Pro-Life means sex creates souls?

PaulCyp1

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A human being has a physical/biological nature and a spiritual nature/soul. The sexual act brings the biological nature of a new human being into existence, while God Himself creates the spiritual nature/soul. Which is why the formation of a new human being is a cooperative act between human beings and God, whether the humans are aware of that fact or not. Without God's interaction, humans beings would just be smart animals, nothing more.
 
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Fascinated With God

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This is a fascinating topic with ample scriptural support.
Yes, this has been fascinating reading.

Traducianists are vastly outnumbered by denominations that hold to creationism of souls. The RCC holds to creationism (such an ambiguous term!), and they are pro-life, so it doesn't necessarily make a difference either way with regards to my OP assertion. Although Medieval theologians overwhelmingly believed that it took several weeks for a fetus to acquire a soul, "on the basis that the body of the embryo was not human".

But since you're a traducianist I want to address some of the supporting points for traducianism. I keep seeing references to science and physiology, but the spirit is not material. This is attempting to apply overtly materialist reasoning onto the spiritual immaterial world, which is self-contradictory.

Adam's sin affects all men – both physically and spiritually – this makes sense if the body and soul both come from the parents.​

This comes from misunderstanding the Hebrew word neshamah. In addition to Gen 2:7, Gen 7:22 says ALL living beings have neshamah, which clearly didn't come from Adam.

Begetting includes the image and likeness of God (Genesis 5:3), but since God is spirit, this must mean the immaterial aspect of human beings.​

God refers to his soul also, (Lev 26:11, Lev 26:30, Isa 42:1, Zech 11:8, Matt 12:18, Hebrews 10:38). But this comes down to omnipresence. God is the entire physical world & spiritual world, and much more that few can conceive, or none can! God is Absolute Infinity in terms of Set Theory.

God finished creating in Gen. 2:2-3.​

Yet God proceeds to create the Garden of Edan and man in verses 2:5-7.

In Genesis 6, some interpreters see the traducian model as the best explanation for the begetting of monstrous offspring with human bodies and demonic souls by the angels that took wives of the daughters of men. The soul-creationist's difficulty of God creating souls for such monsters may be why most later churchmen rejected the literal interpretation of Genesis 6 as referring to angels interbreeding with human women.​

This begs the whole philosophical question of evil and why God permits it. God created Charles Manson too, which takes you right back to the start of this supposed conundrum. There are *much* cleaner ways to clearly answer the question of evil without unsavory moral equivocation like the above.

Shedd divides his argument for traducianism into three parts: (1) Scripture, (2) Systematic Theology, (3) Physiology.​

As I said before, material arguments are irrelevant, so I can dismiss 3 immediately. Systematic Theology is historical analysis, which includes the fact that it is a minority orthodox point of view and has been so for more than a millennium.
 
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Fascinated With God

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A human being has a physical/biological nature and a spiritual nature/soul. The sexual act brings the biological nature of a new human being into existence, while God Himself provides the spiritual nature/soul. Which is why the formation of a new human being is a cooperative act between human beings and God, whether the humans are aware of that fact or not. Without God's interaction, humans beings would just be smart animals, nothing more.
You are describing the most common variations on the doctrine of creationism of souls. I assert that this reduces God to nothing more than an automation. You press the button and God automatically responds. I see nothing else in the Bible that portrays God in such a weak and impotent manner.
 
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Serving Zion

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Atheists believe that existence begins at conception too. Why do you bring up science when I ask about souls and spirits? What does science know about that?

Then why does one's nephesh (soul) go to Sheol after death in the Old Testament?

None of your verses even address the subject of spirit, and you clearly don't understand the original languages. In Hebrew, the spirit (ruach) is the breath of life, while in Greek the soul (psyche) is the breath of life. As soon as someone starts using the word "breath" to describe the soul or spirit without being aware of this distinction, automatically reduces their credibility in my mind.

Simplistic theological deduction, and then I discovered it is what Jews believed. Jesus was a Jew after all.

Judaism is not a cult. Jesus was never a member of a cult! LOL Blind faith in something you can't accurately describe even the most orthodox aspects of, is significantly more cultish.

Thanks for the sermon. None of that address my question at all.
Not interested. I didn't see this in you before.
 
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Fascinated With God

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Your response makes no sense, what are you trying to say? What does omnipotence have to do with what the psalmist (a person) said?
The reference to a secret is a *place* not knowledge. There is no secret knowledge in understanding that omniPotence includes creating souls and spirits whenever he wants. You are trying to put constraints on God and are contradicting his omnipotence.
 
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Not David

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You are describing the most common variations on the doctrine of creationism of souls. I assert that this reduces God to nothing more than an automation. You press the button and God automatically responds. I see nothing else in the Bible that portrays God in such a weak and impotent manner.
Because God created the universe in an order, and one of those is that when a man and a woman have sex, they will form a baby.
I could say God is also weak because he doesn't want people to sin but he doesn't do anything to stop it.
 
