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F e a t u r e A r t i c l e
IS THE SOUL INHERITED OR CREATED?
By JAMES AKIN
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This Rock
Volume 4, Number 6
 June 1993 
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WHERE does the soul come from? Against the
claims of Mormons and New Agers, Christianity teaches the soul does
not exist before the body does. But there is still a question of how
it comes into being. In Church history there have been two positions
on how we get our souls: creationism and traducianism.[From the
Latin, tradux = transmit or transfer. This is related to the
Latin origin of the word "tradition" (tradere =
to hand on or to pass on).] Creationism states the soul is created
by God from nothing. Traducianism states it is created by the parents
during the reproductive process.
Most theologians have taught creationism, which is the official teaching
of the Catholic Church. In the 1950 encyclical in which he dealt with
biological evolution, Pope Pius XII stated that "the Catholic
faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God."[Humani
Generis 36.]
Protestants are of two opinions on this question. Most Protestant
laymen are creationists, but many Protestant theologians are traducianists.[Traducianism
is common among Lutheran theologians, but creationism is common among
Presbyterian/Reformed theologians.] This is odd because, as Protestant
theologians frequently acknowledge, Scripture does not teach traducianism.
Traducianism's advocates use philosophical rather than biblical arguments.
The main argument takes the form of a dilemma.
1. If God creates the soul, he creates it in either a fallen or an
unfallen state.
2. If God creates it in a fallen state, he gives it a sinful nature.
If he gives it a sinful nature, he is the author of sin. But since
God is not the author of sin, he must not create the soul in a fallen
state.
3. If God creates the soul in an unfallen state, that would deny the
doctrine of original sin, which says all souls inherit sinfulness
from their parents. Therefore, God must not create the soul in an
unfallen state.
4. If God doesn't create the soul in either a fallen state or an unfallen
state, he doesn't create it at all. Therefore, the soul must come
from the parents rather than from God.
This argument is unsound. Creationists reply that God creates the
soul but that at creation it is infected by the parents with sin.
Thus God is responsible for the creation of the soul, while the parents - ultimately
our first parents, Adam and Eve - are responsible for its fallen
state.
This is in line with the teachings of the Church Fathers, who spoke
of our fallenness as a contagion or infection coming from Adam. Cyprian
explains that baptism is applied to infants because an infant "born
of the flesh according to Adam . . . has contracted the contagion
of that old death from his first being born."[Letters
64(59):5 [A.D. 251-252].] Thus God is the cause of the soul's creation,
but the parents are the cause of the soul's corruption. It is created
in a fallen state (preserving the doctrine of original sin) because
at the same time it is created it is infected with sin.
This shows the traducianist argument does not succeed, but there are
also philosophical arguments against traducianism. Since the soul
is a spiritual entity - not made of matter - it has no parts.
This means it must be created out of nothing because (1) the souls
of the parents cannot split off parts to form the child's soul and
(2) the child's soul cannot be a fusion of parts.
Philosophical arguments alone will not satisfy a traducianist that
his position is false (although they usually satisfy him that it is
true). Instead, we must turn to Scripture. There are verses indicating
the soul comes from God rather than from the parents.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 states that at death "the dust returns to the
earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it" (RSV).
The common-sense interpretation of this is the soul comes from God
rather than from the parents.[One may also note that the body comes
from God - which, of course, it does, but it comes from him in
an indirect manner. God creates the soil, which is taken up by plants,
which are eaten by animals, which are eaten by our parents, who make
the components that go into our bodies. Ecclesiastes 12:7 contrasts
the way our body comes to us from the soil with the way our soul comes
to us from God.]
In Isaiah 57:16 God says, "I will not contend forever, nor will
I always be angry, for from me proceeds the Spirit, and I have made
the spirit of life." This verse contrasts the Holy Spirit, who
proceeds from God, with the spirit of life that animates his creatures.
Again the common-sense interpretation is that the soul comes from
God ["The spirit of life" cannot here be a reference
to the Holy Spirit because the text states God made the spirit of
life, yet the Holy Spirit is not a created being.]
Hebrews 12:9 says, "Besides this, we have had earthly fathers
to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much more be
subject to the Father of spirits and live?" Here our earthly
fathers - fathers of our bodies - are contrasted with God - the
Father of our spirits. Again we have an indication the soul comes
from God rather than from our parents.
The only way to overcome the common-sense interpretation of texts
such as these is to find other verses with an even clearer meaning
or to show compelling theological reasons why the common-sense interpretation
cannot be correct.
Traducianists try to show a compelling theological reason by using
the dilemma discussed above, but this attempt fails. This means traducianism
fails because, as its advocates admit, there are no verses which clearly
teach traducianism. Their case rests on inference. We must therefore
conclude that creationism is more biblically and theologically cogent
than traducianism. Souls are created by God rather than by parents.
A question arises of when God creates the soul and infuses it into
the child. The common teaching of creationists is that this takes
place at conception. There are arguments which support this.
In Hebrew thought the spirit is the principle of life - the thing
that makes one alive.["Spirit" can also be translated
"breath" in Greek and Hebrew, so "spirit of life"
= "breath of life."] As James tells us, "The body
without the spirit is dead" (Jas. 2:26). If a spirit is what
makes a body alive, then so long as the body is alive it has a spirit.
Since the child's body is alive at the time of conception - non-living
zygotes do not grow, after all - the child must have a spirit from
the moment of conception.
In Psalm 51:5 David tells us, "Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (NIV). Thus David
already had a sinful nature at the time of conception, even though
he had not yet "done anything good or bad" (see Rom. 9:11).
But a sinful nature is a spiritual rather than a physical reality.
Therefore, David must have had a spirit at the time of conception.
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