The Origin of the Soul (3)

Well, we are looking, as Jim said, at the origin of the soul, where our souls came from, how we got them. And we've looked at a couple of views. We're going to look at a third one tonight. The two views that we saw last time and time before as well, were, first of all, the pre-existence view. And that is the idea that the soul has existed in some form for eternity, all the way back in eternity past, or at least pre-existed to some degree for some element of time before it was joined to our body and joined us. That pre-existence view of the soul we saw was really an Eastern mysticism, Eastern religion kind of view, very familiar with Buddhism and other Eastern religions. No trace of it at all in the Bible. And then we saw that the creation view, and that's the view that God individually, specifically, creates each individual soul and then joins it to the body at some point in the body's development in the womb. And we saw that there are several reasons why that does not seem to be the best position. So tonight we're going to look at the one that I believe fits the biblical information the best. And that is what is called the Traducian view. If you have notes, you see it there how it's spelled the Traducian view. It's also called the Procreation view or the Generation view. And that means that the soul is procreated or generated by Mother and Father coming to the infant. Okay, a definition of the Traducian view, and that is that human spirits or souls, and I'm using the word soul or spirit to refer to the whole immaterial part of us, which as we've seen has many functions. But this, let's use the word soul human souls like our bodies are brought into individual existence through the process of procreation. So you see what we're saying that the soul just like the body is brought into being is brought into existence through the process of procreation. So the soul is generated or procreated. And that the reason for the word Traducian that comes from the Latin word Traducer, TRADUC, first part of the Traducian word, then ERE on the introduce air, which means to lead or bring across. And so the idea from the Latin words that the entire person body and soul is brought across is led into existence by the parents from the parents. So the soul is generated or procreated in the same sense that the body is, and just like a new body comes into existence, a new soul comes into existence at that time, just like the body does, thus the combination of those two, a new person comes into existence at the moment of conception. And that I think is a fairly good definition of what we mean by the Traducian view. Healed by many of the most prominent theologians through the last few hundred years, like Jonathan Edwards and Augustus H. Strong, who was a great Baptist theologian and W.G.T. William G.T. Shed, who and others as well have held the Traducian view. So any question about what we mean by that before we look at some of the support from Scripture. Genesis chapter 5 and verse 3 is one supporting verse, and we'll put all five of these verses for you on the screen. And when Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image, and he named himself. Now if we looked at verse 2, we would see that Adam was made in the image and likeness of God. And the very next verse, verse 3, says that Adam had a son in his likeness, his image. So the implication is, whatever is included in the image of God that Adam had, he passed on to his son. That which he was created in God's image, which means he had the capacity for a relationship with God. He shared some things as we looked earlier in the image part of this study. He shared some things with the very nature of God that made him a person like God. And so whatever was composed in that, he passed along to his son, both image and likeness. Now the image and likeness, him being made an image of likeness of God, now becomes his image that he passes on to his son. So the implication there is that the whole person, body, soul, material, immaterial part, all of that which is involved in being in the image and likeness of God is passed on from Adam to his son, Seth. Okay, stop me if you have a question, just throw your hand in the air, and if I feel like it, I'll call on you. We'll move on. Yes, John, you got a question. It is same words, same concept, and the fact that it follows verse two, which says Adam was made in the image and likeness of God, then he has a son in his own image and likeness. He passes along that which is in him, which bears the image of God, he passes that along to his son. So it's the same concept. Now obviously, remember by the time Adam has a son, the image of God in him is already marred by sin. And we talked about that earlier too. It was not eradicated, it was not erased, but it was marred by sin. So, and we're going to get to this later, this is a major proof for the traducion theory, and that is how did we get our sin nature? It comes from our parents, and we'll get to that later. Okay, Genesis 5, 3, those seems to imply that the image and likeness of God is passed on through Adam to his son, Seth. Okay, any other question there? All right, the next verse is Genesis 46, 26, and I'm going to put this verse on the screen, or I'm not going to put it on the screen, it was put in the PowerPoint for you. From