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Sorn

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You are describing the most common variations on the doctrine of creationism of souls. I assert that this reduces God to nothing more than an automation. You press the button and God automatically responds. I see nothing else in the Bible that portrays God in such a weak and impotent manner.

If God does this then it is because He chose to do this and it in no way means He is in any way weak.
It is just because that is the only way to allow His creation to do creative stuff that he also contributes to. As you don't know what God dose to create a soul it may in actual fact be very small effort for Him, if anything this speaks of His strength and power that He can do this.
The time will come when no more people are conceived or born and then God will no longer 'automatically' out of His own free will create souls.
 
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Sorn

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The reference to a secret is a *place* not knowledge. There is no secret knowledge in understanding that omniPotence includes creating souls and spirits whenever he wants. You are trying to put constraints on God and are contradicting his omnipotence.

To even refer to this secret place implies the human saying these words had knowledge of this place.
Since we do not have knowledge of this place but presumably the human whose words are recorded in the psalm did, then he had secret knowledge, ie knowledge we don't have.
You clearly have no clue as to what i meant so i have spelt it out for you.

However I am proposing that the psalmists words are not to be taken literally but instead are merely a reflection of what he thought might be the case given his total lack of knowledge on things biological or spiritual.
In other words, he did not have MORE information than us today, rather he had much much LESS than we do and his words are more about the fantasy they told themselves about how the world worked than any reflection on reality or greater spiritual knowledge than we have today.
 
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fat wee robin

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A human being has a physical/biological nature and a spiritual nature/soul. The sexual act brings the biological nature of a new human being into existence, while God Himself provides the spiritual nature/soul. Which is why the formation of a new human being is a cooperative act between human beings and God, whether the humans are aware of that fact or not. Without God's interaction, humans beings would just be smart animals, nothing more.
And many are , if the Holy Spirit is not at work in them . :)
 
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Fascinated With God

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I could say God is also weak because he doesn't want people to sin but he doesn't do anything to stop it.
That is the classic philosophical "Question of Evil" and why God allows it. I've never had this debate with a Christian before, so I have exclusively used scientific analogies in the past, especially evolution, which might not go over so well here! lol

I'll give it some thought but here's off the top of my head QoE for Christians: It's like friction and Newton's 2nd law of motion (in plain speak it means you have to push off of something to move). Spiritual maturation requires adversity. Without anguish, joy would have no meaning to us. We would take it for granted. If things are too spiritually easy people will NEVER consider the hard moral and ethical question involved in the battlefield of the soul. We have to have something to push off of or it's like we're stuck on the ice wearing slippers. Without evil, there would be no contrast to good, nothing pointing the way to good.
 
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NW82

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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.
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
Psalm 139:15

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5​

Don't spirits and souls exist before conception? Why would two people having sex, force God's hand to automatically pop out a soul & spirit? That seems to me to go against divine omniPotence.
You are presuming that God has no control over whether or not conception occurs.
 
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AnticipateHisComing

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I assert that this reduces God to nothing more than an automation. You press the button and God automatically responds. I see nothing else in the Bible that portrays God in such a weak and impotent manner.
I assert your view reduces man "made in the image of God" to nothing. Your view of reproduction puts man in the same power and authority as animals.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

2:24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.​

I used to always think that what made us so special, "in the image of God", was that we had spiritual souls that can be filled with God's Spirit. That is true, but there is another. We create everlasting life when we reproduce. This is greater than what angels can do and we only have this power in this age until the full number have been born and born again.

Romans 11:25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in​

As to your dim view that God is hostage to our actions. God instituted this. He made us this way. It is his plan. But, he could make descendants of Abraham out of rocks if he wanted.


For evidence of the creation of an eternal spirit at conception, I present the virgin birth. In order for Jesus to be human, he had to be born of woman. In order for him to still have his eternal soul/spirit, he could not be conceived by a man. That would have created a new soul/spirit. Scripture testifies.

John 1:11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.​

Now the text talks about being born of the spirit, but I wish to call your attention to the contrast of the natural birth. Natural is nature, which is the system that God instituted at creation. It describes reproduction as the result of human decision and a husband's will. It then contrasts Jesus' birth as the Word(his spirit) becoming flesh(being born) coming from the Father. Nothing like the "natural descent". This sets up Jesus as being unique from humans in that he did not have a soul/spirit created at conception.
 
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dqhall

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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.
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
Psalm 139:15

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5​

Don't spirits and souls exist before conception? Why would two people having sex, force God's hand to automatically pop out a soul & spirit? That seems to me to go against divine omniPotence.
Souls are the life of the flesh. In order for one to realize the full salvation of God, one must become born again.

John 3 (KJV):
2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Procreation is one thing. Being born again is another.
 
