christ, you've now made a problem for every other human being who's ever lived. And here's the problem. If my soul was created at the moment of conception, then why was it sinful to start with? I mean, Psalm 51.5, the Bible says, incented. My mother conceived me not the act of conception, but from the moment of conception, I'm a sinner. So if God created my soul at that point, how could it be sinful? Did God create a sinful soul? Or did it become sinful? I mean, that's unthinkable. Or did it become sinful by being joined with a human body? Whoa, be careful there. That's the Greek dualistic platonic philosophy that the body is evil and the spiritual or the soul is good. And that leads to all kinds of doctrinal heresy that the early church dealt with in the early councils, particularly in regard to the person of Christ. Because the first error in the doctrine of Christ in church history, which was already coming up at the end of the first century, and John addresses in first John 4, is that Christ could not have had a human body because Christ was pure and holy, so he couldn't have been joined to a sinful human body. That's Greek philosophy. That's not biblical theology. So you have to be careful with that. I think that is a real strong, wow, a strong weakness. That's a real clear weakness of this view. But let me, let me hitchhike on what Steve said, which is really the core of the issue here. Jesus did not inherit depravity or a sinful nature for a very good reason. He didn't inherit a soul at all. Jesus didn't get his soul from Mary. And Steve indicated the reason why he was already a living soul in eternity past. You see, life begins when for us as human beings at the moment of conception, that's when your soul begins, that's when your body begins to be formed. But Christ didn't begin there. He was already in existence. And so he was already a living being, or you can call that a soul, he was already a living soul before he became human, before the incarnation. Since he was already a living being, the normal process for bringing children into the world could not be used with Christ. You could not have sperm and egg coming together because that produces a brand new person. Christ was not a brand new person. He was already existing. He was existing as in a spirit form in heaven without a body as a soul in heaven without a body as God the Father still does, God the Holy Spirit still does, and the angels still do. The only thing Christ lacked was a human body. So the only thing that happened in the placing of Jesus in the womb by the Holy Spirit was that he now was joined to a human body, which went through the normal nine months of development in the womb. That is the reason for the virgin birth. The reason for the virgin birth is not because if there had been a father, the sin nature would have passed down through the father. Ladies, don't blame us entirely for the sin nature. The reason for the virgin birth is because the normal process of procreation produces a brand new person that has never existed before and Christ already existed so he could not come into the world through the normal process. But he did need a human body. So the Holy Spirit miraculously places his soul in Mary's womb unites it with that human body part that he got from his mother and he becomes a human with an already existing soul but now a developing human body. That is the reason for the virgin birth. It is not that the sin nature has passed down through the father, it is that the normal process of procreation leads to a new person coming into existence which is my point all along. The second thing that is a new person begins a conception, that is when the soul is generated from your parents just like your body is. At conception, Jesus' soul became truly human and it was united with a human body obviously in the cellular stage at that point but it would develop in the womb over nine months. It was not the same with the human body but it became a fully human soul whatever that means and we don't really know what that means but it is so already existed. It was just united with the human body. So the whole point to use Christ to say well his soul must have been created that misses the whole point that he did not need a soul to be created because his soul already existed. He did not come into existence at the moment of a human conception anyway. He was already in existence. So it misses that whole point of the virgin birth and the reason for it. So really that argument is the weakest of all of them because it misses the whole point of the virgin birth. Does that make sense? Do you have any questions along those lines? Blaine? Yes. It refers to Mary not Christ. Yes. Yes. It is a total misunderstanding of the virgin birth. And yet it is found in a lot of good, supposedly good theology books anyway they miss the point of the virgin birth which was a new person was not coming into existence at the virgin birth. He was already in existence. He just needed to be joined to human body. That was all that happened in the virgin birth. And the reason why you could not go through the normal procreative process of male and female coming together was because if you had done that a new person would come into existence and that couldn't happen with Jesus. He was already in existence. That is the whole point. And the Roman Catholic Church misses that as do many others. And a lot of that is rooted in Greek philosophy which has plagued the church for centuries. And a lot of people just don't see it. I am so grateful that in my seminary training I was taught exogetical theology which means you get your theology not from a systematic theology textbook. You get it from exogeding scripture. And you go just by what the Bible teaches. And you get clear meaning of the scripture and then you form your theology based on that regardless of what the theology textbooks say. I am so grateful I was taught that because it helped me to understand things like this. I think in a better way. I hope in a better way. Exactly. Without what we are talking about here without the virgin birth there would be no savior because he would have been born with a sinful nature just like us. Any other questions? You have been thinking theologically good. Maybe a little more deeply than we typically do. That is great. It is good for us. I think we have seen enough holes in this view that the soul is created at the moment of conception to say, I don't think that is what the Bible is teaching. Next week we will get into the third view which I think is best aligns with scripture. We will get into that the more next week. Let's pray. Father we are grateful to you for the way you have made us. Truly we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Thank you for the way you have made us. We pray that you would help us to always give you glory, give you praise. To be careful in our thinking especially when we think of Christ and why he came into this world and how he came into this world. It was all sovereignly designed by you to provide a savior for us. We thank you for that salvation in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.