the King James, and the reason is the King James uses the actual word, souls. You see it in the very first part of the verse, all the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins. Okay, souls came out of his loins. The soul was produced by Jacob, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were three score and six. Now, as we saw before, the word soul can represent the entire person, and so the NIV does translate it all those who went with Jacob into Egypt, which were his descendants. So his descendants were souls, they were people, but the whole point of the passage is that the whole person in material and material came from Jacob. The souls came through him. And so this verse seems to imply the same thing, that the whole person is descended through our parents, including body and soul, or material and immaterial parts. Questions? Okay. John 113. This is an interesting verse. John 113 says, verse 12, remember, says, but as many as received him, to them gave he the authority, the power to become the children of God. As many as received him to them, believe on his name, he gave the authority to become the children of God. So it ends with the concept of how he becomes the children of God. And then he contrasts being a child of God with natural birth in verse 13, which were born, in other words, this spiritual birth comes differently than natural birth, which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God. So what he said, the whole point of this verse is to contrast spiritual birth with physical birth. Physical birth is human. It comes from man, from the will of flesh, will of man, from blood. That's a natural process. People are born physically through a natural process. It's not just the bodies that come through the natural process. The only kind of birth that God creates is the new birth. And that's the whole point of the verse. The spiritual birth is of God. Natural birth is of man. So the contrast there seems to indicate that God does not create souls at some point in a little baby's development and join that soul to the body. The whole person physically comes into body and soul comes into being through natural birth, procreation process. But spiritual birth, the new birth is the one that's the work of God. That's the one that's the act of God. As we saw last time, that doesn't mean that God is not active in the process of forming us in our mother's womb. The Bible clearly teaches that as well. But there's no creative work of God. The only life that God creates now is spiritual life. And he creates in us a new person. Acts 1726 is the next verse. Paul preaching in Athens to the philosophers says, God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. And at the time of the times before pointed the bounds of their habitation. First part of the verse is what we're interested in. God has made of one blood all nations of men. The human race, God made in the sense that he got it started. He created Adam and all people since that time have come from Adam. All men have come directly from Adam. They're derived from Adam of one blood, the same blood all nations are as persons. Not just bodies again, persons. They have all come from Adam. One other verse and then we'll pause for a moment and see if you have any questions. Hebrews 7 verses 9 and 10. This is a very interesting argument. This is the argument for the superiority of Christ's priesthood over the Levitical priesthood in the Old Testament. And he says Christ's priesthood is greater in chapter 7 because he comes from the priesthood of Melchizedek. So, and as I may so say, he says in verses 9 and 10, Levi also who received the tithes paid tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. Now you have to kind of follow the line of reasoning here. The whole point of the passage is that Melchizedek's priesthood, Melchizedek was a combination king and priest from Genesis 14 that Abraham met and recognized as a priest and a king positioned by God in his place. And so Abraham gave him a tith of all that he had gotten from the battle where he went to rescue Lot in Genesis 13. So he gives a tith of all of those spoils of battle to Melchizedek. Now when you give someone a tith, you're showing that that person is superior to you. So Abraham was illustrating, in fact, demonstrating that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham. Now the writer of Hebrews is using this kind of intricate argument to show that Melchizedek then is higher has a greater position than the lovitical priesthood because Abraham was the father through several generations, Isaac Jacob, then the twelve sons of Jacob, one of whom was Levi. Abraham was the father of the Levites and Abraham by giving a tith of Melchizedek showed he was lower than Melchizedek. So Levi, the lovitical priesthood, the tribe of Levi from whom came all the priests, is a lower form of priesthood than the priesthood of Melchizedek and Christ comes after the order of Melchizedek. That's the writer's argument. The interesting thing for our point of view here as far as the tradition view of the origin of the soul is this right here. Levi was yet in the loins of his father. He's still several generations removed. He hasn't even been thought of yet as the old folks used to say he wouldn't even a sparkle in his bad his eye yet. He hadn't even thought