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Sorn

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That is the classic philosophical "Question of Evil" and why God allows it. I've never had this debate with a Christian before, so I have exclusively used scientific analogies in the past, especially evolution, which might not go over so well here! lol

I'll give it some thought but here's off the top of my head QoE for Christians: It's like friction and Newton's 2nd law of motion (in plain speak it means you have to push off of something to move). Spiritual maturation requires adversity. Without anguish, joy would have no meaning to us. We would take it for granted. If things are too spiritually easy people will NEVER consider the hard moral and ethical question involved in the battlefield of the soul. We have to have something to push off of or it's like we're stuck on the ice wearing slippers. Without evil, there would be no contrast to good, nothing pointing the way to good.

Your post would be an argument as to why evil exists, but it isn't enough in and of itself.
One could argue that, so what if we don't know of evil or have anything to 'push off' against if we never need to know, ie if God made sure we never sinned.

Also, it helps a lot with allowing for evil if in fact God and heaven are so good that any suffering we undergo here, even those who really suffer a lot or are killed when young (ie missing out on their lives etc) pales into insignificance when we live the life to be lived in heaven.
 
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JacksBratt

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Why should two people having sex not think that the responsibility of a baby could be an outcome of their self-centered desire to have sex?
I understand that this is a view that we could have. The problem is that most, well maybe not most, times people, these days, are having sex.... creating another life is the furthest thing from their minds and totally unwanted.

Some will accept the responsibility... others will just take the morning after pill or get an abortion.

It's the sign of the times.. selfishness and greed run this earth.
 
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JacksBratt

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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.
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
Psalm 139:15

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5​

Don't spirits and souls exist before conception? Why would two people having sex, force God's hand to automatically pop out a soul & spirit? That seems to me to go against divine omniPotence.
I don't know if there is any scripture that talks about when a soul is created. If they exist before conception or if they are created at the point of conception, which is the very moment a life is created... a human life..

We do know that at conception, it is a human life, a human soul.

But, I don't think that having sex creates souls... conception creates life and a living soul.. whether through sex or in vitro.
 
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JacksBratt

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Only in cases of medical issues or monthly timing. For the vast majority, sex during ovulation automatically leads to pregnancy.

I'm not so sure that this statement is true... My wife and I had our first child on our first unprotected intercourse.. actually attempting to concieve.

Our second, however, took four years of trying... So, it is not true that the vast majority of sex during ovulation "automatically" leads to pregnancy.

In fact.. our doctor told us that the events that must take place for a successful conception is such that sometimes he wonders that it happens at all. But... it does.

So then it was God's fault and not Charles Manson's? You would make a terrible defense lawyer for God.
WOW... how did you get there?

Every human has free will and God doesn't stop all the evil people.... He uses everything for His glory..

Who knows what the events of the life of someone like Charles Manson have on all the people that know him, interact with him, hear about him, study him or read about him....We will only know when we get to glory..

But.. blame God.. go ahead.. How you can or why... it's beyond me.
 
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ViaCrucis

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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.
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
Psalm 139:15

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5​

Don't spirits and souls exist before conception? Why would two people having sex, force God's hand to automatically pop out a soul & spirit? That seems to me to go against divine omniPotence.

There have been several theories of ensoulment throughout history. The idea that the soul is the result of sexual union is a view known as traducianism, that the soul is branching from the souls of the parents. Prenatalism would be the idea that souls were created at some point in the past, before even the creation of the material universe--this idea can largely be associated with the Platonists, and is regarded generally as a heretical notion in Christianity. The last idea is the idea known as creationism (not to be confused with the modern Creationist movements), that each individual receives his or her soul directly from God who creates it.

Traditionally Christianity has leaned toward the creationist view: every person has a soul created by God. The larger question has been how and in what way does this happen. Aristotelian views of successive "souls" has been common, at least in the West, since at least Late Antiquity. Aristotle spoke of a vegetative soul (the "soul" of plants), the animal soul (that of beasts), and the rational soul. For Aristotle the idea of the "soul" was the animating principle of a thing, and all things had a "soul" of some kind; but only living things have souls of any significance. The soul of a plant is the kind of life plants have that animates them, same with beasts and the animal soul. But the rational soul is special, because herein is sentience, rational thought, the will, etc. Without the rational soul a man would be no different than a beast, running purely on instinct. The soul is created at conception, but then passes through successive stages until the soul is rational. This particular Aristotelian notion hasn't survived well into the modern age, and a simplified notion of creationism, that the human soul is created at conception as a rational soul has become the standard view I reckon.

In any event, that the soul is innately connected to the body is the orthodox Christian idea; and so the soul is the animating principle of the body. This soul does not pre-exist the body, but is made by God who, in a sense, clothes the body with the soul (ensoulment) at conception. Death results in the unnatural sundering of the soul from the body, and bodily death--which is why Christians have always believed in the resurrection of the body. Because a soul without the body is unnatural and naked, and the body without the soul is just a rotting corpse; it is the union of soul-and-body that makes a man. And so in the resurrection there is not only the restoration of bodily life, but the transformation from mortal to immortal, corruptible to incorruptible.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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