of. But several generations now, but the Bible views him as Levi, full person being in Abraham's loins. Genetically several generations back Levi was there. So Levi came from his great great grandfather Abraham. That's the point and it does at least support the idea of the whole person. Material and immaterial, not just body, but the whole person coming through the natural process of procreation or generation, whatever you want to call it, that's the traditional view. Now we're going to give some other supports from that, but those are the main scriptural passages that deal with it. Any question or comment about those very exactly that that is a major point and we'll get to some of that in a little bit about where we get our signature from, but the whole point of one of the most damaging points to the creation view of the origin of the soul is if it was created by God, then how did it become simple? Did God create it simple? Parish the thought. Then did it become simple when it was united to a human body? That's Greek philosophy has nothing to do with the Bible. That's the old Greek Plato philosophy that says when something spiritual connects with something material, it's damaged. It becomes sinful. That was the view that led to the terrible heresy toward the end of the New Testament times that Christ could not have had a literal physical body because that would be the joining of something spiritual with something fleshly. So you can't go either way with that. You're exactly right. You can't go either way, either to say that God created a sinful soul or it became sinful because it was united with a human body. Either way, you end serious theological trouble. It's one of the real damaging points against the creation view. Good. You're thinking you're tracking right along. Thanks. We're going to get into some other supporting arguments that are really pretty strong and the first one is what we were just talking about, the support from human depravity. Here's the argument. The gravity or human sinfulness, the fact that we are all sinners, is not something we acquire at a point in time. Sinfulness is something we are born with and you can even back it up further when at the moment of conception we are sinners. Okay. Now think through the implications of that. That means that our sin nature, our sinfulness, our depravity is inherent in us. It is a natural defect. It's not something that comes later in our development at some point, but we are conceived as sinners from the moment of conception we are sinners. Now here's my point in the creationist view of the origin of the soul. Those who believe the creation of the human soul, if the human soul, each individual human soul is individually created by God, then our souls have no connection to Adam. So there's no passing along of the sin nature. We're not conceived and sin if that's the case. So that is a very, very dangerous position to take. In traditionism though, the whole race is derived from Adam, both physically and spiritually. Not only did we get our physical makeup from our ancestors, but we also got our sinfulness, our depravity from the moment we were conceived. So the support from human depravity is really, really strong. And let me give you a couple of scriptures on that. One that we've already used before and you're very familiar with, Psalm 551.5, behold, I was shaping in an equity and in sin did my mother conceive me. And I said this before, I said it the last time we looked at this verse, that verse is not saying that it was the act of procreation or conception that was sin. The sin is tied with who he is from the moment of conception David was a sinner. From the moment he was conceived, he was a sinner. The only way that can happen is if the sin nature passes down through the parents at the moment of conception. From the moment of conception David was a sinner. And as he was being shaped in the womb, he was being shaped, fearfully and wonderfully by the hand of God, but along with that he's a sinner. He's shaped in an equity. He's a sinner even in the womb because we were born with that nature. Ephesians 2.3 is another passage that supports this among whom also we had our conversation, our manner of life, in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Here it is, and we're by nature, the children of wrath. We do not become the objects of God's wrath at some point in our lives when you're 20 or 15 or 10 or when you're born, we got it by nature. We were born, we were conceived with that sinful nature which automatically made us the objects of God's wrath and were it not for his grace and the provision of salvation through Christ, all of us are doomed to an eternal separation from God. Because we're sinners, we're conceived that way. We're born with a sinful nature. So the proof from human depravity is really very strong for the traducian view. Tommy? At the age of accountability, which is probably different with each child. There is no magic age or set age in the Bible that a person becomes aware. Whenever a child is able to think through those abstract concepts of what sin is and who God is and those kinds of things, then they become accountable. At least that's what most believe. And I would subscribe to that. But there's no set age in the Bible where that's true. But even before that age of accountability, we're still sinners. And the only way, if you believe that there is an age of accountability and up until that time a child is not held accountable for his or her sinfulness, then the only way that can happen is the pure mercy of God. It's not because that child is a clean slate with no simple nature. It's because of God's infinite mercy and grace that he would take a child on to be with him before the age of accountability. That's the only way you can explain that. Not due to any inherent goodness in the child. Because we're all inherently sinners. Okay. Good question. Any others? Walt? To my knowledge, there is no... There never has been any attempt nor I don't think is it possible to connect any actual chromosomes to the soul or immaterial part of men. Now I am not a geneticist and I don't know everything there is no about the human genome, but that's as much as I can say. Beyond that, I'm ignorant. Can't find the same gene. Okay. Again, I'm not a scientist and that's a little out of my field. A lot out of my field, but just thinking through it theologically, I don't know of anything like that. Okay. Let's talk about the support from God's creative activity. I think we can summarize this one fairly quickly. Look at Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 through 3. That's not on the screen for you. Just look at these verses or listen as I read. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array by the seventh day. God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day, he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. God's creative work was completed after six days. Now does that mean that God is still resting? Is not doing anything? No. Doesn't mean that because there are other works of God besides creation that he's doing. After the seventh day, the day of rest, God is at work constantly, providentially holding all things together in his creation. And obviously he's doing other works spiritually in the work of salvation, the work of grace in our lives and our hearts and so forth. And providentially superintending the flow of history and nations and people and so forth. God is very active. It doesn't mean he's not doing anything, but his creative work stopped. After the six days of creation, there's no more creation of God. There's nothing new coming into existence materially. So his creative activity is done. It's ceased. This 20 verse 11 is another statement of that for in six days, the Lord made heaven in the earth to see and all that is in them and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and howl it. So again, substantiating the fact that that God's creative activity, his creative work was done in six days. Now everything after those six days of creation, every animal, every plant, every human, procreates after its own kind. There's no new creative activity of God after Adam. Not even Eve. And that's my next point, the creation of Eve. First Corinthians 11, 8, for the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. The woman was taken out of the man, made of Adam, not created as a separate body and soul, but literally taken from Eve was not made of the dust of the earth and God breathed into her like he did Adam. Eve was taken out of man. So she was in a sense, we'll get to this in a little bit, if we get the cloning in a sense, she was procreated, not through the normal process of procreation, but she came out of the man. God did not do a new creation of her. She came out of the man. So the creation of Eve, everything that Eve was, body and soul came from Adam. Not from a new formation of God and then him breathing the breath of life into her. So God's creative activity, God is not creating anything, has not created anything since the six days were up. God created, rested, stopped his creation work, and since that time, everything has reproduced after its own kind. Okay, questions. Yeah, no energy can be increased with every process. There is a depletion of energy and decrease of energy. Okay, let's go to the next one and this one we dealt with a little bit last week and that is the support from the Virgin birth. Now think this through with me again. Remember that apart from the Virgin conception, Jesus being placed into the womb of Mary by a supernatural act of the Holy Spirit. Apart from that, the normal process, if Jesus had been born of the normal procreative process, the normal process would have meant that a new person was coming into existence. That's the whole reason the normal process had to be averted and something miraculous had to be done. It's not because Jesus would have inherited a simple nature, if there were the normal process, the real reason for the Virgin birth is so that a new person does not come into existence. Jesus already existed. He was not a new person at his conception. He was already in existence in heaven throughout eternity past. And so a special miracle was needed to take an already existing person and unite his soul to a body. And that's what was done in the conception of Jesus in Mary's womb was the uniting of his already existing soul to a body in the womb of Mary. And so that's the reason for the Virgin birth, which again supports the idea that if the normal process of procreation had taken place, a new person, whole person, body and soul would have come into existence. So the tradition view fits hand in glove with the Virgin birth. The two make perfect sense together. You could not have a new person coming into existence, which is what happens through procreation and a new person coming into existence, if it is a genuine person has to be composed of both body and soul. So that happens at procreation, at conception. Questions, comments there on the Virgin birth? Yes, Tom. His soul was already sinless throughout eternity past. So nothing changed. Nothing changed. The normal process would have meant a new person coming into existence, which received a simple nature through the joining of both parents to create a new person. Christ already had a sinless soul. It was just simply united with a human body. That was the miracle of the Virgin birth. And the reason why he was kept from sin. Okay, I do want to touch on these last two ethical issues because they are very closely tied to what we're talking about here with the origin of the soul. Let's talk about the relationship of the origin of the soul to the abortion issue. With the traducion view, okay, the soul is generated at the moment of conception. The whole person body and soul, not fully developed yet, but the soul is there at the moment of conception. So the traducion view clearly protects the personhood from the moment of conception and abortion is clearly the taking of a human life at any point after conception. That's why one of the reasons why the traducion view is so important. Now with the creation view, if God created the soul at some point, it is possible to see the soul created at different points. And there are people who take different views of when it is created. Some say the soul is instantly created at the moment of conception. Some say it is created at the first movement of the fetus. Some say it is created at birth. But the creation view does leave the door open for abortion to be legitimate at some point. The traducion view absolutely not. Because in the traducion view, you've got the whole person, a human being from the moment of conception. Not fully developed, not independent yet of the mother, but the whole feminist view, I guess you call it, of the abortionist view that this is a woman's body. No, no, this is a separate person inside her. Yes, dependent on her for its very life, but so is a three day old. So is a six month old, completely dependent on a mother for life. I mean, if the mother did nothing to care for that infant, the infant would die. So that doesn't end at birth. So that argument is simply not appropriate that this is just an extension of the woman's body. That is not true. This is a separate human being, which needs his or her mother's body for sustenance in the womb, of course, more so than outside the womb, but that continues outside the womb. So if you default to that argument, that this is just an extension of the mother's body. It's not really a separate human being. Then when are you going to change that? When the baby stops nursing? When the baby starts walking? When do they become human? I mean, that is a dangerous slippery slope. And the only theological position of the origin of the soul, which means you've got a whole person body material and immaterial part, the only position which really safeguards that is the traducing and view. And that is that the whole person is there at conception. Body and soul. Obviously body, not in the sense of the fully developed body yet, but all of the genetic makeup for a human body is there. A person is there. So the tradition view is very much tied to the abortion issue. Just give you a couple of verses here. The familiar one in Luke 1 for John the Baptist. And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the sionutation of Mary, the babe, John the Baptist, leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. Okay, the, the, you remember the story. Mary has been told by the angel that she is pregnant with the son of God. And of course, nobody's going to understand that. The only person she can talk to is Elizabeth. And so she travels to Elizabeth, her relatives house. Elizabeth is at this time, six months pregnant with John the Baptist. At the moment Mary arrives, John the Baptist still in the womb and will be in the womb for three more months. Recognizes the Messiah in Mary. And the Messiah has just been conceived, just conceived. And yet he is recognized by John the Baptist himself still in the womb as the son of God. Complete person. So that's a pretty strong, pretty strong support. Tommy? Right. It's a separate, a separate person genetically. Exactly. The other passage is the well known Psalm 139. And verse 13, for you created my inmost being. The, the term for inmost being is the immaterial part. It is the part that is inside the body. It's a general word for the immaterial part of us. That part, which can be described by those different functions, soul, spirit, mind, conscience, will all of those things we saw before heart, all of those things. God created, made all of that. He set that into motion. And so he was, as he was knit together in his mother's womb, all that was being developed. And by the way, there was a question last time about the end of verse 16. And I wasn't sure how to answer that. I went back and looked that up. I don't have the actual literal Hebrew here with me. I meant to bring that. But in the end of verse 16, the word days is in the Hebrew text, but it's a very vague statement. It's days written and a couple of other words. And it doesn't make a lot of sense in English. That's the reason why most English versions, including the King James, have added some words in there to make it read better. And the King James is basically the only version that did not translate the Hebrew word days as days. Because it didn't seem to them to make sense with the rest of the verse. And they translated it along with the rest of the verse, but the Hebrew word days is there. So it indicates the fact that God was aware of and forming and shaping even our days in the womb before we were born. So all of our inward parts, including our personality, is being formed in the womb, made by God in that sense. So the relationship to the abortion issue is very strong. I don't want to wait on this for two weeks. I'm just going to fly through this material on cloning. I'm taking from my notes in an old CLI class that I used to do, Chapel Lee Institute on ethics. We did a whole 16 week class on ethics. And part of that was on medical ethics. And we talked about cloning as one of the issues of medical ethics. I mean, it was quickly summarized. It used to be back in the 70s. There was a lot of speculation about cloning. Most scientists felt like it was impossible. All that changed in 1997 when some scientists in Scotland successfully cloned and adult sheep. You remember the story of Dolly. And so scientists quickly pointed out that the process used for Dolly and I won't go into all of that. How it was done. It was a genetic manipulation and so forth having to do with the nucleus of a cell being replaced with an egg and so forth. But anyway, it was a convoluted process, but they were able to do it. But most said it could not be done with other mammals. But the very next year. University of Hawaii scientists cloned mice. I don't know why you'd want to clone mice. But they did. And the same year Japanese scientists cloned eight identical calves from a single adult cow. And so it has been proven that other mammals can be cloned. And the question has continued to be raised since then. Is it possible to clone humans? And there are arguments why people promote human cloning. One argument is that it could be used to produce spare parts. You know, I could legitimately be first John second John third John. You know, and if this part doesn't work right, I got another part waiting for me over there. Not not not not many of you could do that, but I could make that fit. That's one argument that you some people say it's a way to replace a lost child. They were really getting into some bizarre things here. Others think that cloning would be a way to produce biological immortality. You start getting older. You clone yourself. You're born again. This is really some weird stuff. It raises huge ethical concerns. First of all about the sanctity of life in the process of cloning it again. I can't go into this in any great depth, but the process they used with dolly. Actually, they had 277 cell fusions. Only one birth came from that. All the rest were tragic failures. And so you're talking about significant loss of human embryos to produce one cloned person. Genetic accidents, embryos that are formed and then destroyed in the lab. All these ethical issues about the sanctity of life. But even more importantly than that, it tamper with the reproductive process intended by God for procreation from a man and a woman, producing children within the confines of marriage. One of the other reasons for the promotion of cloning today is that some homosexuals can have children. And so it goes against the reproductive process. A lot of ethical issues. However, when it comes to the soul, a clone would have a soul. If that were possible to do, if it were ethically defensible, a clone would have a soul and would be a fully human person. Because the immaterial part is passed down through the genes from the parents. So in a sense, a clone would be no different than an identical twin genetically. And identical twins have souls. I mean, there are some identical twins who feel like they're twin, do not have a soul. But they do. And so in a sense, it would be the same thing. A clone, I'm not saying it's a good thing. I think it's morally indefensible to enter into cloning. But if it were to happen, as far as what our topic is related to, a clone would have a soul and would be fully human. Okay, so we're not talking about creating robots or something like that. All right, our time is up and I'm really glad. I don't want to answer any questions about that. So if you've gotten the questions, ask someone else. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for the way that you've made us. Again, we marvel at your creation and how you created Adam and from that have superintendent and providentially. Shepherded the process of all of us coming into existence. We thank you, Father, that even though from the very moment of conception, we were all sinners. You loved us and you sent your son showing your mercy and grace. You sent your son to take care of the sin problem so that we might be your children and might live eternally with you. Thank you for the provision of salvation through Christ. It's in his name we pray. Amen.